Open-source alternatives to Howler.js

Namida is a multi-format media player, music library manager, and network media streamer. It provides a unified interface for playing local and remote audio and video files, serving as both a specialized client for YouTube content and a synchronized lyrics player. The project distinguishes itself through a dynamic theme engine that generates artwork-based visuals and a comprehensive set of audio processing tools, including gain normalization, equalizers, and crossfading. It also features a specialized system for retrieving and displaying time-synced lyrics in formats such as LRC and TTML. Br

SoundManager2 is a JavaScript audio API and cross-browser audio engine designed to provide consistent playback across different web browsers and devices. It functions as an HTML5 audio wrapper and playback manager that abstracts native APIs into a unified interface, ensuring compatibility through an automatic switching mechanism between available audio backends and codecs. The library distinguishes itself with an RTMP audio streamer for network communication with media servers and a built-in ID3 metadata parser for extracting track titles, artist information, and genre tags from audio files.

AudioKit is an audio framework for iOS, macOS, and tvOS that provides tools for digital audio synthesis, signal processing, and audio analysis. It functions as a synthesis engine for generating audio waveforms and textures, a processing library for modifying tonal characteristics, and a toolkit for extracting frequency and amplitude data from sonic signals. The framework utilizes a modular node architecture and graph-based signal routing to connect audio generators, processors, and outputs. It wraps low-level audio primitives in high-level classes to facilitate sound generation and modificati

LMMS is a digital audio workstation and MIDI sequencer designed for composing, arranging, and mixing music. It functions as a comprehensive production environment that integrates a MIDI sequencer, a sample-based synthesizer, and an audio mixing console. The project distinguishes itself through a versatile synthesis engine that includes additive synthesis, wavetable generation, and emulations of vintage hardware such as NES audio and FM chips. It also serves as a VST plugin host, allowing for the integration of third-party virtual instruments and audio effects via a standardized interface. Be

JUCE is a comprehensive C++ audio framework and digital signal processing library used to build cross-platform audio applications, audio plug-ins, and high-performance user interfaces. It serves as a development kit for creating audio processors compatible with industry-standard plugin formats for digital audio workstations, as well as a tool for MIDI and Open Sound Control communication between musical hardware and software. The framework is distinguished by its ability to maintain a single codebase for native desktop and mobile applications across multiple operating systems. It provides a f

Metrolist is a music streaming application and library manager designed for high-fidelity audio and video playback. It functions as a collaborative audio player that enables real-time playback synchronization across multiple users through a request and approval system. The platform features an AI-driven lyrics translator that fetches time-synced lyrics and provides automated real-time translations. It also includes specialized integrations for Discord Rich Presence and a dedicated media client interface for Android Auto. The system manages music libraries with remote cloud storage synchroniz

Opus is a lossy audio compression standard and codec designed for high-quality speech and music transmission over the internet. It functions as a low-latency audio codec and network-resilient streamer, providing a framework for encoding and decoding digital audio. The project distinguishes itself through the support of multi-channel ambisonics for immersive three-dimensional spatial audio reproduction. It is specifically optimized for real-time interactive communication, utilizing dynamic bitrate adjustment and forward error correction to maintain audio quality on unstable networks. The syst

Webamp is a JavaScript library that provides a browser-based media player interface designed to replicate the experience of classic desktop audio software. It functions as a reusable component that allows developers to embed customizable, skinnable audio playback controls directly into web pages. The project distinguishes itself through its focus on legacy software emulation, recreating the visual and functional design patterns of traditional media players within modern web environments. It achieves this by rendering complex interface elements onto a canvas surface and managing application st

