- Best free option: VLC Media Player VLC for Mac OS X/VideoLAN Organization. VLC Media Player is an open-source multimedia player that is totally free to download and use. And while it’s known for.
- Devices and Mac OS X version. VLC media player requires Mac OS X 10.7.5 or later. It runs on any Mac with a 64-bit Intel processor or an Apple Silicon chip. Previous devices are supported by older releases. Note that the first generation of Intel-based Macs equipped with Core Solo or Core Duo processors is no longer supported.
MX Player is another VLC media player alternative to watch a wide variety of file formats. You can stream videos directly from the Internet on your MX Player app for the PC. When you need to further customize the media player, you can take advantage of the additional plugins to tweak the program according to requirement.
Quick Summary
VLC is a well-known cross-platform media player developed by VideoLAN. It is a simple yet powerful program and is perhaps the best replacement for the default video player on your Mac. Whether you’re a beginner or advanced Apple user, you need to try VLC as it supports all major formats from MP4 to WMV. The player comes with an easy-to-use interface that can be customized with just a few clicks.
5KPlayer is an all-around great media player for Mac that has a few tricks up its sleeve. Apart from supporting a wide range of formats, the player also works as a video downloader and converter. But the most impressive thing about 5KPlayer is the DLNA and AirPlay support which allows users to stream video across their devices.
Plex is much more than just a typical video player. In fact, it’s a media streaming server app. Plex consists of two parts: the media server itself and media player that can handle almost all formats and Ultra HD resolution. Intuitive UI and comprehensive platform support make it an excellent option for creating and managing a personal media library.
Want to find out more about the winners? We also tested other video players for macOS and chose some alternatives you might find useful. So keep on reading!
Do You Need A Different Media Player
Vlc Player Mac Alternative Version
If you’re searching for the best video player for Mac, you’ve probably had problems playing video via Quicktime Player. You’re definitely not alone here.
Although QuickTime is a native Apple application for Mac, it’s a bit slow to launch and supports limited video formats. Many Mac users experience trouble playing MP4 or MKV files via QuickTime Player. As you can see from the screenshot below, so am I:
Although it has a smooth UI, QuickTime is poor in terms of compatibility. Using a third-party player is a way out of this situation. The apps reviewed in this article cope with a variety of formats including MP4, MKV, AVI, MOV, WMV, etc. They have extra features to create and manage playlists, customize your movie-watching experience, and mirror content on other devices that are above and beyond those supported by Quicktime.
Let’s see in detail what these apps have to offer!
How We Tested and Picked
To determine the winners, I used my MacBook Air and followed these criteria:
Supported Formats: As the Mac default player isn’t powerful enough to support some of the most wide-spread formats, this criteria was the most significant during our test.
Compatibility: The best Mac media player should be compatible with latest macOS and support videos of the highest resolution (4K).
Feature set: When it comes to QuickTime alternatives, a great set of features (video/audio filters, subtitle synchronization, playback speed, customization, etc.) is what makes the best player stand out from the competitors.
User Interface and Experience: Having a wide range of features can create a learning curve, but a great video player should stay user-friendly and have an attractive and intuitive interface to create the best possible user experience.
Affordability: Most of the video players available for Mac are free, some of them provide extra features that require payment. In this case, an app must offer the best value for the money if you decide to purchase it.
The Winners
Best Overall: VLC Media Player
When it comes to the best video players for Mac, VLC is the longtime king. This free, lightweight, open source cross-platform media player is powerful enough to cope with most video formats including MPEG, WMV, MP4, MKV, MOV, and AVI. The player can play almost everything on a single platform from DVDs, and audio CDs to streams and webcams. The video runs smoothly, without issues. No extra codecs are needed.
VLC has hardware decoding on most platforms. The player (version 3.0.6) runs on Mac OS X 10.7.5 (64-bit Intel-based Mac) up to Mac OS Mojave. Older devices (Mac OS X 10.0 — 10.6) are supported by previous releases. However, that support ended for these releases so they won’t receive any further updates.
In addition to extensive format support, the video player has a wide range of features such as adjustable playback speeds, subtitle synchronization, and audio/video filters. VLC gives users an opportunity to customize almost all aspects of the software. While its design isn’t the most attractive on the market, the player allows adding and creating skins, installing extensions, and changing keyboard shortcuts.
