MusicVisualiser

cava

Console Music Visualiser

Visit cava

About

Console-based audio spectrum visualiser for Linux, macOS, FreeBSD and Windows.

cava (Console-based Audio Visualizer for ALSA) draws a bar spectrum in a terminal window. Despite the name it now supports many audio back ends, including PipeWire, PulseAudio, ALSA, JACK, sndio, PortAudio and others, and runs on Linux, macOS, FreeBSD and Windows.

It is popular on customised Linux desktops, where it sits in a terminal alongside a music player. It can also output raw data for other programs, and several graphical visualisers, including Cavalier, use it as their engine. It is MIT licensed.

Features & Use Cases

  • Bar spectrum in the terminal
  • Many audio back ends including PipeWire and PulseAudio
  • Configurable colours, gradients and smoothing
  • Raw output mode for other programs
  • MIT licensed

Pricing

Free and open source.

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Sources

Pricing checked 3 October 2026.