Introducing
The Slant team built an AI & it’s awesome
Find the best product instantly
Add to Chrome
Add to Edge
Add to Firefox
Add to Opera
Add to Brave
Add to Safari
Try it now
4.7 star rating
0
Log in
•
Sign up
Add Question
Follow
Add Tags
What are the best video player?
6
Options
Considered
27
User
Recs.
Sep 11, 2023
Last
Updated
Related Questions
Activity
Here’s the Deal
Slant is powered by a community that helps you make informed decisions. Tell us what you’re passionate about to get your personalized feed and help others.
Let's go!
Have feedback or ideas?
Join our community
on Discord
Ad
6
Options
Considered
Best video player
Price
Platforms
Release Date
--
MPV
-
-
-
--
VLC
Free
Windows/MacOS/Linux/Android/iOS/ChromeOS/AppleTV
August 19, 2019
--
Pot Player
-
-
-
--
MPC-HC
-
-
-
--
IINA
-
-
-
See Full List
--
MPV
My Rec
ommendation
for
MPV
My Recommendation for
MPV
Add Video or Image
All
7
Pros
7
Top
Pro
•••
Minimal interface
Click to open files and get Video with sound (and passthrough of codecs like DTS etc) for a perfect cinema experience. Works okay for many files. Default window is not much more than a title bar - and if you drag/resize the window it resizes the video and leaves no empty areas. There is no visible control or display unless you use mouse/keyboard over the window. This is the best player to use unless you're going for a media center (then use MPV based Plex Media Player to display and play the Plex Server library).
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Fast
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Needs no additional codecs
Everything MPV needs to play media files is contained within which means no outside codecs are needed.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Extremely responsive
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Up to date
Always up to date, rapid development.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Extensible
Mpv has support for scripting in JavaScript, Lua, and C.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Integrates with streaming services
Mpv can use youtube-dl to stream from various services.
See More
Hide
See All
Get it
here
Recommend
4
--
VLC
My Rec
ommendation
for
VLC
My Recommendation for
VLC
Add Video or Image
All
19
Experiences
1
Pros
13
Cons
4
Specs
Top
Pro
•••
Very versatile and easy to use
See More
Top
Con
•••
Not really meant to be a music player
VLC is made to be a video player. Therefore, it won't carry out actions such as managing your music library.
See More
monotom's Experience
Cluttered and unintiutive user interface.
See More
Specs
Platforms:
Windows/MacOS/Linux/Android/iOS/ChromeOS/AppleTV
Release Date:
August 19, 2019
Top
Pro
•••
Can play every format video available (as of 2017)
See More
Top
Con
•••
Absence of personalization
VLC Player has only one basic interface in white or black, and overall personalization opportunities are quite narrow. Unfortunately, you're pretty much stuck to the default look.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Simple to setup and use
VLC is an incredibly robust application but very simple on the surface. It makes playing music simple, yet still manages to give the user all the tools he/she wants in a music player.
See More
Top
Con
•••
Lacks libraries and advanced music player features
VLC is a media player first and foremost. There is no library management (aside from playlists), limited usage of tags, and no rating system. VLC is best at playing a file directly from a folder, but falls behind when it comes to helping you manage or find good songs in your music library.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Free, open source, and cross-platform
VLC is licensed under the CC-SA v3.0+ and available on Windows, OSX, and Linux with source code available here.
See More
Top
Con
•••
Contains some insignificant but irritating flaws
Despite all keyboard shortcuts, the width of the picture can't be controlled by trackpad. Besides that, the VLC start-up window doesn’t open at the same place or the same width at which it was previously closed.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Surprisingly Lightest on Resources
Yes. Lightest. Even better than the ones known to be light. Both when playing music, only a single song or when playing a video. Either in terms of Ram and Cpu. Compared with almost all, including the ones from Windows like mpc-hc .. or light ones from Linux like Alsa Player, Audacious, SmPlayer .
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Large amount of extensions
VLC has a large amount of extensions.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Supports a GUI interface and an ncurses terminal interface
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Doesn't manage your music library for you
You organize your music into folders any way you want. Want to play an album? Drag and drop. No tags, no confusion, no fluff. Easy.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Can easily stream music across your home network from any device on the network
Using sftp/ssh music (and videos) can be streamed from any server on the network to any device running VLC. VLC can also be used as a webcam for streaming and snapshots. Amazing all in one package
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Includes Blu-Ray playback support
Blu-Ray playback support was added on July 13th, 2014. It allows playing back DRM-free Blu-Rays with the help of libbluray, libaacs and libbdplus.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Can be almost completely keyboard-driven
VLC includes keyboard shortcuts for most actions. The video player can be controlled with simple and customizable keyboard commands.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Doesn't require additional codecs
Everything VLC needs to play media files is contained within which means no outside codecs are needed. This makes it one of the most hassle-free music players as it can play virtually anything as soon as it's installed.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Tons of advanced settings
Besides basic configurations, video player has an extensive amount of adjustable settings.
