Comparison of audio player software

The following comparison of audio players compares general and technical information for a number of software media player programs. For the purpose of this comparison, "audio players" are defined as any media player explicitly designed to play audio files, with limited or no support for video playback. Multi-media players designed for video playback, which can also play music, are included under comparison of video player software.

General

Name Author First public release Latest stable version Cost Software licenseFramework used Written in AIMP AIMP DevTeam BASS audio library (decoder) Delphi Amarok Mark Kretschmann via Phonon: GStreamer, xine, MPlayer, VLC, DirectShow, QuickTime C++ aTunes Alex Aranda et al. Java Audacious Audacious Development Team XMMS based C, C++ (GTK & Qt) Banshee Aaron Bockover GStreamer C# BTR Amp BTR Labs February 13, 2020 15.1 (March 21, 2023) BZR Player aargirakis 2.0.82 (Aug 6, 2025) C++ (Qt) Clementine Clementine Team GStreamer C++ (Qt) cmus Timo Hirvonen C Cog Vincent Spader Objective-C DeaDBeeF Oleksiy Yakovenko August 2009 1.9.6 / November 7, 2023 C, C++, Objective-C, Assembly language Exaile Adam Olsen GStreamer Python (GTK) Ecoute Louka Desroziers & Julien Sagot 3.0.8 (until version 4) AV Foundation & QuickTime Objective-C Flash MP3 Player Reality Software 1.00 foobar2000 Peter Pawlowski (core),BSD (SDK) C++ Guayadeque Music PlayerJuan Rios, Tiago T Barrionuevo 0.7.5 (January 1, 2026) GStreamer C++ (wxWidgets) iTunes Apple Inc. QuickTime JRiver Media Center JRiver, Inc. JRiver code C++ JuK Scott Wheeler C++ MediaMonkey Standard Ventis Media Inc. Delphi, C MediaMonkey Gold Ventis Media Inc. Delphi, C MediaMonkey Lifetime Ventis Media Inc. Groove Music Microsoft Mpxplay Mpxplay C Music on Console Damian Pietras C Music Player Daemon Warren Dukes C MusicBee Steven Mayall BASS audio library Visual Basic .NET musikCube Casey Langen Napster William Christopher Gorog Quod Libet Quod Libet Team GStreamer Python (GTK) PyGTK Rdio Rdio Inc Microsoft Windows: 1.12.0.0 (2013) WP 8+ : 4.0.5.0 () iOS: 3.0.3 () Rhapsody RealNetworks Rhythmbox Colin Walters GStreamer C Sayonara Player Michael Lugmair (until 2020 under the pseudonym Lucio Carreras) 1.5.1-stable5 / 29 August 2019 GStreamer C++ Songbird POTI Inc. GStreamer Sonic Visualiser Centre for Digital Music at Queen Mary, University of London 3.1.1 (August 14, 2018) Sonique Media Science 1.96 (March 2002) Spotify Spotify LTD Style Jukebox Digital Geek LTD C# Video.js (used on Wikipedia as of 2024) Brightcove, Inc. 2010 JavaScript, HTML5 VLC Player 1996 C, C++, (with Qt), ... Wax Jeffrey Barish 1.0.4 (build 366) GStreamer Python (GTK 3.0) Winamp Nullsoft WasabiC/C++ XMMS XMMS Team original C XMPlay Un4seen Developments 4.1 () BASS audio library Name Author First public release Stable version Cost Software license Framework used Written in

Operating system compatibility This section lists the operating systems on which the player works. There may be multiple versions of a player for different operating systems.

