karlstav/cava
Cross-platform Audio Visualizer observed · 2026-08-28
Health v2 · maintenance only
86/100
- Activity 98
- Release rhythm 64
- Longevity 100
How is this computed?
round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10) — computed 2026-09-03. Adoption (stars, forks) is never an input.
- gap_med: 137.5
- age_days: 4553
- days_rel: 81
- days_push: 15
- n_releases_24m: 5
Adoption not part of the score
6370 stars · 295 forks observed · 2026-08-28
What it is AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, 2026-08-29, confidence not recorded
CAVA is a cross-platform bar spectrum audio visualizer that renders real-time frequency visualizations in the terminal or in an SDL desktop window. It captures audio from many backends (PulseAudio, PipeWire, ALSA, JACK, sndio, Core Audio, etc.) and supports GLSL shaders, ncurses output, and a cavacore library for embedding.
Use cases
- visualize music playing on my linux desktop
- terminal audio spectrum visualizer
- show a bar visualizer for pulseaudio output
- render audio spectrum with sdl and shaders
- run an audio visualizer over ssh
- embed a spectrum analyzer in my own app
When to choose
- you want an aesthetic, responsive real-time spectrum visualizer on Linux, macOS, Windows, or FreeBSD
- you need terminal-based visualization over ssh or in dumb terminals
- you want flexible audio capture backends and GLSL shader customization
When to avoid
- you need scientifically accurate spectral analysis
- you need a visualizer for a web or mobile app
- you only need offline audio file analysis rather than live capture
Facets
application · maturity active
audio-processing gui terminal-ui cli media cross-platform developer-tools windows bsd cli cross-platform audio-visualizer spectrum-analyzer sdl2 pulseaudio pipewire alsa ncurses fftw glsl-shaders terminal audio linux macos
1 source
- readme: https://github.com/karlstav/cava · fetched 2026-08-28 · 2944eee47b0a
Member repositories
| Repository | Role | Health v2 |
|---|---|---|
| karlstav/cava | main | 86 |
For agents
Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00 · Report a problem