A comparative study
Amarok: The tabs are arranged properly, which makes it easy for me to navigate through the player without any difficulty. I found its playback to be quite smooth with the help of its crossfading engine (one of my favourite features in a music player). Online sources kept me updated about the information of the track I was listening to. I could even import my iTunes library to Amarok, which was very helpful while porting from Mac to Linux. If you are porting from Windows or Mac to Linux, and if iTunes was your default music player, my recommendation for you would be Amarok.
aTunes: I liked the different skins and colours available in aTunes. Online sources kept me updated about the track, artist and album I was listening to, just like the other music players do, but one feature that caught my attention was its integration with YouTube—it recommended videos similar to the track and artist I was listening to. I was quite impressed to see such a feature in a music player.
Audacious: I found its design similar to that of Rhythmbox but support for themes and skins (winamp skins too!) makes it unique and its interface can be completely customised according to your requirements. I was able to play almost all audio formats, and extra codecs were available as plugins. Its gapless playback and hover functionality makes it a good choice for Linux and Windows users.
Clementine: It is a fork of Amarok and so I found many similarities between the two players, but Clementine has more features included in it and everything is arranged in an efficient and intuitive way. In addition to its impressive interface, I loved the moodbar feature and its flawless playback with its crossfade engine, which makes it the best choice for all music lovers. Its support for all operating systems gives it an additional advantage. I found the synchronous playback with the logo’s colour a good add- on and rare to find in a music player. I also liked the additional sound effects like rain, which gave me a feel of listening to my favourite music on a rainy day.
Guayadeque: It has a compact and simple design without compromising on its features and looks. It performs quite impressively and smoothly when it comes to handling a large music database. Its built-in silence remover feature skips out the silent parts from my music and I could enjoy my music uninterrupted -- something I didn’t find in other players. I would recommend Guayadeque to those who want to enjoy uninterrupted music without the player going silent for a few seconds. Its smart play feature that adds on similar tracks makes it a great pick for party animals.
Miro: Miro has a smooth and clean design similar to that of iTunes, and it is better than the other players in terms of simplicity. It is the perfect choice for podcast subscribers. I could enjoy my favourite podcast episode without any difficulty since Miro automatically downloaded all the latest episodes for me and that saved me time. I could even buy music from online stores, namely, Amazon, Google Store and a few others. Indians can use Miro easily because it supports many local languages like Hindi, Marathi, Tamil, etc.
Rhythmbox: It has the look of a classic jukebox and is mostly focused on a tabbed list display.
It is more suitable for Internet radio listeners, and it comes as the default player for many Linux distributions.
xnoise: xnoise has a simple design like Rhythmbox and Guayadeque, but with its own customised buttons and with more features included. It has a hierarchical tree list layout.
Tomahawk: Tomahawk has quite a shiny modern design compared to the other players. The icons and thumbnails are quite large, enabling easy navigation through the player. It has a very user-friendly interface that allows you to fetch track information by clicking the ‘i’ button placed on the corner of the track name, starting playback by simply clicking on the album cover and downloading tracks from the Internet from within the player.
Banshee: Its design is related to that of Rhythmbox with added tabs, large icons and thumbnails. I found Rhythmbox and Banshee to be almost the same but both have their own ways of displaying the contents.