Free Music for Devs (That Doesn't Suck)

So you’ve recorded a great screen-capture of your new app feature. You want to post it on Twitter or LinkedIn, but it’s just… silent and awkward. It needs a background music track. Or maybe you need a subtle ‘click’ or ‘swoosh’ sound for a UI interaction.

Your first instinct might be to find a song on YouTube and use some sketchy downloader site. Don’t do it. That’s the fastest way to get a copyright takedown notice.

You need royalty-free music from a legitimate source. For years, “royalty-free” was code for “terrible, cheesy corporate elevator music.” But not anymore. Here are the places I go to get high-quality audio for free.

1. For Everything in One Place: Mixkit

The Problem: You need a bit of everything—a background music track, a “swoosh” sound effect, and maybe a short video clip to go with it. You don’t want to hunt across three different websites.

The Solution: Mixkit is still my first stop for general-purpose media.

Why it’s my go-to (Pros):

• High-Quality Curation: The quality is consistently good. They’ve done the hard work of filtering out the junk for you. You can find modern, genre-specific music (from lo-fi beats to cinematic scores) that actually sounds current.
• Super Simple Licensing: For most tracks, the license is simple and clear: free to use in commercial projects without attribution. It takes the legal anxiety out of the equation.
• All-in-One: Having music, sound effects, and video in one place is just incredibly convenient.

The catch:

• Popular Tracks Get Overused: Because it’s so good and so popular, you might hear the same background track on a few different YouTube videos. For a truly unique sound, you might need to dig deeper.

2. For Copyright-Safe Music for Streaming: Uppbeat

The Problem: You’re streaming on Twitch or YouTube and you need background music that won’t get your VOD muted or your channel flagged. This is a very specific, and very annoying, problem.

The Solution: Uppbeat is built from the ground up to solve this.

Why it’s a lifesaver (Pros):

• Built for Creators: Their entire model is based on providing “copyright-safe” music. They have a system to whitelist your YouTube channel, preventing copyright claims automatically.
• Excellent Mood-Based Playlists: The discovery is fantastic. You can browse by mood (“Uplifting,” “Relaxing,” “Epic”) which makes it fast to find something that fits the vibe of your content.
• Generous Free Tier: The free tier gives you a good number of downloads per month and access to a large chunk of their catalog.

The catch:

• Requires Attribution (on free tier): With the free plan, you have to credit them in your video description. It’s a small price to pay for the peace of mind.
• It’s a Freemium Model: The best tracks and artists are often locked behind their premium subscription.

3. For Finding Music That Sounds Like…: Chosic

The Problem: You have a specific song in mind—maybe a popular track you heard in a commercial—and you want to find something with a similar vibe that’s free to use.

The Solution: Chosic has some incredibly smart discovery tools.

Why it’s so smart (Pros):

• Song/Artist Similarity Finder: This is its killer feature. You can plug in a song or artist and it will find similar-sounding tracks, including a filter for royalty-free options. It’s like a recommendation engine for free music.
• Massive Library: It aggregates public domain and Creative Commons music from all over the web, giving you a huge catalog to search through.

The catch:

• You MUST Check Each License: This is crucial. Because it pulls from so many sources, the license for each track can be different. One might be totally free, the next might require attribution, and another might be for non-commercial use only. You have to be diligent and check the license on every single track you download.

My Audio Workflow

1. For a Quick Demo Video: I go to Mixkit, find a simple, unobtrusive background track, and I’m done in five minutes.
2. For a Live Stream or YouTube Video: I use Uppbeat to avoid any and all copyright headaches.
3. For a Specific “Vibe”: If a client says “I want something that sounds like the band The xx,” I use the similarity finder on Chosic to get surprisingly close results.