Open source alternative to Verse and Musixmatch Premium
Last verified
Sync word-by-word lyrics to Apple Music, Spotify, and eight more Mac players. Floating overlay, Dynamic Island capsule, menu bar, or full window. GPL-3.0.
Lyrimuse covers the same word-by-word lyrics use case as Musixmatch Premium across Apple Music and Spotify, at no cost. It also adds QQ Music, NetEase, and Kugou support, and runs entirely on your Mac with no subscription renewal.
If you need lyrics on iOS or Android alongside your Mac, Musixmatch Premium's mobile apps cover that. Lyrimuse is desktop-only and has no mobile companion.
LyricsX stopped shipping updates in April 2022 and does not support Chinese-language players or modern macOS features like Dynamic Island. Lyrimuse picks up where LyricsX left off and adds Last.fm scrobbling, translation, and nine players.
If you are on macOS 13 or earlier, Lyrimuse requires Sonoma (14). LyricsX or another app is the fallback for those systems.
QQ Music, NetEase Cloud Music, Kugou, and Soda Music are fully supported players with their own lyrics sources. Cantonese songs get Jyutping romanization; Japanese and Mandarin get romaji and Pinyin respectively, all decided line by line.
If you only listen through Apple Music or Spotify and have no interest in Chinese-language services, simpler alternatives may cover your needs with less setup.
Lyrimuse connects to Last.fm and ListenBrainz, saves plays locally before upload, and shows top artists, albums, and tracks in the app itself with a year-long heatmap. It replaces the need for a standalone Mac scrobbler while also handling lyrics.
If you scrobble from multiple devices and need mobile coverage, you still need Last.fm or ListenBrainz's mobile apps for iPhone plays. Lyrimuse only tracks plays on the Mac.
Synced lyrics on macOS are dominated by a handful of apps that either stopped shipping updates years ago or gate the features most users want behind a subscription. LyricsX was the go-to open source option, but its last release was April 2022, and it does not support the Chinese-language music services that hundreds of millions of users rely on. Musixmatch Premium has the catalog depth, but it requires a monthly subscription for word-by-word timing, works only with the players it officially supports, and keeps your listening data on its servers.
For users who follow music across Apple Music, Spotify, and Chinese platforms like QQ Music or NetEase Cloud Music, there has been no single app that covers all of them with word-by-word accuracy. Finding lyrics manually, switching between apps for different services, or losing listening history when a subscription lapses are the recurring pain points this space produces.
Queries NetEase Cloud Music, QQ Music, Kugou, Kuwo, Migu, Musixmatch, LRCLIB, LyricFind, Deezer, AMLL, Soda Music, and Apple Music's native lyrics in one pass. Every result is scored by timing quality, content match, and album match; the best candidate wins automatically. If the result is wrong, manual search lets you pick and lock any candidate.
Shows lyrics as a floating overlay you can drag anywhere, a Dynamic Island-style capsule under the notch, the menu bar, the Touch Bar, or a full resizable Lyrics Window modeled on Apple Music's lyrics page. Each surface has independent font, color, width, and behavior settings with a live preview.
Translations sit below the original line; romanizations (Pinyin, Jyutping, Japanese romaji) appear under the exact words they belong to, decided line by line. System translation on macOS 15 keeps foreign-language lyrics local; a network fallback steps in when the OS cannot handle the language. Seventeen target languages supported.
Connects to Last.fm and ListenBrainz from the Accounts section with no token to copy. The app saves every play locally first, so you can connect Last.fm after the fact and recover recent plays. A built-in Footprint tab shows a year-long heatmap, daily average, streaks, and an 'On This Day' history.
Works with Apple Music, Spotify, Kaset (a YouTube Music client for Mac), KKBOX, Amazon Music, QQ Music, NetEase Cloud Music, Kugou, and Soda Music, plus web players in the browser. Apple Music and Spotify require Automation access; the others use macOS's MediaRemote and need no extra permissions.
No sign-up, no analytics, no data leaves the Mac about what you play or who you are. Lyrics fetch over each source's own API for the song currently playing; translation defaults to Apple's on-device framework on macOS 15. The privacy policy lists every server the app contacts.
