you@terminal ~ $ audium
audium
// music that lives in your terminal
a terminal music app: keyboard-driven, for people who live in the command line. no electron. no cloud sync. no background daemons. no ffmpeg. your files, your library, your rules.
installation
## pick your platform
cargo (all platforms)
cargo install audium# requires rust (edition 2024)
aur (arch linux)
paru -S audium# or yay, or manually with makepkg
audium targets linux exclusively and uses alsa, the standard linux audio api, its development headers are needed to build, see the readme for distro-specific instructions.
features
## everything you need. nothing you don't.
format agnostic
plays MP3, FLAC, OGG, WAV, AAC, M4A, Opus, AIFF and more via Symphonia, with no FFmpeg required.
keyboard-driven
built to be driven entirely from the keyboard, for people who live in the terminal and never reach for the mouse. press ? anytime to see every keybinding.
library & metadata
import your files and audium reads artist, album, year and genre from their tags automatically, all editable in-app.
lyrics
store plain or synced lyrics per track, with an overlay that follows along as the song plays.
themes
15 built-in themes including nord, gruvbox, catppuccin, rosé pine, dracula and tokyo night. switch live, with transparency support.
playlists & queue
build playlists, shuffle them into the queue, and loop a single track or the whole thing.
playback control
filter your library as you type, adjust playback speed, and seek freely.
threaded audio
playback runs on its own thread, so the interface never stutters your music.
it's your library
stored at $XDG_DATA_HOME/audium/library.json, plain JSON, human-readable, editable by hand. audium doesn't rename your files, doesn't embed metadata, and never phones home.
why audium
## lighter. simpler. actually yours.
alternatives like termusic ship with heavy dependency trees, FFmpeg requirements, daemon processes, or config formats that take longer to learn than the app itself. audium takes a different approach.
no ffmpeg, no daemon
one binary. Zero background processes. Symphonia handles every format natively in-process.
smaller and faster to build
fewer dependencies means shorter compile times and a ~3 MB release binary with no runtime surprises.
cleaner ui
built on ratatui with a layout designed for daily use, not just feature completeness. Panels, queue, progress bar, volume: everything visible at once.
modern codebase
written in Rust edition 2024. No unsafe, no global state, no legacy baggage.
plain data, no lock-in
your library is a JSON file you can read, edit, back up, or move between machines freely. audium is a tool, not a platform.
system audio, done right
audium plays through your default system output. Switch devices at the OS level and it follows, no in-app device picker that fights your setup.