Strawberry music player
Hacker ApprovedShares rank 17 of 38 music players by recommenders
Free music player that people recommend for managing and playing large local collections, including ripped CD libraries, with approachable playback and playlists.
Free music player that people recommend for managing and playing large local collections, including ripped CD libraries, with approachable playback and playlists.
14 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 11
- criticize it
- 3
- approval share
- 79%
Recommended in 6 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 11 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 3.7 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 6 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Strong collection management for large libraries
“For a traditional all batteries included collection management music player try Strawberry”
Comment from 15 Jun 2026 in “Windows 11 users are tired of MS account requirements creeping into everything” “Strawberry has great collection support as I own thousands of ripped CDs.”
Comment from 1 Sep 2026 in “Fastpotify” “it allows me to play all the music i actually own”
Comment from 24 Apr 2026 in “Why I'm Done Making Desktop Applications” Approachable, high-level, does everything wanted
“strawberry is pretty good at keeping things approachable and high-level”
Comment from 27 Jan 2026 in “The state of Linux music players in 2026” “Works great and does everything I want.”
Comment from 18 May 2026 in “Show HN: We missed Winamp, so we built an audio player for macOS” Widely recommended as a top pick
“was already my favorite music player on Linux/BSD systems even without that”
Comment from 4 Nov 2025 on Hacker News “Strawberry is a really good one.”
Comment from 27 Jan 2026 in “The state of Linux music players in 2026”
Other music players people recommend
The four most recommended other music players, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| VLC media player | 172 | 83 | 67% | 12 | 20 yrs7 owners | Approved |
| mpv media player | 82 | 12 | 87% | 12 | — | Approved |
| Infuse video player | 78 | 11 | 88% | 11 | — | Approved |
| Kodi | 64 | 38 | 63% | 12 | 15 yrs3 owners | — |
| Strawberry music playerThis page | 11 | 3 | 79% | 6 | — | Approved |
What people said
13 of the 15 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Strawberry has great collection support as I own thousands of ripped CDs.”
“For a traditional all batteries included collection management music player try Strawberry”
“There's great hand crafted library managers/players out there like”
“Works great and does everything I want.”
“And Strawberry for playlists/playback.”
“it allows me to play all the music i actually own”
“Why? Svelte or not, is this program expected to run on anything but the latest and greatest hardware?”
“strawberry is pretty good at keeping things approachable and high-level”
“less intuitive than I'd like it to be”
“Strawberry or one of the Qt-based options will integrate much better”
“It suffered from a bug where every so often, playback just stops.”
“Strawberry is a really good one.”
“was already my favorite music player on Linux/BSD systems even without that”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.