Craig Snyder · November 18, 2024 · 4 min read If there’s one thing that Discord does better than every other chatting platform out today, it’s bots. Entire Discord servers are built around the functionality that some of these API-driven bots are capable of, and without being able to invite custom Discord bots to our servers, Discord wouldn’t be the same.
One of the most popular and fun types of Discord bots are music bots. Discord supports both text and voice channels, and with a music bot, you can have a bot join a voice channel and stream music live from YouTube, SoundCloud, and plenty of other sources.
However, creating a Discord music bot can be a long and painful process. Not everyone is capable of coding, and learning how to work with Discord’s API takes time. Luckily, there are hundreds of public Discord music bots for you to choose from and add to your server right now.
In this article, let’s go over the three best public Discord bots for playing music when it comes to features and reliability. Be sure to check out our YouTube channel where we made a short video covering our favorite Discord bots.
Rythm
Rythm is a dedicated music bot currently serving over 5.2 million Discord servers. As a bot that only deals music-related commands, it’s optimized to remain lag-free and is constantly being updated with fixes and improvements.
The Discord bot currently supports playback from YouTube, SoundCloud, and Twitch livestreams. It also supports playing and searching directly from YouTube, queuing songs, importing YouTube playlists, and more.
Rythm’s administrative options are quite robust, too. You can restrict the usage of the bot to the “DJ” role, prevent duplicate songs from being queued, and set a max queue length.
Another big perk of Rythm is the ability to control the bot through its web dashboard. Although it’s currently in beta, the dashboard allows you to request, play, pause, and skip songs without having to use Discord commands.
Check out Rythm’s list of commands here. Click here to invite Rythm to your server.
Groovy
Groovy has been around for quite a while and has undergone a rename and redesign, and it’s now one of the most popular and feature-rich music bots on the entire Discord platform.
Groovy is a great option due to its uptime and ease of use. It supports YouTube, SoundCloud and Spotify, and allows song shuffling, seeking, queuing, displaying lyrics, and a permissions system to restrict the bot to certain roles or users.
Groovy also has several premium options, such as changing the bass boost, speed, and pitch of songs. Premium users can also toggle interesting sound filters, such as nightcore and vaporwave.
Overall, Groovy is a solid, no-fluff music bot that gives users everything they need for free. While many other music bots have complicated commands and settings, Groovy keeps it simple.
Check out Groovy’s list of commands here. Click here to invite Groovy to your server.
FredBoat
FredBoat is slightly more complex than the other music bots we’ve mentioned, but it’s packed with features.
With FredBoat, you can stream music from YouTube, SoundCloud, Bandcamp, Twitch, Mixer, Wastebin, Vimeo, Spotify, and even direct links. It supports playlists from YouTube and SoundCloud, and unlike most bots that limit searching to YouTube, FredBoat will also allow you to search for music using both of these popular platforms.
Some of FredBoat’s more interesting features include repeating, shuffling, showing play history, and exporting the current queue as a Hastebin file. Wastebin (which FredBoat can play from) works alongside Hastebin, allowing for seamless importing and exporting of queues.
FredBoat also includes a permissions system where you can define access levels for three different ranks: admin, DJ, and user. This allows you to create permissions for your server’s staff, regular users, and a tier of users who you trust to control FredBoat. The Discord bot also includes a few moderation commands, such as kicking and banning, but there are much better Discord moderation bots out there.
Check out FredBoat’s list of commands here. Click here to invite FredBoat to your server.
When it comes to music bots, Discord has a lot of them. However, you’ll find that many have uptime issues, buggy playback, and limited platform support. The three we’ve gone over above suffer from none of these problems, and any would be a great addition to your Discord server.
