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15 best music player apps for Android

Music makes people feel good and there are tons of apps for it. Here are the best music player apps for Android!
By
August 25, 2023
Rocket Player - best music player apps for Android

Music player apps have emerged as indispensable tools for music enthusiasts. Beyond offering high-quality audio and user-friendly interfaces, these apps curate your music library with intuitive organization, ensuring easy access to your favorite tunes. These apps provide a user-friendly interface to navigate through music files stored on the device, offering features such as playing individual tracks, creating playlists, organizing music by artists, albums, and genres, and adjusting audio settings like equalization and volume.

However, with a multitude of music players available on the Google Play Store, each promising unique features and a distinct listening experience, the search for the best app can be quite overwhelming. Therefore, we’ve put together this guide to help you find the best music player app for your needs and preferences.

The best music player apps for Android

AIMP

Price: Free

AIMP screenshot 2022

AIMP is a fairly powerful mobile music app. It supports common music file types, including mainstays like FLAC, MP3, MP4, and others. You also get a host of customization options, theming, and other fun stuff like that. The app has a simple UI, and we had no problems getting around and listening to music. It keeps it simple with a decent Material Design interface.

We also appreciated its outstanding equalizer, HTTP live streaming, and volume normalization. It’s definitely a step up from most basic music player apps. There is also a desktop version in case you want to kill two birds with a single app. The only downside is potential compatibility issues with MIUI and EMUI devices.

jetAudio

Price: Free / $2.99 with in-app purchases

jetAudio screenshot 2022

jetAudio has been on and off of this list for years, and it seems to be in a high period right now. The app is good at playing local music. It plays most types of audio, includes audio effects, and the premium version boasts a 20-band equalizer, which is tough to find. In addition to its typical features, there are also a host of plug-ins available as in-app purchases. They include an audio enhancer, visualization, and more. It’s customizable, it works well, and it sounds pretty good.

However, several users have expressed their concerns regarding the player’s inefficiency in sorting and managing playlists, and this is something that could potentially count as a drawback for this app.

MediaMonkey

Price: Free / $1.49 – $2.49 per item

MediaMonkey is one of the best music player apps

MediaMonkey is a bit of a dark horse in the music player apps business. It has a ton of features, including organizational features for things like audiobooks and podcasts and the ability to sort songs by things like composers (instead of just artists). It also has basic stuff like an equalizer.

What makes MediaMonkey a truly unique music player is the ability to sync your music library from your computer to your phone (and back) over WiFi. It’s a bit complicated setup, but it’s virtually a one-of-a-kind feature. Plus, it can sync with the desktop version over a cable almost identically to iTunes, so it’s one of the best ways to manage larger local libraries across devices.

Musicolet

Price: Free / $3.99 – $4.99 per item

Musicolet is a no-BS music player app. It has a lot of desirable features, including many that you don’t often associate with music player apps. That includes a truly offline experience, a lightweight UI, and a small APK size. Additionally, the app features multiple queues (another rarity), an equalizer, a tag editor, support for embedded lyrics, widgets, folder browsing, and more.

Its no-nonsense approach is refreshing. This is a great option for people who just want a music player that plays music without a ton of extra stuff. It’s also completely free with no in-app purchases and, because of its lack of Internet access, no advertising.

Omnia Music Player

Price: Free / $3.99 per item

Omnia is a good music player that ticks enough boxes to be useful to most users. It plays a bunch of different audio files and includes additional features like ReplayGain, audio balancing, Android Auto, Chromecast support, and support for lossless audio. This app is part of the newest wave of audio players where the UI is kept pretty simple and lightly customizable but has enough features to be good. The premium version is a single $3.99 payment, and it’s honestly just delightful to use.

Oto Music

Price: Free / Optional donation

Oto Music is a solid, minimal music player. You get an attractive, easy-to-use player with decent navigation and support for things like Chromecast and Android Auto. Additionally, the app comes with five widgets, gapless playback, a light and dark theme, tag editing, and support for normal and synced lyrics. You get all of that in an app package of about 5MB. There is even a Discord in case you want to speak to the developer.

Everything in the app is free, but you can support the developer with optional donations ranging from $0.99 to $13.99 if you want to. It looks good, it works well, and there’s nothing really wrong with it. This is a rock-solid option in this space.

PlayerPro Music Player

Price: Free

PlayerPro Music Player screenshot 2022

PlayerPro Music Player is another lesser-known music app that should be getting a little more traffic. It features a good-looking interface that makes everything easy to use, along with skins that you can download and install for more customization. You’ll also get support for playing video, a rare ten-band equalizer, Android Auto and Chromecast support, various audio effects, widgets, and some fun little features like the ability to shake the phone to get it to change tracks. It even supports Hi-Fi music (up to 32-bit, 384kHz).

Plexamp

Price: Free / $0.99 – $149.99 per item

Plexamp screenshot

Plexamp is probably your best bet for playing music not stored on your phone but also not streaming like Spotify. You set up your Plex server at home and then use this app to stream music from your computer to your phone. The app has a minimal, good-looking UI, and you can do things like downloading your songs to your phone temporarily for offline use.

The app also includes true gapless playback, loudness leveling, soft transitions, an EQ, a preamp, and some other nice touches for the audiophile crowd. Plex does charge $4.99 per month to use the app since it does have to bounce off of Plex servers to work. However, it’s still cheaper than a music streaming service, and that covers the cost of regular Plex (video content) as well as Plexamp.

