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Nuclear

Free, open-source desktop music player that finds and streams songs from sources around the web.

Open sourceMusic streaming services
Visit NuclearSee 6 alternatives
Verified facts
5 of 5
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About Nuclear

Nuclear is a desktop music player that lets you search for an artist, album or track and play it without a streaming subscription. Instead of licensing a catalog, it looks for audio on third-party sources and lets you pick which result to play; plugins from its built-in store add more sources. You can build playlists from any source, import playlists from other services or JSON files, and keep favourites in a local library. It also keeps local listening statistics, can be controlled from a phone on the same network, exposes an MPD server for terminal clients, and ships a built-in MCP server so AI agents can queue music. The project is free and open source under the AGPL, with no ads, tracking or paid tier. It runs on Windows, macOS and Linux only; there is no mobile app. Because it depends on what outside sources happen to have, track availability and audio quality vary, and some songs fail to play.

Best for: Desktop listeners who want free, ad-free search-and-play music without a streaming subscription.

Pros and cons

What works

  • Free and open source with no ads, telemetry or premium tier
  • Plugin store adds new music sources and features
  • Phone remote, MPD server and MCP server for automation
  • Local listening history and stats stay on your machine

Why people leave

  • No Android or iOS app
  • Playback depends on third-party sources, so some tracks fail or sound worse
  • Electron app uses more memory than native players

Top Nuclear alternatives

See all 6
  1. 1Spotify logo
    Spotify

    Licensed catalog with reliable playback and mobile apps, if you're willing to pay or accept ads.

    68.8
  2. 2SoundCloud logo
    SoundCloud

    Free streaming with lots of independent uploads and official apps on every platform.

    61.8
  3. 3Tauon logo
    Tauon

    Open-source desktop player for your own files and self-hosted servers, lighter and more predictable.

    57.5
  4. 4Audius logo
    Audius

    Free streaming of artist-uploaded music, with mobile apps and no ads.

    57.2
  5. 5Strawberry logo
    Strawberry

    Open-source library player for local music collections with solid tagging and playback.

    55.9

Why people left Nuclear

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Nuclear: common questions

Is Nuclear free?

Yes. Nuclear is free, open-source software.

Is Nuclear open source?

Yes. The source code is on GitHub at nukeop/nuclear.

What platforms does Nuclear run on?

Nuclear is available for Windows, macOS and Linux.

What are the best alternatives to Nuclear?

The highest-ranked Nuclear alternatives right now are Spotify, SoundCloud and Tauon. See the full ranked list for pricing, platforms and verified facts.

See all 6 Nuclear alternatives