Winamp

Long-term owners

flawlessly work on my Windows 11 install 23 years later

Nov 2025 · comment

What hackers pick instead

• iTunesPraised for simple CD ripping, library management and iPhone syncing, especially in early versions. Critics say it became bloated, pushes Apple Music and sometimes deletes library files.55recommend
• foobar2000People recommend it for its simple, customizable layout, broad format support, and long-running reliability, and it has no real equivalent. Critics say it is Windows-first and weaker on other platforms.54recommend
• PlexampMusic player valued for discovery in large libraries and smooth Plex server use. Main caveat: it costs money, and critics call the price too high.31recommend
• Audacious music playerPeople recommend it as a fast, minimal, cross-platform music player that plays almost any format and supports classic Winamp skins. The one recurring complaint is that it struggles with HiRes displays.17recommend
• SymfoniumPeople recommend it as a top Android music player for self-hosted libraries, and say it works well with Jellyfin and Navidrome.11recommend

Every quote

The 40 most detailed of 72 comments. Each links to the original.

1. Winamp was perfectly fine by itself as I recall it. But as soon as you did anything else that involved any kind of IO, there would be skips and stutters.

   Mixed · Oct 2026 · in “I love software rendering”

2. all the programs I have fond memories of are written with it (foobar2000, winamp, Everything, etc)

   Recommends · Jan 2026 · in “Wine 11.0”

3. which works great with WinAmp (even the old versions from the 90s still run fine in Windows 11)

   Recommends · Jan 2026 · in “50% of U.S. vinyl buyers don't own a record player”

4. Winamp was pretty cool. ... I kind of gave up on winamp, mostly because my use cases shifted.

   Mixed · Mar 2026 · in “A retro terminal music player inspired by Winamp”

5. I've tried tons of solutions over the years like sooperlooper, ableton live, reaper, winamp

   Mixed · Jul 2026 · in “Show HN: YouTube Guitar Tab Parser”

6. about as easy to use without a license as WinRAR, so you can trial it indefinitely

   Recommends · May 2026 · in “Nullsoft, 1997-2004 AOL kills off the last maverick tech company (2004)”

7. my MP3 collection and WinAmp from high school continue to work without issue

   Recommends · Jun 2026 · in “Stop the Apple Music app from launching”

8. WinAmp has been dead for centuries but it's still a perfectly valid player

   Recommends · Jul 2026 · in “CodePen 2.0”

9. It works great, does what I need, and I've never had a problem with it.

   Recommends · Mar 2026 · in “Windows native app development is a mess”

10. all versions of WinAmp + skins still work great in 2026 even on Win11

    Recommends · Apr 2026 · in “LittleSnitch for Linux”

11. the amount of personalization you had with your desktop environment

    Recommends · Jul 2026 · in “Winamp Skin Museum”

12. One thing I loved about WinAmp was its ability to use audio plugins

    Recommends · Jul 2026 · in “Winamp Skin Museum”

13. My first experience of listening to serious music from computer.

    Recommends · May 2026 · in “Nullsoft, 1997-2004 AOL kills off the last maverick tech company (2004)”

14. Yet they pulled off one of the most usable media player.

    Recommends · Nov 2025 · in “Winamp clone in Swift for macOS”

15. Winamp had a simplicity to it that made it great to use.

    Recommends · May 2026 · in “Show HN: We missed Winamp, so we built an audio player for macOS”

16. flawlessly work on my Windows 11 install 23 years later

    Recommends · Nov 2025 · in “Meta replaces WhatsApp for Windows with web wrapper”

17. I use WinAmp 2.0 sometimes which was released in 1996

    Recommends · Jan 2026 · in “Microsoft May Have Created the Slowest Windows in 25 Years with Windows 11”

18. Definitely have preferred Winamp throughout my life.

    Recommends · Apr 2026 · in “Wamp, WinAmp style native audio player for macOS”

19. Even WinAmp 2.0 from 1998 still runs on Windows 11.

    Recommends · Jan 2026 · in “Microsoft May Have Created the Slowest Windows in 25 Years with Windows 11”

20. I distinctly remember listening to music via Winamp

    Recommends · Oct 2026 · in “I love software rendering”

21. And Winamp 2.95 still works on WIndows 11 today.

    Recommends · Mar 2026 · in “Windows native app development is a mess”

22. how great it was to load up some music in Winamp

    Recommends · Nov 2025 · in “Winamp clone in Swift for macOS”

23. I like 100% of the classic Winamp player UI/UX.

    Recommends · May 2026 · in “Show HN: We missed Winamp, so we built an audio player for macOS”

24. matches the incredible extensibility of Winamp

    Recommends · Oct 2026 · in “Software may be getting worse, but it used to be horrible”

25. Wasn't Winamp 2 the gold standard?

    Recommends · Apr 2026 · in “Claude Design”

26. even more general and dated than the Winamp genre list

    Criticizes · Mar 2026 · in “The Appalling Stupidity of Spotify's AI DJ”

27. because it was, as you said, slow (er)

    Criticizes · Apr 2026 · in “Claude Design”

28. hasn't aged so well, sadly

    Criticizes · Oct 2026 · in “IRCv3”

29. My Winamp setup c 2005 was worlds better than what's possible now on a typical listening device.

    Recommends · Sep 2026 · in “AirPods 5”

30. how fast/instant Winamp loads the huge directory (recursively), while other players struggle

    Recommends · Jul 2026 · in “Moby Dick Workout”

31. kept the economy of screen real estate while still providing unique and imaginative visuals

    Recommends · Apr 2026 · in “Direct Win32 API, Weird-Shaped Windows, and Why They Mostly Disappeared”

32. It's even pretty good in the high dpi monitors because Ctrl-D enables "Double size" mode

    Recommends · Nov 2025 · in “Winamp clone in Swift for macOS”

33. probably did more to popularize using computers to listen to music than anything else

    Recommends · May 2026 · in “Gnutella: A Protocol Outlives the World That Created It”

34. Winamp, Musicmatch, SoundForge, all the CADs for more or less professional work

    Recommends · Oct 2026 · in “Software may be getting worse, but it used to be horrible”

35. I would be pretty happy if I could get the Android version of Winmmp back

    Recommends · Jan 2026 · in “50% of U.S. vinyl buyers don't own a record player”

36. how simple the format is - basically just a bunch of BMPs in a zip file

    Recommends · Jul 2026 · in “Winamp Skin Museum”

37. WinAmp was smaller, faster, and more customizable thirty years ago.

    Recommends · Sep 2026 · in “Fastpotify”

38. Seriously, bring Winamp back! It will really whip the Llama's ass.

    Recommends · Jan 2026 · in “Winapp, the Windows App Development CLI – Windows Developer Blog”

39. a program with an OS agnostic UI that didn't seem too out of place

    Recommends · Apr 2026 · in “Direct Win32 API, Weird-Shaped Windows, and Why They Mostly Disappeared”

40. I get around the lack of such a mode by still using winamp!

    Recommends · Sep 2026 · in “Fastpotify”