Music is one of the best elements of entertainment and relaxation. We always get some recreation between work or busy schedules by listening to our favorite music. Additionally, when we are in a happy mood or going through sad moments, we stay in touch with music. There are many different music players and devices available in the market. In this essay, we are talking about how Linux users listen to music and which player is the best Linux music player.
However, a good music player can significantly enhance the quality of music to its listener. Additionally, it is able to give you the best flavor of sound. As a Linux distro user, are you completely satisfied with the music player you are currently using? Maybe yes or not! Here we are recommending a small collection of the best Linux music players for you.
How do Linux users listen to music?
Linux users listen to music using CLI or command line interface and GUI graphical user interface-based music players. It depends on the user’s choice and requirements. But nowadays, many distros are UI reach and provide a default music player with the distro.
Moreover, many Linux users listen to music directly online and do not wait for any Linux music players; it depends from person to person. But, of course, most of the users use the default one to listen to music.

18 Linux Music Player for choosing the best one.
As all music players provide similar features, finding the best Linux music player is a little complicated. After a few weeks of research, we reach the stage of finding them. Here, we collect some of the best quality Linux music players. Try them and choose the one you like best.
Rhythmbox
Rhythmbox is the default music player on Ubuntu and qualifies for the upper place on this chart of best Linux music players. It is a widely used, dependable, reliable, extensible, and popular GTK music player that uses the Gstreamer backend. The app’s standard layout is easy to navigate, and it’s easy to filter your music using the column browser or query box.
You can add Rhythmbox plugins to customize, reshuffle, and transform the player’s look into something completely different. Rhythmbox can automatically view new music files stored in the music folder, and you can point the app to see if you have other sources or folders.
This player lets you do more than play a soundtrack; it manages, sorts, and creates playlists. It is featured by FM and has built-in support for podcasts and Internet radio stations.
VLC Media Player
The VLC player is not only a music player but also a top rated video playback player. It is the most powerful media player on the planet and supports almost all audio and video formats. VLCis the best Linux music player and a free, open-source, cross-platform multimedia player supporting many other operating systems.
It is available as a multimedia player and a streaming media server developed by the VideoLAN project. While its interface may seem very simple and a bit old and dull, it is excellent in its features. Moreover, you can always use the available theme to make VLC look more beautiful.
Lollypop Music Player
Lollipop Music Player is a genome-based player with a modern interface like iTunes. It is one of the best open-source Linux music players with a very interactive interface. Lollipop emerges on Python GTk+. It supports a large number of music file formats and can browse through album covers, artists, and music genres.
Lollipop automatically supports metadata to bring lyrics, artist biographies, and cover art; the ability to sync with Android via MTP; Last.FM and TuneIn radio services help with audio scrabbling and music streaming. It also has a party mode that automatically starts playing party-related playlists; HiDPI display support.
Amarok Music Player
Aarok is the KDE desktop environment’s default music player inspired by Ubuntu Linux. It has the ability to support a wide range of audio formats and the ability to search for lyrics and artists through the integrated Wikipedia search. It is not only a Linux music player but also supports Mac OS X and Windows. In addition, it has a large set of built-in equalizers and plugins.
The advanced version of Amarok can connect to various web services such as Last FM, The Echo Nest, Magnatune, MP3tunes, Jamendo Service, Ampache, and OPML podcast directories LibreVox. It is open source and can use for free. With the recent update, developers have fixed a lot of bugs and re-introduced it as a strong competitor in the world of open-source music players.
Strawberry Music Player
Strawberry is an open-source Linux music player with a huge collection of songs, supporting almost all familiar audio formats. It is one of the most popular clementine player thorns based on Qt4. Strawberry was developed in C ++ using a more advanced Qt5 toolkit for graphical interfaces.
This player has more advanced features like metadata tag editing, album art and song lyrics, an audio analyzer and equalizer, music transfer to a device, streaming support, and much more.
Sayonara Audio Player
Sayonara is a small but feature-rich and one of the best Linux music players written in C ++ for Linux. It uses GStreamer as its audio backend and comes under the GNU GPL open-source license.
It provides a variety of ways to manage your audio libraries and support for web streams and podcasts. You can use additional plugins to add features like CrossFadder, Equalizer, and Broadcasting.
Qmmp
If you need a simple, agile, light system interface with a single music player, then Qmmp is one. You can consider Qmmp a Winamp music player with a minimal interface and basic music controls. For Qmmp, this is the best part; you can use different themes to customize the Qmmp look and make it a part of your style. Its X skin support, 10-band equalizer, MMS support, lyrics using lyrics.wikia.com, cover art, and CUE sheet support.
It supports various playlist formats like m3u, pls, xspf, ReplayGain support, Last.fm, etc. It is enriched with the feature of a Stream Browser, Audio Format Converter, Audio Recording, and much more. Qmmp supports almost all popular Linux distros like Arch Linux, Debian GNU / Linux, FreeBSD, Fedora, Gentoo Linux, PCLinuxOS, openSUSE, RedHat, and Slackware.