OuterTune is an Android music player and third-party YouTube Music client designed for playing local audio files and streaming remote content. It provides a user interface built with Material 3 and includes a dedicated media application for Android Auto to enable safe media management on vehicle head units. The project distinguishes itself by offering advertisement-free streaming of music and videos from remote services. It supports offline media archiving through a downloader that saves remote songs to local storage for playback without an internet connection. The application covers a broad

miniaudio is a single-file C audio library used for audio playback, capture, and hardware interfacing across multiple operating systems. It functions as an audio hardware abstraction layer, an audio processing engine, an audio synthesis engine, and a codec and resampler. The project implements a node-graph based system for routing digital audio signals, mixing, and 3D spatialization. It also includes a programmatic generator for noise patterns and basic waveforms used for sound creation and signal testing. The library covers digital signal processing, including audio format conversion and sa

MIDI.js is a JavaScript library for playing MIDI files and triggering musical notes within web browsers. It functions as a web MIDI library and soundfont audio synthesizer, providing the core engines necessary to render instrument sounds for multiple simultaneous tracks. The project includes a specialized MIDI-to-visual sync engine that interpolates musical events into continuous animation loops to synchronize visuals with audio playback. It also provides a soundfont code generator to convert audio instrument files into base64 code for direct browser consumption. The library covers MIDI file

Nannou is a creative coding framework for Rust designed for building interactive visual and audio sketches. It provides a loop-based API with hardware-accelerated 2D and 3D rendering, serving as a toolkit for generative art production and multimedia installation design. The framework is distinguished by its comprehensive hardware communication interface, which bridges software with physical devices via MIDI, OSC, DMX, serial, and laser DAC protocols. It also includes specialized projection mapping tools for warping visual output to fit non-standard physical surfaces and a dedicated GPU shader

Pygame is a framework for building interactive 2D applications and games using the Python programming language. It functions as a 2D graphics rendering engine, a game input and event manager, and a multimedia audio toolkit. The project serves as a wrapper for the Simple DirectMedia Layer, providing a Python interface for low-level access to graphics, audio, keyboard, mouse, and joystick hardware. Its capabilities cover 2D graphics rendering and image manipulation, digital audio playback and streaming, and the management of game entities and physics simulations. It also includes tools for rea

The Android NDK samples provide a comprehensive collection of code examples demonstrating how to integrate C and C++ native code into Android applications. This repository serves as a practical guide for developers utilizing the Android Native Development Kit to implement performance-critical application components that require direct hardware access and low-level system interaction. The project highlights the use of the Java Native Interface to bridge managed code with native modules, enabling cross-language function calls and efficient data exchange. It demonstrates how to manage native act

NAudio is a .NET audio library that provides playback, recording, format conversion, and signal processing capabilities for Windows applications. It serves as an audio format converter between common formats like WAV, MP3, AAC, and AIFF using ACM or Media Foundation codecs, and functions as an audio playback and recording API through Windows audio APIs including WaveOut, DirectSound, ASIO, and WASAPI. The library includes an audio stream processor that can mix, trim, loop, fade, resample, and adjust pitch or channel count of audio streams with a floating-point engine. It also provides an audi

tuna

This project is an RTMP media streaming SDK and a real-time communication framework designed for pushing and playing audio and video streams. It provides tools for interactive broadcasting, low-latency voice and video calls, and a cross-platform media player compatible with Windows, iOS, and Android. The toolkit enables interactive live broadcasting with support for multi-host interactions and the ability to push streams to distribution servers via CDN. It includes a cloud recording manager for capturing live sessions and saving them as files to cloud storage, along with a system for composit

This repository is a comprehensive collection of reference implementations and sample libraries for the Universal Windows Platform. It provides practical examples of how to use Windows Runtime APIs to build cross-device applications, including detailed guidance on XAML-based declarative user interfaces and DirectX-integrated rendering. The project distinguishes itself by providing a wide array of hardware integration suites, covering low-level communication with USB, Serial, I2C, SPI, and GPIO peripherals. It includes specialized implementations for mixed reality holographic rendering, advanc