Audio player Windows macOS Linux iOS Android BSD Unix Solaris Other Unix DOSAIMP Amarok aTunes Audacious Audion Banshee BTR Amp cmus Cog Clementine DeaDBeeF Ecoute Exaile foobar2000 Guayadeque Music Player Groove Music iTunes JRiver Media Center MediaMonkey MPXPLAY Music Player Daemon MusicBee Musicmatch Jukebox musikCube Quod Libet Rdio Rhapsody Rhythmbox Sayonara Player Songbird Sonique Spotify Style Jukebox Wax Winamp XMMS XMPlay Zinf Audio player Windows macOS Linux iOS Android BSD Unix Solaris Other Unix DOS

Features Audio player Video playback Outbound streaming Skinnable Media database Gapless audio decoding Visualizer Remote controllable Intelligent playlists from database (based on criteria)AIMP Amarok Basic function with NMM Context Browser uses CSS. Audacious Audion BTR Amp cmus Cog Clementine Exaile foobar2000 UIs may be switched. Shares Windows' themes by default. Additionally, a plugin (foo_looks) can skin foobar2000. iTunes JRiver Media Center JuK Using DCOP MediaMonkey MPXPLAY (with MMC v2.00a) (also LCD ability) Music Player Daemon MusicBee Musicmatch Jukebox musikCube Quod Libet Rhapsody Rhythmbox Sayonara Player (Dark Mode available) Sonique Spotify (via app) Wax Winamp XMMS XMPlay Zinf Audio player Video playback Outbound streaming Skinnable Media database Gapless audio decoding Visualizer Remote controllable Intelligent playlists from database (based on criteria)

Audio player ReplayGain Tag mass Tag flexibleFlexible tagging is the ability to read or write custom tags, apart from the default ones like title, album and date. Users can use custom tags to provide additional information to media files. Custom tags work via ID3v2.4 (via the TXXX tag field), Vorbis comments and APEv2. Time stretch Pitch shift A-B repeat Bookmark Auto resume Shutdown on play complete Archive abilityAIMP Through use of the Advanced Tag Editor. Amarok Audacious Audion BTR Amp ? ? ? cmus Cog Clementine Exaile foobar2000 iTunes JRiver Media Center JuK MediaMonkey MPXPLAY MusicBee Musicmatch Jukebox Paid version only musikCube Quod Libet Through Audio Pitch, Speed plugin Rhapsody Rhythmbox Sayonara Player Sonique Spotify Wax Winamp XMMS XMPlay Zinf Audio player ReplayGain Tag mass Tag flexible Time stretch Pitch shift A-B repeat Bookmark Auto resume Shutdown on play complete Archive ability

Audio format ability Information about what audio formats the players understand. Footnotes lead to information about abilities of future versions of the players or plugins/filters that provide such functionality.

Audio player Lossy compression Lossless compression MP3 WMA RealAudio Vorbis Musepack AAC Dolby AC-3 VQF Opus APE FLAC ALAC SHN WV WMA L AIMP Amarok Audacious Audion Banshee BTR Amp cmus Cog Exaile foobar2000 Groove Music JRiver Media Center JuK Media Jukebox Requires External Encoding App MediaMonkey MPXPLAY Music Player Daemon MusicBee Musicmatch Jukebox musikCube Quod Libet Rhapsody Rhythmbox Sayonara Player Sonique Spotify. Spotify.com. Style Jukebox Wax Winamp XMMS XMPlay Zinf Audio player MP3 WMA RealAudio Vorbis Musepack AAC Dolby AC-3 VQF Opus APE FLAC ALAC SHN WV WMA L

Container format ability Information about what container formats the players understand. Footnotes lead to information about abilities of future versions of the players or filters that provide such functionality.

Audio player AVI ASF QuickTime Ogg OGM Matroska MP4 MPEG-21 NUT FLVAIMP Amarok Audacious Audion cmus Cog foobar2000 JuK JRiver Media Center MediaMonkey MOC MPXPLAY MusicBee Musicmatch Jukebox musikCube Rhapsody Rhythmbox Sayonara Player Sonique Winamp XMMS Zinf Audio player AVI ASF QuickTime Ogg OGM Matroska MP4 MPEG-21 NUT FLV