See More
Hide
See All
Free
Recommend
6
2
--
Pot Player
My Rec
ommendation
for
Pot Player
My Recommendation for
Pot Player
Add Video or Image
All
1
Experiences
1
Gunny's Experience
Pot Player is the default video player on my system.
See More
Hide
Get it
here
Recommend
7
2
--
MPC-HC
My Rec
ommendation
for
MPC-HC
My Recommendation for
MPC-HC
Add Video or Image
All
5
Pros
3
Cons
2
Top
Pro
•••
Supports frame stepping with Ctrl+Left/Right
Useful for game development frame debugging. Your average user won't need this. VLC has frame advance, but it's hidden and non-intuitive; not clear if VLC can step backwards.
See More
Top
Con
•••
Windows only
MPC-HC supports only Windows operating systems.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Supports H.265, and has for over 5 years
See More
Top
Con
•••
No development since 2017
The github has been archived.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
FLOSS
See More
Hide
See All
Get it
here
Recommend
2
--
IINA
My Rec
ommendation
for
IINA
My Recommendation for
IINA
Add Video or Image
All
10
Experiences
1
Pros
9
Top
Pro
•••
Support for lots of codecs
Supports lots of video codecs, like mp4, mkv, etc, and lots of audio codecs including opus.
See More
monotom's Experience
MacOS only I'm afraid.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Doesn't black out other displays when going full screen
It can black out other screens if you want, but out of the box it leaves your other displays alone.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Runs on MPV so it's scriptable and runs any MPV script
More information here. Tip: if you're doing a lot of cropping and slicing of videos and you thought the new quick tools in Finder / Quicktime Player are a great improvement, try setting up IINA with slicing.lua and some keybindings for navigating your video + setting the slicing positions. Make sure your ffmpeg command (in slicing.lua) is set to copy the original codecs and that it's using your GPU.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Extremely stable
Extremely stable, even while still in the beta.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Powered by FFmpeg
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Open source
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Fully customizable keyboard, mouse, trackpad, and gesture controls
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Online subtitle searching and intelligent local subtitle matching
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Like MPV with better GUI and settings
It's like mpv, just more user friendly GUI and more settings available via UI.
See More
Hide
See All
Get it
here
Recommend
1
--
Elmedia Player
My Rec
ommendation
for
Elmedia Player
My Recommendation for
Elmedia Player
Add Video or Image
All
11
Pros
10
Specs
Top
Pro
•••
Plays almost any video file
Elmedia Player is a free media player for Mac that supports various audio and video formats, including FLV, SWF, MP4, AVI, MOV, MP4, DAT, MP3, etc.
See More
Specs
Platforms:
Mac
License:
Free/Pro
Platform:
Mac
Embedded tracker:
Yes
See All Specs
Top
Pro
•••
Making screenshots
Making a screenshot of any moment in the movie or making the entire video a series of pictures with adjustable interval
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Built-in subtitles search
For an effortless access to various subtitles Elmedia is integrated with the opensubtitles.org service, which lets users add desired subtitles to a movie without leaving the app.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Play online videos online without ads
You can open an online video with a URL and play it without Ads (like it usually happens on YouTube).
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Subtitles editing
Allows changing font, size, font color, border color, etc. Possibility to increase or decrease subtitles delay
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Handy Open URL option
Open URL option allows watching YouTube videos without ads.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Video & audio settings
Flip vertically, rotate, mirror videos or revert to original; adjust video brightness, contrast, saturation, and more, sync subtitles to the video, adjust the sound for different genres; set an output device for audio
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Convenient video settings
You can use different settings to video like video and image layout adjustments.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Built-in web browser
The app features built-in web browser that allows you to watch online videos directly from the app, while Open URL enables you to do it without noisy ads.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Stream local files to Chromecast, Smart TV, Apple TV, other AirPlay and DLNA-compliant devices
Elmedia Player streams local videos to other devices, like Samsung TV, LG TV, Sony TV, and other supported smart TV sets.
See More
Hide
See All
$19.99
Recommend
2
1
Don't see your favorite option? Add it.
I Recommend...
Built By the Slant team
Find the best product instantly.
4.7 star rating
Add to Chrome
Add to Edge
Add to Firefox
Add to Opera
Add to Brave
Add to Safari
Try it now - it's free
One sec!
Are you sure that you want to abandon your hard work?
Delete Work
Continue working
{}
undefined
url next
price drop