Both Lyrimuse and Musixmatch Premium deliver word-by-word synced lyrics, but they follow different models. Musixmatch Premium is a proprietary subscription service with mobile and desktop apps; Lyrimuse is a GPL-3.0 open source Mac app with no subscription and no account required.
| Feature | Lyrimuse | Musixmatch Premium |
|---|---|---|
| License | GPL-3.0 | Proprietary |
| Price | Free | Subscription |
| Platforms | macOS 14+ | macOS, iOS, Android |
| Word-by-word timing | Yes | Paid tier only |
| Chinese-language players | Yes (QQ, NetEase, Kugou) | No |
| Offline lyrics | Yes (cached) | Yes (cached) |
| Last.fm scrobbling | Yes | No |
| Account required | No | Yes |
Lyrimuse is the better fit when you want no subscription cost, need Chinese-language player support (QQ Music, NetEase Cloud Music, Kugou), or care about keeping your listening data off third-party servers. Musixmatch Premium has broader platform coverage (iOS and Android included) and a larger catalog backed by its own lyrics label, which matters if you listen heavily on mobile.
Verse is a paid Mac lyrics app focused on Apple Music and Spotify, with a clean interface and Touch Bar support. Lyrimuse covers the same two players and the same Touch Bar display, and adds QQ Music, NetEase Cloud Music, Kugou, KKBOX, Amazon Music, and Last.fm scrobbling.
| Feature | Lyrimuse | Verse |
|---|---|---|
| License | GPL-3.0 | Proprietary |
| Price | Free | Paid |
| Player support | 9 players | Apple Music, Spotify |
| Last.fm / ListenBrainz | Yes | No |
| Translation | Yes (17 languages) | Limited |
| Open source | Yes | No |
Lyrimuse is the better choice for users who need more than Apple Music and Spotify, want Last.fm scrobbling, or prefer a GPL-3.0 licensed app. Verse may suit users who want a simpler single-purpose app and are satisfied with its two-player scope.
Install via Homebrew, which also handles the one-time Gatekeeper setup on first launch.
```bash
brew tap yudaotor/lyrimuse
brew trust --cask yudaotor/lyrimuse/lyrimuse
brew install --cask lyrimuse
```No account is required to get lyrics or to use the app. Lyrics are fetched directly from sources including Musixmatch, NetEase, QQ Music, and others without any sign-in. Last.fm and ListenBrainz connections are optional; the app scrobbles only if you link an account in Settings.
Lyrimuse runs on macOS Sonoma (14) or later, on both Apple Silicon (M1 and later) and Intel Macs. Apple Silicon and Intel builds are separate downloads. On-device translation requires macOS Sequoia (15); on macOS 14 the app falls back to an online translator.
For the desktop macOS use case, yes. Lyrimuse is GPL-3.0 licensed, free to use, and covers word-by-word lyrics for Apple Music, Spotify, and several players Musixmatch does not support. It does not have mobile apps, so it does not replace Musixmatch on iPhone or Android.
It queries up to twelve sources (Musixmatch, NetEase, QQ Music, Kugou, LRCLIB, and others), scores each result by timing accuracy, duration match, and content corroboration, then applies the highest-scoring candidate automatically. You can override any decision and lock your choice in Lyrics Manager.
Lyrics found previously are cached on your Mac and display without a network connection. The first lookup for a new song requires connectivity, as does real-time online translation. Scrobbles queue locally and sync to Last.fm or ListenBrainz when the connection returns.
Alternative to
Planner 5D
Browser-based 3D building editor, MIT licensed and self-hostable
Alternative to
Napkin AI
Editorial diagrams for Claude Code, no Figma or Mermaid required
Alternative toFlightradar24
Real-time global intelligence on a 3D globe
Alternative to
Font Awesome Pro
6,238 free MIT-licensed SVG icons for web and app design
Alternative to
Google Maps
OpenStreetMap and Google data, no account, no Play Services
Alternative to
Plasmic
Your design canvas is backed by real files in git
Featured
Alternative to
Superhuman
AI email assistant that drafts replies and clears your inbox
Alternative to
Grok Bot
AI teammates you own: your keys, your model, your machine.
Alternative toClaude Managed Agents
Open-source agent deployment API. Self-host or use Omnara Cloud.
The projects we add and every new guide. Free, unsubscribe any time.
Claude Code to 
OpenCode
Jira to 
Windshift
Notion to 
AppFlowy
Slack to 
Mattermost
Linear to 
GitLab
Wispr Flow to 
Handy
CapCut to 
Concat
Grok Bot to 
rakazo
Superhuman to 
Inbox Zero
Airtable to 
AITable
Muse to 
OpenClaw
GitHub Copilot to 
Cline
Datadog to 
Netdata
Microsoft Teams to 
Rocket.Chat
Pinecone to 
Qdrant
Zapier to 
n8n
Devin AI to 
OpenHands
Firebase to 
Supabase
1Password to 
KeePassXCConfluence to 
Docmost
Contentful to 
Strapi
Adobe Premiere Pro to 
Shotcut
ChatGPT to 
AnythingLLM
LangSmith to 
Langfuse