If you want to watch online videos outside the browser, VLC handles this task easily. It allows downloading content right to your computer. The program even has a built-in podcast manager so that you can add and listen to your favorite podcasts all in one place. VLC can also serve you as a converter.
Why is VLC one of the most popular video players so far? The answer is simple. This completely free program is easy-to-use, fast, and powerful. Besides, it has no annoying ads. VLC is not efficient when it comes to battery life as Quicktime, but overall it deserves to crown the top of our list of the best video players for Mac.
Runner-Up: 5KPlayer
Another superb video player for Mac that can easily play almost all available formats is 5KPlayer. The program is a great mixture of free HD video and music player, media library, online downloader, and DLNA/AirPlay-enabled media streamer.
When it comes to formats, 5KPlayer supports 4K, 5K, and 1080p HD videos including MKV, WMV, MP4, and MTS. It can play almost any multimedia file such as music, video (UHD, 3D, HDR 360), CDs, Audio CDs, DVDs, and VCDs.
The player also handles streaming/mirroring video via DLNA/AirPlay without quality loss. With built-in AirPlay tech, 5KPlayer can render the whole screen of iPads and iPhones to computers as well as Mac to Apple TV in a blink. Also, there is a screen recording utility connected to the mirroring function that allows up to 4K UHD video recording.
Apart from being a feature-rich video player, 5KPlayer is a useful video downloader that supports more than 300+ online platforms including YouTube, Vimeo, Vevo, MTV, Facebook, Instagram, and CBS. With its help, you can easily download many videos free of charge.
5KPlayer offers subtitle synchronization supporting various formats such as *.ass, *.srt, *.ssa, and *.sub. Just drag and drop the subtitle file to the playback window and subtitles settings will update right away without restarting the program.
What I like the most about 5KPlayer is that it allows Mac users to create a personal multimedia library where they can sort out their favorite videos and manage Youtube playlists.
Its UI looks smooth and user-friendly. During testing, there were no glitches or unexpected errors–a good sign as the software doesn’t reduce computer’s productivity by a great measure. The video player is packed with features. On the other hand, it might be confusing for some beginners who just started exploring video player’s world.
Also Great: Plex Video Player
If you’re looking for something more complex than a simple video player, Plex is a top choice. It’s a full-fledged media server app that can scan and organize all media on your computer perfectly, managing your playlists alongside with online content and streaming music.
As a video player, Plex can cope with just about every possible video format and 4K resolution. There is no need to convert formats by yourself, as the program automatically transcodes them when required.
What’s more, it can stream videos from one device to another (Amazon Fire TV, Roku, Chromecast, Android, TiVo, Android/iOS phones and tablets, etc.). With Plex, you can connect your Mac to a TV in a few clicks and watch your favorite movies on a bigger screen with no compromise in quality.
The Plex UI is eye candy for all Apple lovers. What I love the most is that the app adds cover art and descriptions to each video in your media library, making it look fantastic. Plex’s drawback is the tricky installation and setup process. Additionally, to get access to the Plex Media Server, every user must create a MyPlex account.
Even though Plex is free, users can purchase an upgraded version called PlexPass to get additional features such as parental controls and Live TV & DVR for $4.99 per month or $119.99 for lifetime access.
The Alternatives
Elmedia
As a multifunctional video player for Mac, Elmedia by Eltima Software supports all popular video formats (MP4, FLV, AVI, MKV, MOV, WMV, MKV, and others). The program plays HD media without slowdown or any interruptions. It’s also powerful enough to stream content to Apple TV, Smart TV, and other AirPlay or DLNA devices.
Elmedia allows users to customize playback speed, manage audio and subtitle delay, and browse the web without leaving the app. With its help, you can create and manage bookmarks to easily find your favorite parts of a movie.
The user-friendly interface of an app is an excellent match for the newer macOS versions. Elmedia offers tons of tools to improve your watching experience, but not all of them are free of charge. The PRO version of the app costs $19.95.
Cisdem Video Player for Mac
If you’re looking for a lightweight player with a decent interface and easy navigation that can provide you with a perfect experience of watching HD videos, you might want to try out Cisdem Video Player. Many users consider it a great alternative to VLC and 5KPlayer. It runs well on macOS 10.10 or higher.
