As we reported on earlier in the year, the official Spotify for Linux app is no longer under active development.
Sure, it still receives minor updates now and then, but only in the bits of the code it shares with the (related) Windows and macOS apps. No Linux-specific improvements or features are currently planned.
At some point in the future this may mean that the Linux version will break. And with no dedicated developer working on it, that could mean the end of Spotify for Linux on the desktop.
Perhaps the desktop Linux app doesn’t work for you anyway. A number of readers commented as such in our article about Spotio for Linux.
Either way, we’ve taken to hunting for alternatives, and the Spotify for Web Player is a pretty decent choice.
Spotify For Web Is An Alternative
The official web-based Spotify web player lets anyone on any OS to log in to their Spotify account (including free accounts) and start streaming music.
As an alternative to the native Qt desktop player it’s not a bad experience, offering an almost like-for-like replacement in terms of Spotify features.
But, being a web-app you run in a browser tab, it doesn’t integrate with the Ubuntu desktop — but can it be made to?
SpotiWeb For Linux
Spotiweb is an Node.js/JavaScript/Electron wrapper around the official Spotify Web Player. Its key USP is that it helps to integrate Spotify for Web with the Unity desktop. It even runs in its own window like a traditional app.
This alternative Spotify client doesn’t (currently) integrate with the Ubuntu Sound Menu (nor any other MPRIS-based controller, e.g., CoverGloobus)
But it does offer native desktop notifications on track change and runs the app in its own window, free of browser cruft.
Unlike the (arguably more polished) Spotify Web Player for Linux, Spotiweb doesn’t provide a system tray icon with playback controls and a ‘close to tray’ option. A feature sorely missed with the lack of MPRIS or media key support.
Want to try it out for yourself? You can grab the latest release of SpotiWeb for Linux directly from its GitHub page:
Once downloaded, extract the archive and double-click on the ‘spotiweb’ runtime inside the Spotiweb folder.