mpd

Music Player Daemon (MPD) runs as a background service that plays audio files of many formats using the host’s audio device. It builds a catalog of the music available on the system, allowing fast searching and retrieval of track information. The daemon exposes a network protocol so that client applications can control playback, query status, and manage playlists from remote machines.

Clients communicate with MPD over TCP, sending commands to start, stop, or skip tracks, adjust volume, and modify queues. Because the server handles all decoding and output, multiple independent front‑ends can be used simultaneously, each providing its own user interface while sharing the same playback engine.

The project is stable and includes a command‑line interface, extensive documentation, and a public protocol specification. It is licensed under the GNU General Public License version 2, and its source code and support channels are hosted on GitHub.