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Software · Media players & centers

VLC

VLC media player, the open-source multimedia player.

  • Completely free
  • Windows, macOS, Linux, Android and iOS
  • Open source

Overview

VLC is a media centre program, available on Windows, macOS, Linux, Android and iOS. Other documented uses: video conversion.

Features described on its official website: hardware acceleration.

File formats mentioned: MP3, FLAC, OGG, WEBM and MOV.

Overview written by LicitPro from the documentation published by the authors and the cited sources; we have not tried the resource ourselves.

Excerpts that establish this information
  • “The best video and music player.” — F-Droid, 10 November 2026
  • “Official download of VLC media player, the best Open Source player” — official website, 10 November 2026
  • “Media player, streaming client, streaming media server, and audio and video converter (transcoder), free/libre and open-source cross-platform software.” — Wikidata, 10 November 2026
  • “Media player, streaming client, streaming media server, and audio and video converter (transcoder), free/libre and open-source cross-platform software.” — Wikidata, 10 November 2026
  • “Fast - Hardware Decoding” — official page, 10 November 2026

At a glance

VLC is completely free: it is open source software, and every feature is available without paying or subscribing.

Its licence (GPL-2.0+) is a copyleft open source licence: you may use, study, modify and redistribute it, including commercially; modified versions must keep the same licence.

Strengths

  • Open source code
  • No advertising
  • Commercial use allowed

About

VLC is a free and open source cross-platform multimedia player and framework that plays most multimedia files as well as DVDs, Audio CDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols.

Description from Flathub — AppStream (Flathub)

Sources and checks

  • Facts collected from Flathub (credit card, publisher, licence, free status, platforms, commercial use, version) —
  • Facts collected from Wikidata (licence, platforms) —
  • Facts collected from Official plan pages (pricing, licence, terms) (commercial use) —
  • Facts collected from Comptoir du Libre (source code, licence) —
  • Facts collected from F-Droid (credit card, source code, licence, free status, platforms, ads, commercial use, version) —
  • Facts collected from Homebrew (platforms) —
  • Last technical check: 5 November 2026
  • Description from Flathub — AppStream (Flathub)

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