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mpv vs VLC media player: catalog facts
mpv	VLC media player
Free Free software with no paid version.	Free Free software from a non-profit; there is no paid tier and no advertising in the player.
Windows, macOS, Linux, Command line	Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, iOS
High quality video output through OpenGL, Vulkan and D3D11, with scaling, colour management, frame timing… Hardware decoding on most platforms, switchable at runtime with --hwdec	Plays an unusually wide list of codecs and containers out of the box, including MPEG-1/2, H.264, H.265, VP8/VP9… No spyware, no advertising and no user tracking, stated on the project feature page
There is no real graphical interface, only a small on-screen controller over the video Configuration means editing mpv.conf and input.conf by hand	The stable desktop line is still 3.0.23; the 4.0 interface rewrite has not shipped The interface is functional rather than modern, and advanced options are buried in preference dialogs
Downloadable app	Downloadable app
Open source	Open source
License: GPL-2.0-or-later	License: GPL-2.0
No account needed	No account needed
Works offline	Works offline
Official website Full listing and sources Checked September 20, 2026	Official website Full listing and sources Checked September 20, 2026

Catalog facts only. Anything “not stated” is unconfirmed. Check full listings for details.