Alternatives to foobar2000
A light, deeply configurable audio player for people who care about their local music library. The listings below can replace it for an important use case. Each note says what changes if you switch.
The original
foobar2000
A light, deeply configurable audio player for people who care about their local music library.
Replacements
Listings that take over the same core job as foobar2000.
MusicBee
A Windows music manager for people with a large local library and opinions about tags.
MusicBee is Windows only, adding bulk tag editing, automatic artwork lookup and on-the-fly sync and conversion for phones and portable players.
DeaDBeeF
A light, plugin-driven music player for Linux, Windows and macOS that stays out of the way.
DeaDBeeF is open source under Zlib with an official Linux build, lighter on resources but with weaker library management than foobar2000.
Strawberry Music Player
A Clementine fork aimed at collectors, with proper support for high-resolution files and CD ripping.
Strawberry is open source with Linux builds and handles DSD, tag editing and CD ripping, but has no mobile app of any kind.
AIMP
A long-running Windows music player with an 18-band equaliser, internet radio and a built-in converter.
AIMP runs on Windows and Android only, adding an 18-band equaliser, internet radio recording and a bundled converter without plugins.
HQPlayer
Play audio with configurable digital filtering and resampling.
HQPlayer is paid and also runs on Linux, focusing on configurable digital filtering, resampling and DSD processing rather than library management.
Plexamp
A music player from Plex for listening to and exploring the music library on a Plex server.
Plexamp plays music from a Plex Media Server instead of local folders, with some features requiring a paid Plex Pass.
Audacious
A lightweight open-source audio player descended from XMMS, with optional Winamp Classic skins.
Audacious is an open-source lightweight player for Windows, macOS and Linux with Winamp Classic skin support, but it lacks foobar2000's CD ripping and advanced tagging.
WACUP
A classic-style media player that extends the Winamp 5 player and stays compatible with its plug-ins.
WACUP is a Windows-only player compatible with classic Winamp plug-ins, offering a plug-in based design but still distributed as a preview build.
Also worth comparing
These listings name foobar2000 as their own alternative, so the relationship runs both ways.
Auxio
A simple open-source music player for Android that plays audio files stored on the device.
foobar2000 is free but closed source, covering Android alongside Windows, macOS and iOS, with ReplayGain, advanced tagging and component extensions.
dBpoweramp
A secure CD ripper and batch audio converter for Windows and macOS.
foobar2000 is a free player that also includes CD ripping, transcoding and advanced tagging, with builds for Windows, macOS, Android and iOS, though it is closed source.
Exact Audio Copy
A Windows CD ripper that reads audio CDs precisely and reports any errors it cannot correct.
foobar2000 bundles CD ripping, transcoding and tagging into a full music player for Windows and macOS, so ripping becomes one part of a library tool rather than a dedicated app.
fre:ac
A free audio converter and CD ripper that converts between MP3, AAC, FLAC, Opus and more.
foobar2000 combines CD ripping and transcoding with a full music player and tagging on Windows and macOS, though it is closed source and has no Linux build.
Gramophone
An open-source Android music player for local files, built with Media3 and Material Design.
foobar2000 is a free, closed-source player for Android, iOS, Windows and macOS with gapless playback, ReplayGain and advanced tagging.
Museeks
A simple, cross-platform music player for playing a local music collection on the desktop.
foobar2000 is a free but closed-source player with gapless playback, ReplayGain, tagging and components, available on Windows, macOS and mobile but without an official Linux build.
Musicolet
An ad-free offline Android music player with multiple queues, tag editing and synchronized lyrics.
foobar2000 is free on Android, iOS, Windows and macOS with gapless playback, ReplayGain and advanced tagging, though its layout takes configuration.
Poweramp
An Android music player for local libraries with a 64-band parametric equalizer and Hi-Res output.
foobar2000 is a free player available on Android as well as Windows, macOS and iOS, offering gapless playback, ReplayGain and advanced tagging.
Qmmp
A Qt-based audio player with a Winamp-style skinned interface, an alternative simple interface and plugins.
foobar2000 is a closed-source player for Windows, macOS and mobile with gapless playback, ReplayGain and component add-ons, but no official Linux build.
Swinsian
A macOS music player and library manager with wide format support and advanced tag editing.
foobar2000 is free and also runs on Windows, Android and iOS, with a customisable layout, advanced tagging, CD ripping and a component system.
Symfonium
An Android music player for local files, NAS shares and servers like Plex, Jellyfin and Navidrome.
foobar2000 is free on Android, iOS, Windows and macOS with advanced tagging and ReplayGain, but its listing does not mention Jellyfin, Plex or Navidrome support.
Winamp
The long-running Windows music player, still available to download from its developer.
foobar2000 is a free, closed-source player for Windows, macOS, Android and iOS with gapless playback, ReplayGain, CD ripping and a component system, but it needs configuration.
XLD
A Mac tool for ripping CDs and decoding, converting and splitting lossless audio files.
foobar2000 is a free player that also includes CD ripping, transcoding and tagging, available on Windows, macOS and mobile, though conversion is not its main focus.
Similar software
Related functionality, not a direct replacement.
Mp3tag
A tag editor that fixes the metadata of a whole music folder at once, with online database lookups.
Spek
Drops an audio file on the window and draws its spectrogram, so you can see where the quality really stops.
Super Audio CD Decoder
A foobar2000 input plugin that plays Super Audio CD ISO images and DSD audio files.
MusicBrainz Picard
The official MusicBrainz tagger, which identifies music by its audio fingerprint and fills in the tags.
MathAudio Headphone EQ
Headphone resonance correction plugin with a free foobar2000 component.
Flacon
Split a full-album audio file into separate tagged tracks.