Cisdem Video Player plays more than 50 formats (MKV, WMV, AVI, FLV, etc.) on Mac with no additional codec packages needed. But an ability to cope with high-quality formats such as 4K, 5K, and Full HD 1080p is not the only advantage of this software.
The player can convert multimedia files in various formats for any device like iPhone, iPad, Android phones, and etc. Using Cisdem Video Player as a converter, you can turn a file into an iPhone supported format and transfer it to your device via iTunes. To activate this feature, you have to purchase a license for $9.99 (1 Mac/Lifetime license). The upgraded version also gives free technical support and other benefits such as the removal of ads.
MPlayerX
Another noteworthy video player for Mac is MPlayerX. Although it hasn’t been updated since 2016, MPlayerX is a very lightweight, free, and easy-to-use program which can handle most formats without extra plugins or codec packages. MPlayerX runs smoothly on any Mac with OS X 10.7 or later and a 64-bit Intel CPU.
Designed specifically for Apple users in mind, this player has a minimalistic interface and simple navigation. It can “dance on your fingers” allowing users to control the playback via a Mac touchpad with gestures. MPlayerX provides Apple Remote support and online streaming from YouTube, Vimeo, and other websites.
This program offers subtitle support including Hebrew, Arabic, and Eastern Asian languages. It can quickly detect and convert subtitle files automatically. The player also lets users change the subtitle size. MPlayerX provides full-screen mode and a batch of other helpful customization options. As for me, the most useful one is the ability to increase or decrease the speed of the playback.
DivX Player
Since the early 2000s, the DivX company has been providing users worldwide with high-quality solutions for playing digital video. Its same-name video player DivX supports a wide range of formats including HD 1080p and 4K UHD videos.
This software has an intuitive interface and an overwhelming feature set. It can stream videos to DLNA-compatible devices. Just use the “Cast to” options and pick a device you want to stream to (Chromecast, Smart TV, Playstation, Xbox, etc). Also, DivX can help you burn media to discs or change the viewing size of the playback in a few clicks.
Despite the fact the player is free, access to its many features is quite limited. To make the most of using this software, you need to buy a DivX Pro for $19.99. The advanced version includes an ad-free option and adds AC3 audio playback, Cloud Connect to import videos from Dropbox and Google Drive, a DTS-HD plugin, and VideoPack to convert VC-1 and MPEG-2 video to DivX, MKV and MP4.
The free version comes with a 15-day or 30-day trial of some features so that you can try them and decide whether it’s worth the money or not.
During testing, DivX played a movie without glitches but crashed unexpectedly several times.
IINA
The last-but-not-least video player on our list is IINA, a modern movie-watching app for Mac. Just like media players listed above, IINA can play almost any format and offers useful customization options.
The app requires macOS 10.11 or newer. Written in Apple’s Swift programming language, it’s based on an open-source video player and is still under development. When complete, it’s going to give the best video players a run for their money.
The player supports local files, online streaming, and YouTube playlists. It also has good gesture support via trackpad that can be modified up to your preferences. If you already have macOS Mojave, you’ll surely like IINA for its UI with colors and icons that can adjust for dark mode.
Conclusion
After in-depth testing of various video players for Mac, we’ve found the best options to help you create a real home cinema experience with your computer — VLC, 5K Player, and Plex. Whether you watch movies from time to time or want to create a stunning video collection, we hope this review will help you choose the app that suits your needs.
Have you tried another Mac media player app that’s worth being featured in this review? Let us know in the comments below!
Despite the fact that VLC player is free and accompanies different highlights, you may search for a VLC elective because of issues, for example, the irritating “Reconstructing Font Cache” thing and antagonistic UI. So instead of exploring web for another player pick one from the rundown? Peruse on and discover which one suits you best. Here are best VLC media player alternatives for you.
The VLC player has been a basic device for some PC and Mac clients for a considerable length of time. The moderate program from the VideoLAN organization empowers you to play pretty much every video and sound configuration. The developing prominence of YouTube, DailyMotion, and other video spilling destinations has likewise enormously expanded VLC player’s fame. Numerous clients download their preferred clasps so they can play them in a compacted group at whatever point they like utilizing the VLC player. These are the best apps and software that can be used as an alternative for VLC media player.
The well known player’s principle advantage is that it’s conceivable to play compacted recordings legitimately with VLC without changing over them first. