text: A program by definition requires ram/cpu threads. Any program you choose will "slow" down your system and hog resources. I'm assuming you're reffering to the iTunesHelper.exe process that runs while iTunes is not active?\n\nThe great thing about Mac programmers is that they know what they're doing. That process is designed to relinquish ram when it's needed. So while your system is idle, it's ram usage will increase, under load or stress it will drop it's consumption.\n\nSome alternatives to iTunes are WinAmp, though it can be a bit of a resource hog too, Windows Media Player (naturally), those two together might be able to occupy about 80% of itunes function 'out of the box'.\n\nIf you're music Library is large, you'll probably want to stick with iTunes, as it handles a large library better than WMP or WinAmp.