RtMidi is a set of C++ classes which provides an API for realtime MIDI I/O across Linux (ALSA & JACK), macOS (CoreMIDI & JACK), and Windows (MultiMedia System) operating systems.

python-rtmidi is a Python binding for RtMidi implemented using Cython and provides a thin wrapper around the RtMidi C++ interface. The API is basically the same as the C++ one but with the naming scheme of classes, methods and parameters adapted to the Python PEP-8 conventions and requirements of the Python package naming structure.