Music Player Daemon

Name: Music Player Daemon
Rating: 4.2 (4 reviews)

44 likes

Server-side music player supporting multiple audio formats. It requires a client and can be controlled remotely. MPD features gapless playback, crossfading, and is compatible with multiple audio systems. It can stream to Icecast and has a built-in HTTP server.

Cost / License

Free
Open Source (GPL-2.0)

Application type

Audio Player

Origin

Germany
EU

Platforms

Mac
Windows
Linux
Self-Hosted

Alternatives

44likes

12alternatives

0articles

Properties

Lightweight

Features

File Tagging
Lossless Audio
No registration required
Portable
Extensible by Plugins/Extensions
Server-side
Music Library
Playlists
Support for Remote Control
Stream audio
Crossfading
Gapless Playback

Comments and Reviews

walkingstick

★★★★★

Apr 13, 2026

Great framework for building a custom music setup. I've been using this since `02 or so with various frontends for controlling playback. This works best on another machine with some speakers dedicated to playing music (or maybe the occasional movie as well)

RemovedUser

★★★★★

Mar 27, 2022

Doesn't work out of the box at all. Good luck. Seriously, I can write a server that receives commands to play back music files probably within an hour, maybe even less. It is not that difficult. Considering that it puzzles me how one managed to screw this up so much

Review from a new or low-activity account — shown here, but not counted in the app rating.

dba

CommentDec 29, 2019

Great to run a headless music player. In my case it runs on my server and delivers audio via HDMI to the amplifier.

mohammadghasemi

★★★★★

Jul 25, 2015

Has many front ends

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Install from the command line

brew install mpd

Be careful what you paste into a terminal. Check what a command installs before running it.

What is Music Player Daemon?

Music Player Daemon (MPD) is a server-side software for playing music. It can play various audio files through plugins and libraries, manage playlists, and maintain a music database. It requires a client program for interaction and includes a command-line client, mpc, in its package.

MPD supports multiple audio formats like Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, Opus, WavPack, MP2, MP3, MP4/AAC, MOD, Musepack, and wave files via FFmpeg. It can be remotely controlled over a network, supports both IPv4 and IPv6, and can play FLAC, OggFLAC, MP3, and Ogg Vorbis HTTP streams. It also reads, caches, and searches metadata information.

Additional features include buffer support for playback, gapless playback, crossfading, and seeking support. It allows users to manage playlists in M3U format and has native Zeroconf support, libsamplerate, and native sample rate conversion. It's compatible with various audio systems like ALSA, PulseAudio, PipeWire, OSS, MVP, JACK, Windows, and macOS. MPD can be used as a source for an Icecast stream, features a built-in HTTP streaming server, and can play music files inside .zip archives. It operates independently of a GUI, so music continues to play without a front-end.