Banshee
Banshee is an open-source, cross-platform music player that can run on Linux, Windows, and MAC operating systems.
It is based on the GStreamer multimedia platform and can run a variety of media formats, including Ogg Vorbis and FLAC but not limited to. It can import and play audio files from CDs / DVDs, Android devices, iPods, etc. Additionally, it supports online music streaming and listening to podcasts.
Exaile Music Player
Exaile is an open-source, cross-platform music player written in Python and GTK+. It comes with a simple interface and packs powerful music-handling functionality.
Exaile enables you to make and organize your playlists, bring album art, online radio stations FM and Icecast, and much more.
Clementine
Clementine is written in Qt and is especially popular with people who manage large music collections because the player offers navigation instead of columns or “artwork” browsers. If you’re a generous person who tends to navigate your music from a ‘files and folders’ POV, you’ll appreciate Clementine’s approach to library management.
You’ll find everything from the music equalizer to the built-in format conversion tool, from the visualizer to support for Wiimotes and integration with an Android app remote control app. Music fans can also view artist and song information, lyrics, and SoundCloud integration.
DeaDBeeF
Does it sound like a new name to you? The DeaBBeeF music player is not widely known; that’s true. However, it is an excellent Linux music player and a growing open-source software. It allows you to do everything that you need, such as creating a regular and static playlist, adding plugins, editing metadata, and much more.
Tomahawk
Tomahawk is a music player for the modern generation, providing strong support for online music streaming. This Linux music player user interface is modern but simple and easy to navigate.
Tomahawk uses plugins to support streaming, so if you’re not into music streaming, you can disable the plugin and listen to music from the system directory.
Quod Libet Audio Player
Quod Libet is a GTK-emerged music player using the Mutagen Tagging Library by Python. It has an authentic and simple UI, eliminating any fancy features. The player is plugin rich and supports tunes with hundreds of stations on tag editing, replay gain, album art, library browsing, and internet radio. In addition, it supports all mainstream audio formats such as MP3, MPEG4 AAC, MOD, WMA, and MIDI.
Deepin Music Player
It is a simple and modern-looking Linux music player made by Deepin Dal. Deepin Music Player is also known as DMusic. Deepin is one of the Linux distributions based on Ubuntu, and the Deepin music player defaults with it. It has a list to view all the music, a simple interface with a few controls below, and the option to view the song’s lyrics.
CMUS
That music player will appeal to every Linux user who prefers CLI or a command line interface. CMUS is a music player based on the command line interface and arguably the best CLI music player out there. And since it uses CLI, it is very light regarding memory usage, about 4-6 MB memory in our case, and a good choice for low-end systems.
It is quite easy to use, and you can control it with the commands entered through the keyboard. It mainly supports all the audio formats you can add to it and also boasts a series of great features like support for PlayQue, Gapless Music, Playlist Filter, and Music Streaming.
Museeks Music Player
Museeks is another cross-platform simple and clear audio player that relies on advanced features but still provides simplicity in playing your music and creating playlists. You can still perform simple tasks such as changing the theme to a dark theme, repeating, and shuffling the music, and it is the simplest of all audio players in terms of features and functionality.
Audacious
Audacious is a player suitable for navigating; many included plugins allow you to enable additional features such as lyrical fetching, equalizer, etc. It’s free and open source, and its various plugins are available.
Audacious has built-in seamless playback, offering support for a wide range of audio formats. Moreover, it is not a resource hog, so you can play music in the background without worrying about affecting your system performance. You can manage multiple playlists and can play audio CDs, also.
MOC
Just like CMUS, MOC is another lightweight and terminal-based music player. Surprisingly, it is quite efficient with key mapping, a mixer, creating internet streams and playlists, and searching music in directories. Additionally, it supports output types such as JACK, ALSA, and OSS.
What is the best music player for Linux?
All of the Linux music players are the best based on their use case and environment. But the Rhythmbox and VLC music are top-ranked and should win in terms of the best Linux music player over others. Both are open-source and easy-to-use audio players, and they have easy UI and help organize your audio files into playlists for a better user experience. For instance, Rhythmbox is coming default with Ubuntu and
Users can use the different features easy to make a few changes, like shuffling or repeating music and altering the appearance of these music players, which scales the window to full screen.
What is the default music player in Linux?
Different Linus distros provide the different default music players built-in with it. It doesn’t mean all distro provides a default music player, but you can install it there later.
Amarok was KDE’s default music player, and Rhythmbox by GNOME is the default Ubuntu music player. Clementine is a free, open-source, cross-platform music player that is very popular among Linux users.
Ending Words
All music players listed above are up to the mark with performance and reliability in their own scope. We hope this Linux Music Player introduces you to a new music listening experience. People enjoy listening to music to pass the time and destress; some even listen to music while working on getting motivated and focused. Studies have shown that soft music can help people stay motivated and increase productivity.
We always encourage you to share your experience with us. Please remember to share your experience using these music players on this platform or other online media. Additionally, as you are interested in music, you may also find interest in Best Linux Video Editors.