Amethyst is a data-driven game engine written in Rust for building high-performance 2D and 3D games. It is built on an entity component system architecture that decouples game state from logic to enable parallel processing and reusable code. The framework features a glTF 3D renderer for importing scenes and geometry using physically based materials. It also serves as a multiplayer game framework, providing network transport abstractions and state synchronization for real-time online experiences. The engine covers a broad range of capabilities, including hybrid 2D/3D rendering, asynchronous a

This repository is a comprehensive collection of functional 2D and 3D demo projects and implementation samples for the Godot Game Engine. It serves as an interactive tutorial and reference library, providing a working codebase to demonstrate how to apply engine features in real-world scenarios. The collection focuses on practical implementation guides, covering a wide array of technical capabilities from basic engine fundamentals to advanced rendering and scripting techniques. It allows users to study the application of node-based composition, asset pipelines, and game logic through direct ex

cpal is a low-level Rust audio hardware abstraction layer and cross-platform API. It serves as a unified interface for managing audio input and output streams across Windows, macOS, and Linux hardware, acting as a device driver wrapper to discover audio hosts and configure hardware devices. The project functions as a real-time audio streamer, utilizing a high-priority callback system to stream audio samples to hardware devices with minimal latency. The library covers audio hardware integration, including the discovery and configuration of sample rates and channel counts. It supports audio in

librespot is an open-source audio streaming client and library used to implement custom music players that authenticate and stream audio from the Spotify service. It functions as a framework for fetching, decoding, and routing remote audio streams to various system backends and audio sinks. The project specifically implements a Spotify Connect receiver, allowing it to act as a remote-controllable playback endpoint that appears as a selectable device within other Spotify applications. This enables the creation of virtual playback devices, headless music playback on remote servers, and the inte

Frigate is a self-hosted network video recorder that functions as a private, local AI-powered vision engine. It manages video streams by performing real-time object detection, tracking, and classification directly on local hardware, ensuring that security monitoring and activity recording remain independent of cloud services. The system distinguishes itself through a modular, hardware-accelerated video pipeline that offloads intensive decoding and machine learning inference to dedicated GPUs, NPUs, or specialized accelerators like Coral TPUs and Hailo modules. It utilizes state-based object t

LibGDX is a Java-based framework designed for cross-platform game development, enabling the creation and deployment of 2D and 3D games across desktop, mobile, and web environments from a single codebase. It functions as a comprehensive library that abstracts hardware-accelerated graphics, audio, input, and file system access, providing a unified interface for developers to manage game logic and application lifecycles. The framework distinguishes itself through a high-performance architecture that prioritizes efficiency and native interoperability. It utilizes a batch-oriented graphics pipelin

NuttX is a POSIX-compliant real-time operating system designed for microcontrollers ranging from 8-bit to 64-bit architectures. It provides a deterministic execution environment with a real-time task scheduler and a POSIX embedded kernel to ensure portable code execution across diverse hardware targets. The project distinguishes itself through a comprehensive hardware abstraction layer that provides standardized drivers for I2C, SPI, CAN, and USB across various semiconductor chipsets. It also features an embedded networking stack supporting TCP, UDP, IPv4, and IPv6, alongside industrial proto

LiveKit is a comprehensive framework for building and orchestrating real-time, multimodal AI agents that interact with users through voice, video, and text. It provides a centralized, event-driven architecture to manage the entire lifecycle of automated participants, from initialization and session state management to graceful shutdown. By utilizing a selective forwarding unit, the platform efficiently routes media streams between participants and agents, ensuring low-latency communication and secure, token-based authentication for all connections. The platform distinguishes itself through it

Expo is a universal mobile framework designed to build native iOS and Android applications from a single codebase using web-standard technologies. It provides a comprehensive development environment that includes a unified runtime for testing, cloud-based infrastructure for compiling and signing native binaries, and automated tools for managing the entire mobile release lifecycle, including app store submission. The framework distinguishes itself through a plugin-based native configuration engine that programmatically modifies project files, allowing developers to integrate native modules wit