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LinuxMultimediaVideoUnixBSDUnix-likevideo player

What are the best video players for UNIX-like systems?

12

Options
Considered

588

User
Recs.

Feb 1, 2024

Last
Updated

9 Options Considered

Best video players for UNIX-like systems	Price	Platforms	Paid Plan Audio Quality
86 mpv	FREE	Windows, Mac, Linux, BSD, Android	-
68 SMPlayer	FREE	Windows, Mac, Linux	-
66 VLC	Free	Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, iOS, ChromeOS, AppleTV	-
-- Kodi	-	Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, AndroidTV, iOS, tvOS	-
-- Celluloid	FREE	-	-

mpv

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 Con

Lack of a typical GUI can be jarring to some

The minimal interface comes at the cost of beginner-friendliness. You need to know keyboard shortcuts by heart, settings are set in text files, right-clicking won't bring up a menu, etc. See More

Phobi4a N's Experience

Effortlessly plays anything thrown at it as well as being the fastest player I've used in Linux. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Mac, Linux, BSD, Android

Top Pro

Minimal interface

The whole interface is just a video with a minimal OSD. See More

Top Con

Minimal interface

While highly configurable like other popular players, none of this is accessed through the GUI but rather by editing a configuration file. See More

MagicalMelpomene's Experience

Nothing but the video. Keyboard gives quick and easy jump forward and back. See More

Top Pro

Extremely responsive

Top Con

lack of gui

you don't have menus or windows with options to control technical aspects of video playback. See More

Peter J. Mello's Experience

It's not the most satisfying media player experience ever (I live in the terminal but when I'm intent on focusing my attention on a video a GUI would be a comfort) but once you climb the steep learning curve and get comfortable scripting in Lua, you can practically make the thing run out into the driveway in the morning to fetch your newspaper! With the erosion of VLC dependability of late, it's breathed new life into my Linux multimedia game. See More

Top Pro

Caches livestreams

Intelligently caches livestreams and enables jumping within the cached stream. See More

Top Con

is it not skinnable

it is stripped of any gui, only minimal for efficiency. But it is available to any program as a library. See More

Thomas Pallister's Experience

I use this to watch anime. It is lightweight and handles high-bitrate video much better than VLC and other similar players. There is a reason that most anime releases on nyaa recommend the usage of mpv. See More

Top Pro

Thumbnail seeking

I've recently discovered that the Lua scripting interface provides a method for running a second instance behind each primary invocation of mpv, which second instance can generate thumbnail previews for the entire length of the media file at any size and time interval you'd like. It's like YouTube moved into my neighborhood (KDE Plasma desktop) and all the property values doubled overnight. See More

Top Con

Minimal theme support

WorthyDumakulem's Experience

Fast. Perfect playback. Everything is decoded with ffmpeg. See More

Top Pro

Fast

Top Con

can't use other libraries except ffmpeg

it is so efficient it only needs ffmpeg as codec library, whis is the best and most powerful framework See More

wyup's Experience

It's probably the most powerful and best documented video player, very professional and efficient. See More

Top Pro

Fewer crashes than VLC

I love VLC, don't get me wrong, but on plenty of files VLC seems to stutter, freeze, or crash. mpv plays those files. See More

DetailedLuchtaine's Experience

Works flawkessly See More

Top Pro

Up to date

Always up to date, rapid development. See More

AwesomestNjordr's Experience

Better than VLC See More

Top Pro

best default configuration for performance

most options for playback are already preconfigured for best performance on every platform See More

Top Pro

Keyboard friendly

Although many GUI front-ends are available, it is mainly keyboard driven with ample of keybindings by default. This makes MPV extremely quick to operate. See More

Top Pro

Hardware accelerated

Supports multiple hardware acceleration techniques that makes it suitable for many different ranges of hardware platforms. Like VAAPI, VDPAU, Open-GL, Open GL ES, etc. See More

Top Pro

Many official and third party GUI front-ends

MPV and libmpv can be used with official terminal program but also with GUI front-ends like GNOME MPV, smplayer, etc. See More

Top Pro

Integrates with streaming services

When used with youtube-dl. See More

Top Pro

With LUA scripting you can automatically adjust monitor refresh rate, matching video framerate (FPS), in order to get perfect playback.

