One of the most popular alternatives to VLC Media Player is MPC-HC, which is free and open source. Other popular alternatives are MPV, PotPlayer, SMPlayer and IINA. You're spoiled for choice with Media Players like VLC Media Player: we list more than 100 alternatives for Windows, Mac, Linux, Android and iPad.
MPC-HC's biggest advantage is arguably just how lightweight it is. Not only is it small in terms of hard drive space, but its CPU and overall system resource use is incredibly small compared to other video players, VLC included.
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MPV is an MPlayer-based video player that is available on all major desktop operating systems. Linux users in particular cite MPV as one of the best alternatives to VLC. Its interface is extremely minimal, though with that comes extraordinary stability.
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PotPlayer is a modular video player that also works with most video file formats by default. Many of our users also find that it starts up faster and performs better than VLC, while also including small quality of life features that can be useful in specific contexts (such as support for two subtitle tracks on the same video file in order to help learn a new language).
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Like MPV, SMPlayer is based off of MPlayer, but unlike MPV, it's more focused on accessibility with its user interface. Out of the box, users cite SMPlayer as having the versatility and stability of MPV with the ease of use of players like VLC. It also supports add-ons such as a YouTube search.
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Though it's exclusive to macOS, IINA's users swear by it for being lightweight, efficient, and performative. Minor annoyances such as performance-based audio-video-subtitle desyncs that can be found on VLC are not a problem when using IINA. Additionally, its interface is neat clean, with clearly labelled settings. This ease of use combined with its excellent performance makes it an easy recommendation for macOS users looking for a media player.
MPC-BE is another fork of Media Player Classic (specifically of the Home Cinema fork) with a focus on bug fixes and for automatically mounting ISO images. It is actively updated and performs really well for video playback. Users do not recommend it for music playback, as it lacks support for playlist looping and includes odd behaviors for shuffling media playback.
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Though it's been discontinued and almost entirely superseded by successors like Media Player Classic Home Cinema, some users still swear by it as a sort of "old reliable" video player that can play most files people throw at it with no issue. However, it's been 10 years since its last release, so it's highly recommended to look at MPC-HC and other forks actively in development.
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A media player to enhance your language skills with dual and AI-generated subtitles powered by OpenAI Whisper. Real-time OCR, translation with Google/DeepL, and word lookup boost learning. Supports 134 languages, fully customizable shortcuts, and it's free & open-source.
Open source video player leveraging Qt/QML and libmpv, featuring dual subtitle support, customizable shortcuts, auto chapter skipping by keyword, YouTube and online video playback, integrated playlist overlay, dynamic navigation, and KDE ecosystem compatibility.
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Celluloid (formerly GNOME MPV) is a simple GTK+ frontend for mpv. Celluloid interacts with mpv via the client API exported by libmpv, allowing access to mpv's powerful playback capabilities.
KMPlayer is often praised for its interface, which has been described as more functional and user-friendly than VLC or Media Player Classic Home Cinema. Its playlist manager is more akin to WinAmp's than it is to VLC or other video players, which makes it desirable for those with vast multimedia catalogs. It also includes very granular customization options.
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Screenbox is a modern video player that cares about performance and ease of use on a wide range of device types. It features a beautiful, friendly user interface while being fast and lightweight
