Even though desktop audio/music players are not exactly the hype right now, one can make the difference between you enjoying your local music library/podcast collection and absolutely hating it.
Developed by the KDE team, Elisa is a simple yet powerful, reliable music player with online radio support.
Even though it was designed to offer the best integration possible with the Plasma desktop environment, the app doesn’t compromise support for other platforms (such as other Linux distributions, as well as Windows and Android).
Hence, the app is definitely worth a shot, regardless of what Linux distribution you are running.
What’s to love about Elisa
There are numerous aspects that recommend Elisa as a top-notch music player for Linux. For starters, it’s worth noting that it uses Baloo, one of the best indexing frameworks out there, that automatically looks in your music sources for music files and cover art.
The app looks and feels like a modern app should. Since it also employs the services of Kirigami, it makes the UI responsive and capable of adapting the way it displays information on both mobile and desktop screens.
Other noteworthy features include a so-called “Party Mode” that basically gives the player a bit more focus and makes it more minimalistic, and Dark and Light GUI themes.
What could be better
Elisa is without a doubt a good player, but that’s not to say that it’s perfect. Of course, you can browse music by album, artist, or track, create and manage playlists, but we have to say that using the app for the first time can feel a bit awkward.
For starters, there’s no drag and drop support (which only furthers this problem). Secondly, there’s no quick way to handle single files, or folders, making the whole process of loading music not feel impossible, but definitely not as simple as one might like.
Verdict
Taking everything into consideration, Elisa is a very nice music player. It may not be perfect, but it offers enough features and enough configuration options to keep the day-to-day user happy.