Top Pro

Integrates with Firefox to accelerate internet video playback

There are ways to integrate it with Firefox so that FF uses MPV/libmpv to playback internet video and as result using the hardware accelerations available with MPV/libmpv See More

SMPlayer

Top Pro

Uses mplayer 2 and mpv as engines

Top Con

Does not support global hotkey

Tyler Adam's Experience

Provides a decent (but at times unintuitive) frontend to media players that don't have one. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Mac, Linux

Top Pro

Open Source

You can download and compile the source code. See More

Top Con

Unstable volume levels

All the PROs can't compensate for the only CON this player has: the unstable volume levels, impossible to set right. The quieter the characters speak, the quieter the volume turns itself down; the louder the action scenes are, the louder the volume becomes and there's nothing the user can do to prevent that. See More

AuthenticTonatiuh's Experience

Fantastic player. Better than VLC, my favourite till I discovered SMPlayer. VLC had problems playing some kind of MP4 videos but SMPlayer was able even to play corrupted video files. See More

Top Pro

Faster than VLC in some cases

SuccessfulMoneiba's Experience

I watch videos at 2x speed and often jump back. VLC is slow and can't keep up with me. SMPlayer powered with mpv is super fast. See More

Top Pro

Pretty interface

The interface is more similar to usual video players. See More

IncredibleNuadaAirgetlam's Experience

easy to use and feature rich See More

Top Pro

Excellent compatibility due to MPlayer backend

Occasionally VLC will fail to play an AVI with a broken index, and often struggles with WMV. I fire up SMPlayer in these cases and it works flawlessly. See More

IncredibleKladeos's Experience

I used SMPlayer years ago & it was good. Tried it recently with MPV & was greatly disappointed with instability & bad interactions especially with somw 'skins' Problem was definitely with SMPlayer unfortunately as MPV alone or with GnomeMPV for example exibited no "nasties" No choice but to scrap SMPlayer currently. See More

Top Pro

Intergrated Subtitle download

Top Pro

Multiplatform

Works on Linux and Windows See More

VLC

Top Pro

Plays almost any files thrown at it

Top Con

VLC 3x Wayland support is broken

JollyPaidia's Experience

No trouble at all with vlc See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, iOS, ChromeOS, AppleTV

Top Pro

Open source

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

Does not follow GTK theming

Since VLC is not a GTK app, it's hard or even impossible to make it look consistent with some GTK themes. See More

MerryKekuit's Experience

Very bad software overall. About as good as it was ten years ago. See More

Top Pro

Tons of advanced settings

Besides basic configurations, video player has an extensive amount of adjustable settings. 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

DecisiveNootaikok's Experience

I used to swear by it, but in recent years it has become so crashy and with so many bugs and a huge catalogue of 'features' that that don't actually work, it is generally more trouble than it is worth. When you have to keep a scripted button in your tray explicitly to kill the VLC process after every other use, it is probably time to give up! See More

Top Pro

Console and graphical interfaces available

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

David Eltz's Experience

Endlessly compatible, with a relatively clean interface that can switch between minimal, simple, and complex control schemes. 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 Con

Recording does not work

Yanis's Experience

Still the best ! 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

Datamoshing

It occurs rarely but it looks awful every time See More

heftyal's Experience

I think it still stands it's ground and is a great player 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 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

Ajay Kumar Rawani's Experience

Awesome ! 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

SharpDellingr's Experience

past 5 yrs of experience using only vlc.....its good. 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 Con

Tries to do to many things

By making it into a streaming server for use over networks they are adding complexity and dependencies. Should have stuck with what it is good at and made serving streaming a separate thing. See More

Top Pro

Support for custom skins

make VLC look like windows media player 11 See More

Top Con

H264 - MPEG-4 AVC Part 10 is not supported

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

Large amount of extensions

VLC has a large amount of extensions. See More

Top Pro

Support for ProjectM visualizations

bring back the classic WMP visualizations when playing music 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

