# cmus

> Console music player for Unix-like systems with ncurses interface and optional input/output plugins for many audio formats and backends.

Stars: 6.3k · Language: C · License: GPL-2.0 · Categories: System

- Repository: https://github.com/cmus/cmus
- Website: https://cmus.github.io/
- Page: https://www.trmn.sh/tools/cmus

## Overview

cmus (C* Music Player) is a console music player for Unix-like operating systems. It runs in a terminal using an ncurses interface and is written in C. It is documented through two man pages: `cmus` and `cmus-tutorial`.

Audio support is built from optional input and output plugins that are selected at build time. `./configure` auto-detects available features, and the generated `config.mk` shows which `CONFIG_*` options were enabled. The README lists dependency packages for plugins covering formats and backends such as FLAC, Ogg Vorbis, Opus, MP3 (libmad), Musepack, WavPack, ModPlug, AAC (faad), and FFmpeg (libavformat/libavcodec), plus CD audio with CDDB/discid lookup. Output options include ALSA, libao, JACK, PulseAudio, and sndio. Only pkg-config, ncurses, iconv, and elogind/systemd are required.

It is built from source with `./configure`, `make` and `make install` (use `gmake` on some BSD systems). The README gives dependency install commands for Debian/Ubuntu, Fedora/RHEL (with RPMFusion), Arch Linux, Alpine, Termux, and Homebrew. A `DESTDIR` option supports staged installs for packaging. It suits users who want to play a local music library from the terminal. Building with `./configure DEBUG=2` writes debug output to `~/cmus-debug.txt`.

## Alternatives

- [CAVA](https://www.trmn.sh/tools/cava.md): Cross-platform bar spectrum audio visualizer for the terminal or SDL desktop window, with PipeWire, PulseAudio, ALSA, JACK and other input backends. (C, 6.5k stars)
- [htop](https://www.trmn.sh/tools/htop.md): Cross-platform interactive process viewer with real-time system monitoring and process management (C, 8.4k stars)
- [nvtop](https://www.trmn.sh/tools/nvtop.md): htop-like GPU and accelerator task monitor supporting NVIDIA, AMD, Intel, Apple, and other vendors (C, 11.1k stars)
- [GoAccess](https://www.trmn.sh/tools/goaccess.md): Real-time web server log analyzer written in C that shows HTTP statistics in a terminal or a live HTML dashboard, with JSON and CSV export. (C, 21.1k stars)
- [fastfetch](https://www.trmn.sh/tools/fastfetch.md): System information tool that displays hardware and OS details with customizable ASCII art logos and module configuration (C, 25.2k stars)

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Canonical: https://www.trmn.sh/tools/cmus