Pulsar Music Player

Price: Free

Pulsar is definitely one of the best free music player apps that let you play legal music on Android. The features include beautifully done Material Design, tag editing, gapless playback, smart playlists, a sleep timer, and Last.fm scrobbling. Pulsar also has Chromecast support and some of the best Android Auto support we’ve seen of any app on the list. It’s not as feature-heavy as some of the paid options, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s bad.

It’s a great option for those looking for something minimal, lightweight, and good-looking. The Pro version (Google Play link) is inexpensive and only adds a few more features for $3.99. Neither the free nor premium version has advertising.

Stellio

Price: Free / $1.99 – $14.99 per item

Stellio screenshot

Stellio is a surprisingly good music player. It supports the usual stuff like playlists, various views, and even various themes. You can also look up lyrics online, and they become available offline from that point forward. Other features include above-average audio codec support, widgets, customization settings, and extras like crossfade and a tag editor.

The basic $4.99 premium version removes ads and adds some themes. You can purchase additional themes for $1.99 each or get the $14.99 premium version, where you get everything. The choice is yours, and the themes are actually good.

Symfonium

Price: Free / $4.49 per item

Symfonium screenshot 2022

Symfonium is a different kind of music app. It does play music. However, it aggregates music from home server services like Plex, Emby, Jellyfin, Subsonic, Kodi, and others. That means you can leave your music at home on your computer, set up a server with one of the aforementioned services, and it’ll stream to Symfonium. The app also includes UPnP support, Chromecast support, offline playback, Android Auto support, and more. In fact, this is more customizable with more features than many local music players on this list. This is a nice way to go because you still get the streaming experience, but it’s with your music, and you don’t have to worry about your music taking up space on your device. The pro version costs $3.99, and we think it’s worth it.

Neutron Player

Price: Free trial / $7.99

Neutron Player screenshot 2020
Joe Hindy / Android Authority

Neutron Music Player is another music app that isn’t nearly as popular as it probably should be. It features a 32/64-bit audio rendering engine that is (according to the developers) independent of the Android OS. The idea is that it helps music sound better.

It also has a lot of other features, including support for more unique file types (FLAC, MPC, etc.), a built-in equalizer, and a host of other audiophile-specific features. It’s a bit expensive, and the UI is definitely not the best on the list. However, everything else about it is good.

Poweramp Music Player (Trial)

Price: Free trial / $6.99

Poweramp screenshot 2022

Poweramp has long been one of the go-to music player app choices for a lot of Android users. It has a sleek interface with themes that you can download from the Google Play Store. The interface can be too clever for its own good sometimes. It’s otherwise fast, efficient, and powerful, and there are themes available if you want to go that route. The app also includes many playback features, including gapless playback and crossfade, and it has support for several types of playlists along with Android Auto support.

You’ll also find widgets, tag editing, and more customization settings. You can even download lyrics if you need to. It’s a powerful player that seems to strike the right chord with almost everyone. However, you can enjoy the goodness of the app for free only for 15 days, after which you’ll need to buy the app for a $6.99 one-time purchase. This is a meagre amount if you consider everything that the app has to offer.

YouTube Music

Price: $10.99+ per month

YouTube Music screenshot 2021

YouTube Music is technically a music streaming service, but you can also use it as a local music player. The app should ask you if you want to look at music on your device when you launch it. The UI is average at best, and most of its features revolve around its streaming platform.

However, much like Google Play Music, you can actually upload your own songs to YouTube Music and stream directly from there. That’s a boon for folks who have larger collections and also use phones with limited storage or no SD card slot. Additionally, if you wish to download songs to your device, YouTube Music also lets you do that. Check out our dedicated guide on how to download music on Android to learn how to do that.

Although there are several pros of using YouTube Music, the app is far from perfect, and it’s definitely not as good of a local music player as others on the list. However, with 100,000 songs, this competes well with something like Plexamp, where you can listen to your local tunes without needing the files directly on your phone.

GoneMAD

Price: Free trial / $4.99

GoneMAD screenshot 2023

GoneMAD is a music player that checks most of the boxes. It has a modern UI, plays most types of music files, and includes some extra power user features. It comes with a 10-band equalizer, audio effects, crossfade, Android Auto support, and some other stuff as well. There’s very little wrong with this music player, and it’s slowly been gathering a following over the years. There is a 14-day free trial, after which you have to buy the unlocker for $4.99 as a separate purchase in the Play Store. There is also a classic version you can get that has the same purchase rules as the regular version, but the classic version isn’t in active development anymore.

Bonus: USB Audio Player Pro

Price: $7.99 + $1.99-$3.99

USB Audio Player Pro screenshot 2022

USB Audio Player Pro is the king of its own niche. It works perfectly fine as an audio player for just about anybody. It comes with UPnP support, little extras like gapless playback, a 10-band EQ, and an attractive, functional UI. However, where this one really sings is for the audiophile crowd. The app supports up to 32-bit, 394kHz audio natively with support for FLAC, MQA, DSD, SACD, and a ton of other audio codecs.

Additionally, it specifically works well with USB DACs as well as HiRes DACs like the one in LG phones. That’s a good thing because most other music players don’t do that very well. You can even stream music (via TIDAL, Qobuz, and Shoutcast) through this app in order to take advantage of your hardware.

It’s a bit expensive, and those without special DACs definitely don’t need anything like this, but it’s the best for those who do use such hardware. Onkyo HF Player (Google Play link) is also pretty good in this space, but we think UAPP is a little better.


If we missed any of the best music player apps for Android, tell us about them in the comments. This is an update of a previously written article, so check the comments for some suggestions from our readers! You can also click here to check out our latest Android app and game lists.