Alternatives to Pear Desktop
An open-source desktop app for YouTube Music with a plugin system, formerly th-ch/youtube-music. The listings below can replace it for an important use case. Each note says what changes if you switch.
The original
Pear Desktop
An open-source desktop app for YouTube Music with a plugin system, formerly th-ch/youtube-music.
Replacements
Listings that take over the same core job as Pear Desktop.
Cider
A community-run desktop client for Apple Music on Windows, macOS and Linux.
Cider is a paid, closed-source desktop client for Apple Music on Windows, macOS and Linux, so switching also means an Apple Music subscription instead of YouTube Music.
Tidal Hi-Fi
A desktop client that runs the Tidal web player in Electron with hi-fi playback through Widevine.
Tidal Hi-Fi is an open-source Electron client for Tidal on Linux only, with hi-fi playback through Widevine, and requires a Tidal account.
Spotify
A music streaming service with a web player and lossless audio for Premium subscribers.
Spotify replaces YouTube Music with an official freemium service and browser web player, adding lossless audio for Premium, but without a community plugin system.
Similar software
Related functionality, not a direct replacement.
ytDownloader
Open-source desktop app for downloading video and audio from hundreds of websites.
spotifyd
An open-source Spotify client that runs as a lightweight UNIX daemon on headless machines.
Last.fm
Music tracking service that records your listening history and recommends music and events.
