Overview
This article reviews six top command-line music players for Linux in 2023, summarizing each tool's features, supported formats, and installation instructions.
CMUS (Console Music Player)
- Fast and compact, developed in C for Linux with a text-based UI.
- Supports many audio formats including AAC, MP3, FLAC, and WAV.
- Offers ReplayGain, keyboard shortcuts, Ogg/MP3 streaming, compilation handling, queue options, and remote control via cmus-remote.
- Installable via standard package managers on major Linux distributions.
Musikcube
- Cross-platform, plugin-based CLI music player using C++ plugins.
- Features tag indexing, playlists, file scanning, crossfading, plugin architecture, and music library support.
- Supports codecs like FLAC, MP3, Ogg, M4A.
- Uses SQLite for playlist metadata.
- Available via Snap for Linux.
Ncmpcpp
- Command-line MPD (Music Player Daemon) client for playing local or remote audio.
- Highly customizable UI with key bindings and chat protocol for multi-client communication.
- Supports metadata formatting and various plugins.
- Requires MPD and Ncmpcpp installation per distribution.
MOC (Music on Console)
- Ncurses-based CLI player with customizable options for color schemes, key bindings, and interface.
- Supports wide audio format range, including MP3, WAV, OGG, FLAC, MIDI, and more.
- Includes equalizer, mixer, and support for audio outputs like JACK, OSS, ALSA.
- Designed to avoid audio skipping under high system loads.
Tizonia
- Cloud-based command-line player supporting services like Spotify, SoundCloud, TuneIn, YouTube, and Plex.
- Utilizes OpenMAX IL 1.2 multimedia framework, no FFmpeg/GStreamer required.
- Supports numerous audio formats and multi-platform playback.
- Offers a REPL command interface.
Tera (Terminal Radio)
- Simple CLI player focused on radio station streaming (over 27,780 stations via radio browser API).
- Allows CRUD operations on favorites list, search by name, tag, country, language, etc.
- Saves favorite and search results to local config and cache directories.
- Provides easy list management and radio station saving.
Conclusion
- Command-line music players on Linux provide efficient, lightweight audio playback with versatile control and broad format support through simple commands.