Comparison · Build it yourself

Multilarm vs A scheduler and a media player (cron, Task Scheduler, VLC): an honest comparison

The free option: the operating system's scheduler firing a media player at set times.

Checked against published documentation on 2026-08-30

Doing it yourself is the right choice for a simple, unchanging requirement in a place where the person who built it will still be there. Multilarm is what you buy when the requirement stops being simple — and the honest version of this page is that it usually does.

This page is written by the makers of one of the two products, so the only version worth publishing is one that is specific about where the other one wins. Every section below names a buyer who should not choose Multilarm.

What A scheduler and a media player (cron, Task Scheduler, VLC) is

Every operating system can run a command at a time, and every media player can play a file. A cron entry or a Task Scheduler task plus VLC is a working bell system in about twenty minutes, for nothing.

A very large number of buildings run exactly this, and it is worth being clear-eyed about it: for the simple case it works, and this page is not going to pretend otherwise.

Where A scheduler and a media player (cron, Task Scheduler, VLC) is better

It costs nothing and it is already installed.
For a fixed weekly timetable with one sound, it is genuinely sufficient, and no software purchase improves it.
It is completely transparent — the whole system is one line you can read.
No vendor, no licence, no dependency on anybody's continued existence.
Anybody comfortable with the command line can maintain it.

Where Multilarm is better

The exceptions. Term dates, exam fortnights, holidays and alternate days as rules that revert on their own, rather than commented-out lines somebody forgets to restore.
Priority. Two scheduled things at the same moment produce two overlapping sounds; a mixer with priority and ducking produces the right one.
Announcements. Typed text spoken offline, rather than a file somebody has to record and copy on.
Everything around it: an audit record of what played, a diagnostics battery, signed self-reverting updates, remote change, an emergency input, zones.
Somebody else's problem. When the person who wrote the cron entry leaves, the schedule becomes nobody's.

Side by side

Cells reading “Not published” mean we could not find the answer in Do it yourself’s own documentation on 2026-08-30. That is not the same as “no”, and this table will not pretend it is.

Capability	A scheduler and a media player (cron, Task Scheduler, VLC)	Multilarm
Cost	Free	Free for personal non-commercial use; perpetual licence for institutions
Fixed weekly schedule	Yes	Yes
Term dates, exam weeks, holidays that revert automatically	Hand-edited	Yes
Two events at once	Both play, over each other	Priority mixing with ducking
Spoken announcements	Pre-recorded files only, unless you build more	Typed and spoken offline
Record of what played	System logs, if you look	An audit ledger
Emergency override	Build it yourself	Built in, with a relay output
Maintainable by a non-developer	Not realistically — the system is a command line and a config file	Yes

Choose A scheduler and a media player (cron, Task Scheduler, VLC) if

One sound, one fixed weekly timetable, and it will not change.
The person who builds it will be there to maintain it.
There is no budget at all — in which case build it, and come back when the exceptions start.
You enjoy it. That is a real reason and it is fine.

Choose Multilarm if

Anything about the schedule varies by date.
More than one kind of audio shares the same speakers.
Somebody other than the builder has to operate it.
It matters enough that someone will ask whether it actually played.

How to check any of this

Multilarm’s own capabilities are published as machine-readable data at features.json, including every feature it does not have and the ones it has deliberately declined to build. Measured performance figures, with the method for each, are on the measured data page. The canonical facts about licensing, offline operation and the fire-alarm boundary are at facts.json. If anything on this page is wrong, say so and it will be corrected.

FAQ

Is Multilarm free?

For individual, non-commercial personal use, yes — permanently, not as a trial. Institutional and commercial use is a one-off perpetual licence.

What is the single biggest thing a script cannot do?

Decide what happens when two things want the speakers at the same moment. A script plays both. That one problem is why priority mixing exists, and it is why an emergency message cannot be talked over by a bell.

Sources

Everything stated here about another product is taken from that vendor's own public documentation on the date shown, and is limited to what they publish about themselves. Products change; if something below is out of date or wrong, tell us and it will be corrected. Where we could not find a published answer the table says so rather than guessing.

This entry describes a category rather than a single vendor, so there is no single document to cite. Take the questions on the how to choose page to any supplier in it.

Not sure this is the right purchase for your building? Ask a specific question — including whether you should be buying something else.