Cantata

Cantata

Cantata is an open-source graphical front-end application for the music player daemon (MPD). It allows users to browse, play, and manage their music collection stored on an MPD music server.
Cantata image
opensource mpd music-library graphical-interface

Cantata: Open-Source Music Player GUI

Cantata is an open-source graphical front-end application for the music player daemon (MPD). It allows users to browse, play, and manage their music collection stored on an MPD music server.

What is Cantata?

Cantata is an open-source graphical user interface client for the Music Player Daemon (MPD), a free and open music player server. It enables users to remotely browse, play, and manage music collections stored on an MPD server from a graphical interface instead of the command line.

Key features of Cantata include:

  • Browse your music library by album, artist, genre, etc.
  • Build and manage playlists
  • Smart playlists with advanced filtering capabilities
  • Playback controls - play, pause, seek, volume, etc.
  • Cover art support
  • Lyrics support via lyrics plugins
  • Internet radio streaming
  • Support for multiple MPD profiles/instances
  • Customizable user interface
  • Available for Linux, Windows, and macOS

As an MPD client, Cantata does not actually play music files itself. Instead, it connects to a running MPD server to access the music library. This allows MPD to handle the audio playback while Cantata provides the user interface. Cantata offers advanced music management and playback controls compared to MPD's standard command line interface.

Cantata Features

Features

  1. Graphical user interface for MPD
  2. Browse, play, manage music collection on MPD server
  3. Create and edit playlists
  4. Search music library
  5. Control playback
  6. View song information and album art
  7. Support for multiple MPD profiles/connections

Pricing

  • Open Source

Pros

Open source and free

Lightweight and fast

Supports many audio formats

Cross-platform (Linux, Windows, macOS)

Customizable interface

Supports online music services via MPD plugins

Can be controlled remotely via MPD protocol

Cons

Dependent on MPD server setup

Limited tag editing capabilities

No native support for streaming services

No advanced audio features like equalizer


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