None of the current solutions work for someone like me. I have multiple versions of the same album so the UI needs to incorporate labels, catalog numbers, etc. and the playlists need to accommodate disc subtitles and grouping. The only two players that allow me this functionality are both on Windows so there's little available for the collectors such as myself.
The state of Linux music players in 2026
41–50 of 159 posts
Re: The state of Linux music players in 2026
#42I'm very happy that I mostly listen to electronic music (house & techno in its various forms). The predominant way to listen to that is via DJ mixes and recorded Livesets. This field has always been ignored by the commercial streamers, and there is a culture of uploading sets to platforums such as youtube and soundcloud - where you can easily download (albeit youtube making things more difficult in recent years). Sin…
Something I don't get is if you search Spotify for some classic mixes, like Sasha and Digweed's Northern Exposure, for example, you'll find that someone has compiled a playlist of all/most/many of the individual tracks from the mix. But of course listening to the individual tracks is a completely different and much less enjoyable thing. I also don't get why people spend their time doing things like that on closed platforms.
Most of my favourite mixes, like the Global Underground series aren't on there at all. And that's just stuff that came out on CD. Some of the best mixes are things like Radio 1 Essential Mixes or live events.
I've also noticed some artists "redoing" their own tracks on Spotify. If you look for Chicane's Behind the Sun on there you won't even find the original, only a redone version that's nothing like the one you remember.
So yeah, having a personal music collection is still very important.
Re: The state of Linux music players in 2026
#43Worth noting that most of these GTK4/libadwaita players are going to look out of place on anything that isn't GNOME. If you're on KDE or a tiling WM, Strawberry or one of the Qt-based options will integrate much better
I haven't really looked into this, but is it possible to make GTK4 apps look liek standard GTK2/GTK3 applications? It feels like every single modern GTK app I've encountered has that modern Rounded-Material look to them and ignores the window manager decorations.
Re: The state of Linux music players in 2026
#44mocp is all you need
Re: The state of Linux music players in 2026
#45Not mentioned in the article, so I'd like to give a shout-out to cmus.
For all my fellow terminal friends <3
Re: The state of Linux music players in 2026
#46This is a very good list, thanks for sharing it. Despite having been on a music player journey like the author, in surprised to see several on the list I've not encountered before. This just tells me that the state of music players on Linux is extremely healthy, and that makes sense, it's the only os where the concept of owning your data exists, so of course time and effort is being spent on this part too.
In the end, for me anyway, I'm only listening to music and I didn't really care too much about what the player looked like, not as much as I thought I would. Even VLC, not mentioned here, is a well functioning music player and will do the job just fine.
Re: The state of Linux music players in 2026
#47Came here to note that contrary to what is said here, Lollypop is not "new", nor is it representative of current so-called "GNOME-isms".
It uses UI idioms and technologies (gtk 3) of its mileage, 2017.
Re: The state of Linux music players in 2026
#48I'm not thrilled by the music player options on Linux. I've tried many and found most of them awful.
Even the author of this article notes negatives about all of the listed players, which I find unacceptable (except for Recordbox, I'll have to look at that). And these are their favorites out of 200 players!
It's the typical problem of free software: bad UI.
I use Music on macOS (disable the music store and it's fine) and have used Rhythmbox on GNOME (passable). Still looking for something good on Linux.
List from the post, with the author's own criticism:
Amberol
This barely fits my criteria for features … no library management
Euphonica
you will also need to set up MPD … The UI chokes … wish it had a song search function … changing the volume requires using my scroll wheel on the volume knob
Feishin
You will need a music server … Electron app
Lollypop
the user experience is painful
Plattenalbum
you will need to bring your own MPD … cannot even see a list of all albums
Strawberry
less intuitive than I’d like it to be … giant translucent strawberry in the middle of my screen at all times
Tauon
“everything-is-a-playlist” approach … overwhelming and confusing … stretched icons … scroll bar is on the left of the window for some reason
Re: The state of Linux music players in 2026
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
My guess is not everyone is annoyed by that, or knows about the option. It was a nice surprise of qmmp, it switches to the next song without an extra pause. I use it with a winamp skin from https://archive.org/details/winampskins , to add to the options. Not sure about streaming support, I use it with local files.
> My guess is not everyone is annoyed by that, or knows about the option. It depends on the genre, I’d guess. For metal, there’s rarely continuous songs, mainly sometimes intro -> 1st proper song.
Right. Though one of this intro -> 1st song transitions from a metal album (Gamma Ray, No World order) immediately pops into my head when thinking of examples where the gap was annoying.
But Pink Floyds Dark Side of the Moon would be be completely destroyed by the breaks.
Re: The state of Linux music players in 2026
#50I want to switch to Roon, but the lack of a web client (let alone a native linux client!) makes it a total dead end.