BearWave Logo BearWave Line Logo
Public Beta KDE Plasma 6 Qt 6 / KF6

Just radio. No bloat. Built for KDE Plasma.

A lean Linux desktop radio player that plays music and gets out of your way. Fast station browsing, solid playback controls, MPRIS integration, and tray behavior without any heavy media suite overhead.

Jump to Install Flatpak GitHub
Arch / AUR $ yay -S bearwave-git

Fast station access

Powered by the Radio Browser API. No nested menu labyrinths, just search and start listening.

Desktop-native controls

MPRIS, media keys, system tray icon, and cached state fit into your daily desktop workflow.

Strictly limited

BearWave will never manage podcasts, organize files, or scan a music library. It just plays radio.

Features

Built for Linux workflows, not for feature checklists.

Focused core capabilities for daily listening on KDE Plasma with reliable integration.

Search and filter

Search locally by station name, genre, and country, then sort by name, bitrate, or votes.

Favorites & Resume

Persistent local favorites and last-station resume keeps daily usage fast and simple.

World view

Browse stations by countries, flags, and popular genre tags from one focused dashboard.

Manual station add

Add custom streams manually when you want a station outside the normal discovery flow.

Metadata and covers

Track metadata, notifications, and local cover caching add polish without heavy overhead.

Linux-native stack

Qt 6, QML, KDE Frameworks, and QtMultimedia keep the app aligned with modern Plasma desktops.

100% Free & Open Source Software

BearWave is licensed under the GPLv3. No ads, no tracking, no mandatory accounts. The entire source code is hosted on GitHub and open for contributions.

View on GitHub Go to Install

Technologies

Platform & integrations

BearWave stays Linux-first and integrates seamlessly into your desktop workflow.

Linux Platform
Arch Linux / AUR
KDE Frameworks 6
Qt 6 / QML
MPRIS Playback
Radio Browser API

System

Support matrix & project status

BearWave is currently in public beta. It is built for contributors, testers, and technically comfortable Linux users who prefer control over fully polished consumer packaging.

Arch Linux: actively tested
KDE Plasma 6: primary target
Other distros: best effort

Install

How to install

BearWave is source-first and is developed and tested primarily on Arch Linux and KDE Plasma. Here are the three clean paths today.

Arch Linux

AUR Package

Use the official `bearwave-git` package if you want the shortest route on Arch.

yay -S bearwave-git
Open AUR package

Source

Source Build

Build from source if you want the documented upstream path. Recommended for developers and contributors.

cmake -S . -B build -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
cmake --build build -j"$(nproc)"
cmake --install build --prefix "$HOME/.local"
Open repository

Flatpak

Flatpak (Universal / Immutable OS)

If you are running an immutable Linux distribution (like Fedora Silverblue, SteamOS) or simply prefer sandboxed applications, you can install BearWave directly from our independent, GPG-signed repository.

flatpak remote-add --user bearwave-repo https://flatpak.bearwave.app/bearwave.flatpakrepo
flatpak install --user bearwave-repo de.nerdbear.bearwave
Download flatpakrepo

Frequently Asked Questions

Is BearWave a general media player?

No. It is intentionally focused on internet radio and Plasma-friendly desktop playback.

Does it support non-KDE desktops?

In theory, it runs on almost any Linux desktop with Qt 6. However, integrations like the system tray and media keys are optimized specifically for KDE Plasma, where they work best together.

Is it really free and open source?

Yes. BearWave is 100% free software, licensed under the GNU GPLv3 license. You can find the entire source code on GitHub.

Where does BearWave store its data?

To keep things simple and transparent, BearWave saves everything locally in standard directories:
Favorites~/.config/bearwave/favorites.json
Settings~/.config/bearwave/state.json
Caches & Covers~/.cache/bearwave/

Updates

Changelog

Version 1.0.3

2026-05-30

Added

  • Dynamic World Categories dashboard showing country flags and popular genre tags.
  • Dynamic country name localization mapping for German translation support.
  • Local JSON caching for countries retrieved from the Radio Browser API.

Changed

  • Optimized Categories view layout to prevent text clipping (dynamic grid columns and scroll margins).

Version 1.0.2

2026-05-28

Added

  • SPDX license identifiers (GPL-3.0-or-later) to all source files.
  • Single instance application check via DBus to prevent multiple concurrent instances.

Changed

  • Relicensed the project from MIT to GNU GPLv3 (GPL-3.0-or-later).

Fixed

  • Fixed infinite loading of radio stations by adding transfer timeout and using `all.api.radio-browser.info`.
  • Fixed metadata overwrite bug where valid ICY stream metadata was being cleared.
  • Fixed DBus crash (segmentation fault) under KDE Plasma Wayland by making notification requests asynchronous.
  • Fixed regex parser bug with stream titles containing apostrophes.
  • Fixed crash (segmentation fault) in IcyReader when changing or stopping streams.
  • --

Version 1.0.1

2026-05-22

Added

  • Debounced online search for radio stations.

Changed

  • Migrated playback engine from legacy Phonon to modern QtMultimedia.

Fixed

  • Fixed crash (segmentation fault) inside NotificationManager.
  • --

Contact & Legal Notice

Provider Information (Section 5 DDG)

Sebastian Palencsar

Senior Infrastructure Architect

Bahnhofstrasse 8

17213 Malchow

Contact

Email: dev@bearwave.app

Social Media

GitHub LinkedIn

Email Security

For email communication, I use Zoho Mail, hosted on EU servers in Amsterdam. The service provides high standards of data security and privacy with end-to-end transport encryption:

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End-to-End Encryption (OpenPGP)

For confidential communication, you can encrypt emails using my public OpenPGP key.

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Download key Check on keyserver

Trust & Transparency

This information is provided to meet legal provider identification requirements. For legal matters, please contact directly.

Legal Notices & Privacy

Copyright & Design

© 2026 Sebastian Palencsár. All rights reserved. This website is a project landing page for the BearWave desktop application.

All content, works, website design, and graphical elements created by me are protected by German copyright law. Reproduction or use of these elements without explicit permission of the author is not permitted.

Data Protection

This website is a pure online portfolio and does not collect personal data for analysis. No tracking tools are used.

No external CDN services are embedded and no profiling is performed.

A temporary PHP session may be used for the contact form. PHPSESSID This is used exclusively to protect against abuse and is not stored permanently. The webserver does not process user data. access_log off Error logs are only created for critical system errors, without permanently storing IP addresses.

Protecting your personal data is a top priority.

Disclaimer

The content of these pages has been created with great care. However, no guarantee can be given for correctness, completeness, and timeliness.

Operators of external websites are solely responsible for their content.

Used Frameworks & Tools

This website uses the following frameworks and libraries among others:

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These tools are used according to their respective license terms.

External Links

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I have no influence on the content of these linked websites. The respective provider or operator of the linked pages is always responsible for their content.