Can play every format video available (as of 2017)

Top Pro

Very versatile and easy to use

Top Pro

Supports a GUI interface and an ncurses terminal interface

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

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

Kodi

Top Pro

Can install on several devices

Apple TV (jailbroken), Mac, Windows, Linux, iOS, Xbox, and more! See More

Top Con

For some devices it requires them to be jailbroken or similar

Its not really a con, but if you have a streaming stick you can't install anything. Those devises usually come with apps pre-installed. Beware though, Some people are charging for streaming boxes with kodi pre-installed. Kodi comes free and you should never have to pay for the program. The fact that it can be jail broken for installation makes kodi even more desirable in my opinion See More

AuthenticThinanMalkia's Experience

Kodi has been my #1 player for four years when Helix was the current release. I will warn folks that even though its free, you will have to put some work into configuration. After all these years, I still change it around. It has evolved gets better with each release. The biggest con I can think of the the configuration piece but there are a lot of resources to help but you will have to research how to fix things such as buffering, and video playback because of the various formats it can play. Configuring Kodi has actually taught me a lot and I can now troubleshoot fairly quickly when necessary. Now the best feature is the add-on concept. Not only can you watch movies and catch up on your favorite TV shows, Kodi supports live TV! With the IPTV protocol, you can stream live TV from anywhere in the world! With IPTV there is no need for a tuner and that is amazing to me. Once you have it installed and configured, you will no doubt be ready to cut the cord from pay TV service providers. I did and can assure you, I can watch any televised, or internet program for free. Oh did I mention you can listen to internet radio and other audio content from your personal collection or from one of the hundreds or thousands add-ons? You will not be disappointed. I would place Kodi at #1 See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, AndroidTV, iOS, tvOS

Top Pro

Open Source

Not a freemium software. See More

Top Pro

Lots of plugins available

Top Pro

Free

Celluloid

Top Pro

Fast like MPV, beautiful like a modern app - optional Ubuntu look

The best of MPV (speed) + the best of a modern nice looking app. It can look like a Windows/Linux Mint or an Ubuntu app with "enable client-side decorations". See More

Top Con

Lack of preferences in the GUI

Having to know the MPV config options to set makes it harder to use than if the options were integrated in the GUI. See More

DetailedVatanchu's Experience

GUI for MVP that doesn't have any configuration options. What is the point? See More

Top Pro

Can use MPV config files

Most options MPV supports hasn't been added to the preferences. Instead you can point it to your MPV config file (maybe create one first), or set MPV flags. See More

GenuineErecura's Experience

uptoday it works fine with the same films a music. I would like to use a equalizer, but is ok See More

Top Pro

Stable and performant

Because it's a GUI for MVP, it's faster and less likely to crash than many other players. See More

JoyfulChantico's Experience

I used MPV for a long time, because it's true, it plays everything and its easy to get on any platform. But on linux, I realized that MPV is just much quicker in opening, playing, everything. So I used plain MPV for a while. I tried some other frontends for it like SMP, but I didn't like it. Finally recently, when Linux Mint used Celluloid in their repositories, I first tried it. And its all that I wished an MPV frontend would be. It's the best of MPV with a normal nice elegant look, that can use the MPV config files! So I can keep my preferred shortcuts like up arrow for vol+ Oh and just today I found that disabling "Enable client-side decorations" makes it look even better (like a normal app). I'm actually sad that I cant recommend it to my windows friends XD It's so good. See More

Top Pro

Chose between client side decorations and a traditional menu

Integrates well with both Gnome Desktop' s minimalism with no menu bars and Mate, XFCE or Budgie with Vala Panel's global Appmenu. See More

FerventDuberdicus's Experience

user friendly See More

ExcitedPrabhasa's Experience

Handy shortcuts for saturation, brightness, etc are extremely usefull when watching movies etc.. Moreover audio sounds clear than VLC... Seeking video forward/backward does not corrupt pixels like VLC does.. See More

Rage

KDE KMPlayer

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