v1.4.3 latest release

A music player that respects what’s yours.

Download for Windows Download for macOS Download for Linux
winget install heartached.Noctis
scoop bucket add noctis https://github.com/heartached/scoop-bucketscoop install noctis
choco install noctis

5,320 downloads Source on GitHub

The Noctis home screen showing recently played albums and the playback bar.
  • FLAC
  • ALAC
  • WAV
  • AIFF
  • APE
  • WavPack
  • MP3
  • AAC
  • OGG
  • Opus
  • WMA
  • M4A

A library that looks as good as it sounds

  • Bad by Michael Jackson
  • Espresso by Sabrina Carpenter
  • Tha Carter V by Lil Wayne
  • eternal sunshine by Ariana Grande
  • Death Race for Love by Juice WRLD
  • Un Verano Sin Ti by Bad Bunny
  • Thriller by Michael Jackson
  • GUTS by Olivia Rodrigo
  • Take Care by Drake
  • 714EVER by Yung Pinch
  • Goodbye & Good Riddance by Juice WRLD
  • Revival by Selena Gomez
  • ? by XXXTENTACION
  • Dangerous Woman by Ariana Grande
  • Tha Carter III by Lil Wayne
  • The Secret of Us by Gracie Abrams
  • 17 by XXXTENTACION

Time-synced lyrics

Each line lights up as it is sung, down to the word when the lyrics carry the timing.

Built for big libraries

Everything you see here comes built in. No plugins, no accounts, no paid tier.

Library that scales

Songs, albums, artists and folders, with the album view filtered down to singles or EPs in a click.

The album grid with the release-type filter open, narrowing to singles.

Make it yours

Themes and accent colours out of the box, plus an editor for when none of them fit.

The appearance settings, showing theme choices and the custom accent colour picker.

Every tag, editable

Fix any field on any track, and read bit depth and sample rate straight from the list.

The tag editor open over the songs list, with every metadata field editable.

Convert in batches

Eleven output formats, with bitrate, tags and artwork carried across.

Smart playlists

Set the rules once and the playlist keeps itself current.

Duplicate finder

Finds the same song twice and lets you keep the better file.

File organiser

Renames and refiles your music from the tags it already has.

Command palette

One shortcut, then type your way to any view or action.

Watched folders

Point Noctis at a folder and new files appear on their own.

Listening stats

Counts what you actually played, with a monthly and yearly Wrap.

See the whole chain

Five stages sit between the file on your disk and your output device.

  1. File
  2. Decode LibVLC
  3. ReplayGain
  4. Parametric EQ
  5. Exclusive output Windows only

  • Exclusive output

    Windows only. Bypasses the system mixer and opens your device at the track’s own rate; 16-bit sources pass through untouched.

  • Gapless playback

    One album side, no seam between tracks.

  • Crossfade and AutoMix

    Blend one track into the next, by hand or automatically.

Where it stands

Every cell was checked against the source.

Noctis foobar2000 MusicBee Harmonoid Strawberry
Reach and licence
Runs on all three desktops Win + Mac foobar2000 has no native Linux build; Linux use means Wine. Windows MusicBee is Windows-only and the project calls a port unlikely. sponsor build Strawberry supports all three, but prebuilt Windows and macOS binaries are available to sponsors at $7/month. Linux builds are free.
Licence MIT OSI-approved permissive licence. freeware Binary-only freeware under its own licence, not open source. freeware Closed source. The project FAQ answers "Is MusicBee open source? No". PolyForm PolyForm Strict 1.0.0 — source-available, but not an OSI-approved open source licence. GPL-3.0 OSI-approved copyleft licence.
Native app, not Electron
What ships built in
Artwork carousel browsing plugin Not built in — provided by a third-party plugin for foobar2000, and that plugin is unmaintained since 2020. plugin Not built in — provided by a third-party plugin for MusicBee.
Discord Rich Presence plugin Not built in — provided by a third-party plugin for foobar2000. plugin Not built in — provided by a third-party plugin for MusicBee.
Theme editor, any accent colour partial Per-element colour overrides and theme files, but no propagating accent colour. skin files No in-app editor — theming means hand-authoring skin XML.
In-app self-update components Updates its components in-app, not the application itself. macOS only Self-update ships on macOS builds only.
Even footing
ReplayGain
Gapless playback
Noctis Free Spotify Premium Apple Music Subscription
Ownership
Works with no subscription
No account required
No telemetry or analytics
Plays FLAC files you own partial FLAC added via Local Files usually plays on the desktop app, but FLAC is not an officially supported format and does not sync to the mobile apps.
Nothing can be delisted or swapped
Offline forever, no re-auth check-in
Open source, MIT
Your library, your rules
Edit metadata tags
Embed your own artwork
Bring your own lyrics files
Folder-based browsing
Parametric EQ with presets basic Spotify ships a fixed-band graphic equaliser with presets on mobile and desktop, with no per-band frequency or Q control. basic Apple Music offers a fixed 10-band graphic EQ with presets — in-app on Mac, system settings on iOS — with no frequency or Q control.
Always-on listening stats annual recap Spotify Wrapped is published once a year. annual recap Apple Music Replay is published once a year.
Cover Flow browsing
Full theme editor, any accent colour
Integrations
Last.fm scrobbling
ListenBrainz scrobbling account link Nothing in the Spotify app itself — ListenBrainz can link a Spotify account on its own site and import listens automatically.
Discord Rich Presence

Pick your platform

All builds are free and open source, straight from GitHub Releases.