Install faac with Homebrew, apk, apt, MacPorts, Nix, pacman

Project links

• Homepage
• Repository
• Upstream docs
• Package manager page

Commands and aliases

• faac

Project history

The FAAC README states that FAAC is based on ISO MPEG-4 reference code and that FAAC project changes were placed under the GNU LGPL, with copyright for the project changes attributed to M. Bakker in 2001. The SourceForge project describes FAAC as an Advanced Audio Coder for MPEG-2 AAC and MPEG-4 AAC, with the goal of exploring AAC and exceeding the quality of the best MP3 encoders.

The project has a long SourceForge-era history and a later GitHub mirror. The GitHub NEWS file records the mirror in 2017, while the current GitHub repository description calls it a mirror and points back to SourceForge as the homepage.

Recent changelog entries show renewed maintenance after many years of incremental encoder work: 1.30 in 2019 included compilation fixes, cleanup, and a CVE-2018-19886 bounds check; 1.31 in 2025 added packaging and CI work; 1.40 in 2026 switched to Meson and removed old unmaintained build/plugin pieces; 1.50 in 2026 added additional encoder correctness, performance, and compliance fixes.

Adoption history

FAAC's adoption is shaped by the older open-source audio stack: it appears in Unix package managers as a command-line AAC encoder and library, useful for scripts and media transcode workflows even when newer encoders may be preferred in some quality or licensing contexts.

The input package facts list FAAC in Homebrew, Alpine, Debian, Ubuntu, MacPorts, Nix, and Arch, which reflects its persistence as a known AAC encoder package rather than a new end-user application.

How it is used

FAAC is used to encode AAC audio from the command line or through libfaac. Its build instructions now point to Meson and Ninja, and the executable is packaged as `faac`.

Because the README includes a patent-royalty warning, downstream users and packagers traditionally treat FAAC as both a useful codec tool and a package with legal/licensing context to understand before redistribution or product use.

Why package nerds care

FAAC is package-nerd significant because it is one of the old codec packages that exposes the messy boundary between standards, reference code, free-software licensing, patents, command-line tooling, and distro policy.

Its recent maintenance is also interesting: a legacy autotools-era multimedia package moved toward Meson, CI, Windows artifacts, hidden symbols, and encoder correctness work while keeping the familiar `faac` CLI name.

Timeline

• 1997: Underlying ISO MPEG reference-code notice dates the base software module.
• 2001: FAAC project changes are attributed to M. Bakker under the LGPL notice in the README.
• 2017: GitHub mirror noted in the NEWS file.
• 2019: FAAC 1.30 released with cleanup, compilation fixes, and CVE-2018-19886 bounds checking.
• 2025: FAAC 1.31 and 1.31.1 refresh build, CI, pkg-config, and Windows artifact support.
• 2026: FAAC 1.40 adopts Meson and removes legacy unmaintained build/plugin code.
• 2026: FAAC 1.50 adds encoder correctness, bitrate, SIMD, and standards-compliance fixes.

Related projects

• FAAD2 is the historically adjacent AAC decoder project.
• ISO MPEG-2 AAC and MPEG-4 AAC reference code forms the base context documented by FAAC.
• LAME, Ogg Vorbis, and other command-line audio encoders occupy neighboring package-manager workflows.

Sources

• https://sourceforge.net/projects/faac/
• https://github.com/knik0/faac
• https://github.com/knik0/faac/blob/master/README
• https://github.com/knik0/faac/blob/master/NEWS
• https://github.com/knik0/faac/blob/master/ChangeLog
• https://api.github.com/repos/knik0/faac