Scalable, composite and emulation format abilities

Audio player Flash RealPix QuickTime Video Effects in mov HTML+TIME(+VML) smil/smi SVG MIDI(smf) MIDI(kar) MIDI(xmf) MIDI(rmi) MIDI(xmi) NSF SPC PSF AIMP Amarok Audacious Audion cmus Cog foobar2000 (plugin) (plugin) (plugin) (plugin) (plugin) (plugin) JuK JRiver Media Center MediaMonkey (Winamp plugin) (Winamp plugin) (Winamp plugin) MPXPLAY MusicBee Musicmatch Jukebox musikCube Rhapsody Rhythmbox Sayonara Player Sonique XMMS Zinf Audio player Flash RealPix QuickTime Video Effects in mov HTML+TIME(+VML) smil/smi SVG MIDI(smf) MIDI(kar) MIDI(xmf) MIDI(rmi) MIDI(xmi) NSF SPC PSF

Protocol abilities Information about which internet protocols the players understand, for receiving streaming media content. Footnotes lead to information about abilities of future versions of the players or plugins that provide such functionality.

Audio player HTTP RTSP (RTSPU, RTSPT) MMS (MMSU, MMST) Podcasting Other AIMP Amarok UPNP Audacious Audion cmus Cog foobar2000 Only WMA files are playable by foobar2000 through an RTSP connection. RealMedia, AAC, etc. are not supported. 3rd party plugin for 0.9 allows reading RSS 2.0 feeds as playlists. No subscription/automatic update features. JuK JRiver Media Center MediaMonkey Present in version 3.0 currently going through Alpha Testing. MusicBee Musicmatch Jukebox musikCube Music Player Daemon Music Player Daemon Rhapsody Rhythmbox As of 0.9.2 it allows reading RSS as podcast source. Issues if links in RSS do not point directly to playable media. Automatic update of podcasts available. UPNP Sayonara Player Sonique XMMS Zinf Audio player HTTP RTSP (RTSPU, RTSPT) MMS (MMSU, MMST) Podcasting Other

Playlist format ability Information about which playlist formats the players understand.

Audio player asx,wax, wvx M3U pls XSPF CUE SMILAIMP Amarok Audacious Audion Clementine cmus Cog Exaile foobar2000 iTunes JRiver Media Center JuK MediaMonkey MPXPLAY MusicBee Musicmatch Jukebox musikCube Quod Libet Rhapsody Rhythmbox Sayonara Player Sonique SpotifyImport and export m3u playlists. Spotify.com. Winamp XMMS Zinf Audio player asx/wax/wvx M3U pls XSPF CUE SMIL

Metadata ability Information about what metadata, or tagging, formats the players understand. Most other containers have their own metadata format and the players usually use them. Footnotes lead to information about abilities of future versions of the players or plugins that provide such functionality.

Audio player ID3v1 ID3v2 APEv2 tag Vorbis comment Cue sheet CD-Text WAVE chunks AIMP Amarok Understanding of ID3v1, ID3v2, APEv2 and Vorbis comments is handled by an external library called TagLib. Amarok does not understand embedded covers. Yes , but buggy. Audacious Audion cmus Cog foobar2000 There is a plugin called CD-TEXT Reader adding such a feature. iTunes JRiver Media Center JuK MediaMonkey Mixxx MPXPLAY MusicBee Musicmatch Jukebox musikCube Quod Libet Rhapsody Rhythmbox Sayonara Player Sonique XMMS Zinf Audio player ID3v1 ID3v2 APEv2 tag Vorbis comment Cue sheet CD-Text WAVE chunks

Optical media ability Information about what kinds of optical discs the players can play. Footnotes lead to information about abilities of future versions of the players or plugins that provide such functionality. Playback of Super Audio CD is not possible for any media player, because no suitable hardware exists. All media players capable of audio CD playback will also play the Redbook core of any HDCD disc, providing no sound-quality benefits over standard audio CDs.

Audio player Audio CD DVD-Audio HDCDAIMP Amarok aTunes Audacious Audion cmus Cog foobar2000 (plugin) (plugin) JuK Requires K3B JRiver Media Center MediaMonkey MusicBee Musicmatch Jukebox musikCube Rhapsody Rhythmbox Sonique Winamp XMMS Zinf Audio player CD DVD-Audio HDCD Audio

Comparison of audio player software

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