Chrome Is Testing a Rust-Based Alternative to FFmpeg for Audio Decoding

After resuming work on JPEG XL in Chrome, Google is now testing another media-related change behind the scenes. The company is experimenting with a Rust-based audio decoder as a possible alternative to the long-standing FFmpeg system in Chrome’s open-source Chromium project. This involves integrating Symphonia, an audio decoding library written in Rust, as an optional decoding path inside Chromium.

FFmpeg is the media engine Chrome relies on today for decoding audio and video. It supports many common formats and works behind the scenes during normal browsing.

Symphonia: The Rust-Based Audio Decoder Chrome Is Testing

Symphonia is an open-source audio decoding library written in Rust. Google is testing it in Chromium as an optional audio decoder alongside FFmpeg.

The work traces back to a Chromium issue opened in 2023 that examined whether parts of FFmpeg could be replaced with a Rust-based alternative. At the time, the discussion focused on feasibility rather than a concrete plan, with Symphonia noted as a possible candidate.

Since then, the work has moved into active development. In 2025, Chromium developers began landing a series of commits that add experimental support for decoding audio using Symphonia. These changes add Symphonia to Chromium builds, enable it across more desktop platforms, and keep it behind feature flags for testing. Early work is limited to a small set of audio formats to check stability before expanding further.

The experimental support spans multiple platforms, including desktop systems and Android, and remains controlled through feature flags.

Despite this progress, FFmpeg still handles audio decoding in Chrome. The Symphonia-based decoder remains experimental, disabled by default, and treated as a testbed rather than a replacement. Google has not announced any plans or timeline to ship Rust-based audio decoding as the default option in stable Chrome releases.

For now, this work stays internal to Chromium and does not change how Chrome handles audio for users. Existing audio systems remain in place while Rust-based components are tested.