# cmus/cmus

Small, fast and powerful console music player for Unix-like operating systems.

Repository: https://github.com/cmus/cmus
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/cmus
Homepage: https://cmus.github.io/
Language: C
License: GPL-2.0
License Family: copyleft
Last push: 2026-08-12T19:05:38+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 66/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 97, release rhythm 8, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 4995, "days_push": 21, "days_rel": 676, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 1}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 6222, forks 522 (observed 2026-08-28T04:09:40.667233+00:00)

## What it is
cmus is a small, fast and powerful console music player for Unix-like operating systems, built in C with an ncurses interface. It supports a wide range of audio formats via input plugins, multiple output backends, gapless playback, and vi-style keybindings and command mode.

## Use cases
- play music from the terminal
- lightweight music player for a headless or SSH server
- manage and filter large music libraries with playlists
- listen to internet radio streams like SHOUTcast or Icecast
- control music playback remotely via a unix socket
- scrobble plays to Last.fm or Libre.fm

## When to choose
- you want a fast, keyboard-driven music player that runs entirely in a terminal
- you need to play music on a remote server over SSH
- you have a large library and want instant startup and live filtering
- you prefer vi-style keybindings and customizable commands

## When to avoid
- you want a graphical music player with album art and a mouse-driven UI
- you need a music library manager with tagging and metadata editing as a primary feature
- you are on a platform without Unix-like terminal support outside Cygwin/Windows builds

## Facets
- artifact type: application
- maturity: active
- function: audio-processing, cli, plugin-system
- domain: media, cross-platform
- platform: windows, bsd, cli, cross-platform
- tags: music-player, ncurses, terminal-ui, gapless-playback, vi-keybindings, audio-scrobbling, c-programming, audio, command-line, linux, macos

## Member repositories
- cmus/cmus (main) score 66

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:09:40.667233+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-29T17:47:15.182180+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/cmus/cmus (fetched 2026-08-28T04:09:40.667233+00:00, sha 227cf9e21b16)
  - homepage: https://cmus.github.io/ (fetched 2026-08-29T08:43:33.730815+00:00, sha 598d4e629a05)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.