Karaoke Mugen vs Nightingale

Karaoke Mugen is a free, open-source playlist manager for karaoke parties, available for Windows, macOS, and Linux. Operators can add, remove, reorder, shuffle, import, and export songs, while guests can suggest tracks from their own devices. Operators can enable voting, set song or singing-time quotas, and filter songs with blacklists and whitelists; sessions can also use automixes and quiz mode. The player includes playback controls, automatic volume adjustment, pitch and speed changes, and a synchronized second video player. It accepts video formats supported by mpv, uses ASS subtitles, and can import formats including Ultrastar, Karafun, and KBP. Once installed, configured, and up to date, it can run without an internet connection, but guests need the same Wi-Fi network. The software is published under the MIT license and provides a WebSockets API for additional interfaces or clients. Linux binaries require GLIBC 2.31 or higher; the Windows portable version must be updated by replacing files from a new ZIP archive.

Nightingale turns songs from local folders or Plex Media Server, Jellyfin, and Navidrome libraries into karaoke tracks with separated vocals, synchronized lyrics, and real-time pitch scoring. Vocal separation uses the UVR Karaoke model or Demucs. WhisperX transcribes and aligns lyrics word by word, and LRCLIB lyrics are used when available. Japanese, Chinese, Cantonese, and Korean songs can use character-level alignment and romanized readings.

After analysis, users can adjust key and tempo and follow pitch scoring. Lyrics can be provided as timed LRC or Enhanced LRC, pasted as plain text for alignment, or edited. Playback backgrounds include 10 GPU shader options, five Pixabay video styles, and video files. The app supports MP4 and MKV videos and experimental UltraStar song folders. Multiple profiles keep separate score histories; navigation can use a gamepad or touch controls. Native Linux, macOS, and Windows builds use CUDA or Metal acceleration when available, with CPU fallback. A web build can run on a Linux computer on a home network and open in a browser. The app is free and open source under GPL-3.0-or-later, describes itself as having no cloud, and encrypts Navidrome login details on disk.