Karaoke Mugen vs Performous

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.

Performous is free software combining karaoke, band games, and dancing on Windows, macOS, and Linux. Its modes include vocals, lead, rhythm and bass guitar, drums, and dancing, with multiplayer support. Scored singing shows pitch so players can adjust their performance; karaoke mode displays lyrics without notes or scoring. The project says pitch detection works with laptop or webcam microphones. Controllers are autodetected, and the game can use a keyboard, microphones, USB guitars and drums, and dance pads. Supported song formats include Frets on Fire, UltraStar, SingStar XML, and StepMania. Composer edits and converts notes for music games, offering pitch analysis, zoomable timing, note synthesis, and format import and export. Composer lists SingStar XML, UltraStar TXT, and Frets on Fire MIDI formats. Free karaoke song packages are available under different libre and restricted license terms. The site says its free-song page does not yet include band-game or dancing songs. Performous is licensed under GNU GPL version 2 or later, with documentation, Discord, and a GitHub feedback page.