Best FOSS, Ad-Free Music Apps for Phones (iOS and Android)

Off Topic
21

Newpipe? You can even create playlists there!

1 Like
22

Newpipe isn’t working for youtube right now due to API changes. The devs are currently working it per https://www.reddit.com/r/NewPipe/comments/1dz8bjj/about_youtube_playback_errors_youtube_changed/ but for now its still down.

1 Like
23

In my experience, Libretube works really badly. I gave it a shot again recently, and videos just didn’t load at all. The other ones that actually loaded went into eternal buffering.

1 Like
24

That is correct, and sadly, NewPipe is not getting frequent updates as it used to.

25

The best one I’ve found is Harmony Music, which uses piped as its backend. If you want something that’s offline you can use spotdl to download music with metadata, sync it to your phone, and use something like metro to play it.

1 Like
26

Its fixed!

2 Likes
27

https://songtube.github.io/

Or

28

For Spotify experience like I use Innertune

I have been using less and less it, because either I download my songs and have my own playlists played in a offline player like Metro or I use Funkwhale

1 Like
29

@Lukas recently you opened a thread to add Clipious to the recommendations. Have something changed on those negatives points that you brought about Invidious that made it more relevant?

30
  1. Clipious is available on Accrescent, which is something that some people might care about.
  2. Having frontends for YouTube, Piped, and Invidious makes sense because people could switch between them if one or two of the options break, which is to be expected if YouTube continues trying to kill frontends.
1 Like
31

Another vote for Innertune. Very nice app, has great UI and UX. Only available on Android though. You have the option to download songs as well and use it offline. It connects directly to YouTube Music though so you should probably use a VPN. There is a FOSS version available on Github releases but lacks some features compared to the ‘Full’ version.

2 Likes
32

Same, +1 for innertune + VPN. You get Material 3 design, its very responsive, and I like minimal customization. For people who want more granular control on the UI, RiMusic is the way to go.

2 Likes
33

I find it intriguing that the other YT frontend apps are not available in the Accrescent yet. I ask because given your response not updating the negative aspects we probably have a bit of a preference to use Piped apps instead of Invidious.

Agree. I’m keeping Clipious (Invidious) and NewPipe/Tubular (Piped) at the moment and I actually never bother to ask myself which source Grayjay is using. Is this disclosed in some place and I missed?

34

Yeah, I have Innertune and RiMusic at the moment but honest I would like to keep one to reduce the surface attack on my phone. It is quite difficult to decide which I should keep.

35

NewPipe, Tubular, and Grayjay connect to YouTube directly.

Clipious uses Invidious, and LibreTube uses Piped. Both options also have the ability to disable proxying and connect to YouTube directly.

36

Had the same problem. Went with Innertune in the end for a couple of reasons:

  1. Rimusic has too many options for me. I want software that gets out of my way.
  2. The maintainer for rimusic did not want donations, so I am a bit concerned about longevity. Innertune happily takes donations, so I am a bit more sure of sustainability.

In the end, choose what helps you listen music the best :slight_smile:

1 Like
37

Ooh, clipious can directly connect? Can you help me find where that option is? Last time I checked I couldn’t find the option. Would obviously prefer it over other options as accrescent can handle it for me, but that feature lacking made me switch.

38

Agreed. Found it too overwhelming honestly :sweat_smile:

1 Like
39

Proxying is disabled by default.

What issues did you had with Clipious? Just enable DASH and pick the highest quality, it works like a charm, just tested it.

1 Like
40

Slow loading mostly. Will test again and edit here if successful!