Alternatives to Cider
A community-run desktop client for Apple Music on Windows, macOS and Linux. The listings below can replace it for an important use case. Each note says what changes if you switch.
The original
Cider
A community-run desktop client for Apple Music on Windows, macOS and Linux.
Replacements
Listings that take over the same core job as Cider.
Pear Desktop
An open-source desktop app for YouTube Music with a plugin system, formerly th-ch/youtube-music.
Pear Desktop is a free MIT-licensed desktop client for YouTube Music instead of Apple Music, with plugins for ad blocking and downloads, and it can break when YouTube changes.
Spotube
Music streaming player that pulls metadata and playlists through community plugins.
Spotube is free and open source under BSD-3-Clause, pulls music through community plugins on desktop and Android, and avoids Electron, though some plugin sources have unclear legal status.
ncspot
A terminal Spotify client written in Rust with an ncurses interface inspired by MPD clients.
ncspot is a free open-source terminal client for Spotify rather than Apple Music, keyboard-driven and lightweight, and it requires a Spotify account and cannot play local files.
Similar software
Related functionality, not a direct replacement.
Tidal Hi-Fi
A desktop client that runs the Tidal web player in Electron with hi-fi playback through Widevine.
Plexamp
A music player from Plex for listening to and exploring the music library on a Plex server.
Audirvāna
Play a local music library and supported streaming services from a desktop application.
Feishin
Listen to music from a compatible server through a desktop client.
Harmonoid
A cross-platform music player and library manager built on mpv and FFmpeg, with a Material Design interface.
