Alternatives to MakeMKV
Turns a DVD or Blu-ray you own into an MKV file, keeping every track and chapter exactly as it was. The listings below can replace it for an important use case. Each note says what changes if you switch.
The original
MakeMKV
Turns a DVD or Blu-ray you own into an MKV file, keeping every track and chapter exactly as it was.
Replacements
Listings that take over the same core job as MakeMKV.
HandBrake
A video converter that turns files and unprotected discs into MP4, MKV or WebM with presets for common devices.
HandBrake is free and open source and can convert unprotected discs to smaller MP4, MKV or WebM files, but it cannot read copy-protected discs and always re-encodes.
XMedia Recode
A free Windows converter for video and audio files, DVDs and Blu-rays with GPU acceleration.
XMedia Recode is a free Windows converter that handles DVDs and Blu-rays with GPU-accelerated encoding, but it cannot convert copy-protected discs and re-encodes the output.
Similar software
Related functionality, not a direct replacement.
MKVToolNix
Builds, inspects and edits MKV files: add subtitles, drop a track, fix chapters, all without re-encoding.
FFmpeg
The command that converts, cuts, streams and inspects essentially any audio or video file in existence.
Jellyfin
A free media server for your own films, shows and music, with no premium tier and no account.
MediaInfo
Tells you exactly what is inside a video or audio file: codecs, bitrates, resolution, frame rate, subtitle and audio tracks.
Tdarr
A distributed transcoding system that automatically converts and cleans up files in a media library.
Unmanic
A self-hosted library optimiser that automatically transcodes and remuxes the files in a media library.
