librosa
Python module for audio and music processing
Decision gist · record as of 2026-08-14
Yes. librosa is production-stable, actively maintained, has low install friction, carries a permissive license, and is the standard Python library for audio and music signal processing. Install it if you need to work with audio features, music analysis, or MIR tasks. No known security vulnerabilities.AI-flagged interpretation of the facts on this page — verify before relying
Before you install
- Requires Python 3.12 or later; soundfile and soxr may require system audio libraries depending on your platform.
- Low friction: pure Python wheel available, active maintenance with release 3 days ago, 11 runtime dependencies all widely used (numba, numpy, scipy, scikit-learn, joblib, soundfile, pooch, soxr, decorator, lazy_loader, msgpack).
License · maintenance · safety
ISC (permissive) — ISC license is permissive, allowing commercial and private use with minimal restrictions—suitable for most projects.
last release 2026-08-11 (3 days) · last repo commit 2026-08-11 · 8,560 stars
0 known vulnerabilities (OSV.dev, 2026-08-14) · 13,551,389 downloads/mo, #1,274 on PyPI
Alternatives
Verify before relying
pip install librosa
import librosa
y, sr = librosa.load('audio.wav')
S = librosa.feature.melspectrogram(y=y, sr=sr)- Whether soxr and soundfile have platform-specific system dependencies that could affect installation on Windows, macOS, or Linux.
- Performance characteristics when processing very large audio files or real-time streaming scenarios.
What it is and what it does
librosa is a foundational Python library for audio and music signal processing, designed to support music information retrieval (MIR) research and applications. It provides algorithms for feature extraction, spectral analysis, and music analysis tasks. The library depends on scientific computing foundations (numpy, scipy, scikit-learn) and uses numba for performance-critical code, plus soundfile and soxr for audio I/O and resampling.
Developers use librosa to extract features from audio (mel-spectrograms, chroma, MFCC, onset detection), analyze musical structure, and build systems that understand or process music. It's production-stable (Development Status 5), actively maintained with a recent release, and widely adopted in music technology and research.
Use it for
- Extract mel-spectrograms and other acoustic features from audio files for machine learning models.
- Detect musical onsets, beats, and tempo to analyze rhythm and timing in recordings.
- Compute chroma features and harmonic/percussive separation for music analysis and transcription tasks.
- Build music recommendation or similarity systems using librosa feature vectors.
- Analyze audio for speech processing, environmental sound classification, or audio event detection.
Worth the install?
AI-flagged interpretation of the facts on this page. Verify before relying on it.
Yes.
librosa is production-stable, actively maintained, has low install friction, carries a permissive license, and is the standard Python library for audio and music signal processing. Install it if you need to work with audio features, music analysis, or MIR tasks. No known security vulnerabilities.
Install
librosa on PyPI
Before you install
Low friction: pure Python wheel available, active maintenance with release 3 days ago, 11 runtime dependencies all widely used (numba, numpy, scipy, scikit-learn, joblib, soundfile, pooch, soxr, decorator, lazy_loader, msgpack).
Requires Python 3.12 or later; soundfile and soxr may require system audio libraries depending on your platform.
License in practice
ISC license is permissive, allowing commercial and private use with minimal restrictions—suitable for most projects.
Quickstart
pip install librosa
import librosa
y, sr = librosa.load('audio.wav')
S = librosa.feature.melspectrogram(y=y, sr=sr)Verify before relying
- Whether soxr and soundfile have platform-specific system dependencies that could affect installation on Windows, macOS, or Linux.
- Performance characteristics when processing very large audio files or real-time streaming scenarios.
Package facts
| License | ISC permissive |
| Python support | Supports the current Python release >=3.12 |
| Install friction | Low. Pure-Python wheel |
| Runtime dependencies | 11 packagesnumbanumpyscipyscikit-learnjoblibdecoratorsoundfilepoochsoxrlazy_loadermsgpack |
| Maintenance | Actively maintained 3 days since the last release |
| Last repo commit | |
| First released | |
| Downloads | 13,551,389 / month, #1,274 on PyPI 30-day window, as of 2026-08-14 |
| Known vulnerabilities | None known OSV.dev, checked 2026-08-14 |
| Classifiers | Development Status :: 5 - Production/StableFramework :: MatplotlibIntended Audience :: DevelopersLicense :: OSI Approved :: ISC License (ISCL)Programming Language :: PythonProgramming Language :: Python :: 3Programming Language :: Python :: 3.12Programming Language :: Python :: 3.13Programming Language :: Python :: 3.14Topic :: Multimedia :: Sound/Audio :: Analysis |
Evidence: librosa-1.0.0-py3-none-any.whl
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