Internet radio (also known as web radio, net radio, streaming radio, and online radio) is a digital audio service transmitted via the Internet.
Why do we like internet radio? There are no sign-up or subscription charges. There’s a huge range of stations available from around the world. If you like classical music, pop music, folk music, news, talk radio, and much more, internet radio has something for everyone wherever you live (providing you have a net connection). Internet radio offers every format that is available on traditional broadcast radio stations.
There’s a wide range of free and open source software that lets you listen to internet radio. With so many different possibilities available it’s easy to get lost trying to find the right one for you.
Here’s our verdict on the best GUI-based internet radio software. Features that are highly desirable include, but are not limited to, access to the community radio browser API or similar, recording streams, the ability to import/export a list of radio stations, good search functionality, station logos, reordering stations, as well as an attractive and easy-to-use interface. Other factors that help to determine our rating include things like the program’s stability, speed, memory usage, and more.
Only open source software is eligible for inclusion.
We must stress that the rating for each program represents our assessment of the program’s capabilities as an internet radio program. Many of the programs are not dedicated internet radio software. And the fact we’ve scored some programs (fairly) lowly isn’t indicative of their qualities as a music player. For example, Tauon Music Box is our recommended open source music player. It’s truly an amazing music player. While recent releases have added more internet radio functionality to Tauon, there’s plenty of scope for further improvements in this area.
Let’s have a look at the programs in more detail. For most of the software, we’ve written a detailed review. All of the programs offer a graphical interface. Terminal-based internet radio apps are covered in this separate article.
| Internet Radio | |
|---|---|
| Tuner | Minimalist radio station player written in Vala |
| Shortwave | Rust based dedicated internet radio program |
| Tauon Music Box | Python based music player |
| QMPlay2 | C++ based music and video player |
| Yarock | C++ based music player |
| Olivia | C++ based music player |
| Sayonara Player | C++ based music player |
| Radio | Vala based radio station player |
| Rhythmbox | C based music player |
| Quod Libet | Python based music player |
| Byte | Vala based music player designed for elementary OS |
| StreamTuner2 | Python based dedicated internet radio program |
| Banshee | C# based music player |
| Amarok | C++ based music player |
| Clementine | C++ based music player |
| Radiotray-NG | C++ based dedicated internet radio program |
| Goodvibes | C based dedicated internet radio program |
| Melody | Vala based music player designed for elementary OS |
| Exaile | Python based music player |
| GogglesMM | C++ based music collection manager and player |
| Audacious | C++ based music player |
| Aqualung | C Gtk-based audio player |
 Read our complete collection of recommended free and open source software. Our curated compilation covers all categories of software. The software collection forms part of our series of informative articles for Linux enthusiasts. There are hundreds of in-depth reviews, open source alternatives to proprietary software from large corporations like Google, Microsoft, Apple, Adobe, IBM, Cisco, Oracle, and Autodesk. There are also fun things to try, hardware, free programming books and tutorials, and much more. |
Originally Published in June 2022
Hello all !
is there any of these internet radio programs able to do recording ?
Most don’t offer recording but StreamTuner2 does. I think it uses streamripper for the recording
Tauon Music Box offers recording and it’s great software.
I really dislike Tauon’s interface. Clunky, poorly designed and poorly implemented.
I only use software that runs under Linux and Windows. I really don’t want to have to use different software all the time. Tauon used to have a Windows port but that was sadly dropped by its developer. There’s lots of good music players that run under both platforms. Maybe you should highlight this more?
QMMP
Maybe also add that it’s trivial to make an m3u playlist to play in Strawberry/QMMP (which can record with a plugin – into separate music files for any station which broadcasts the data) though these aren’t radio apps.
QMPlay2 also has a great Radio browser to find/add stations, mp3 and Youtube windows for searching and downloading (Video or just audio)…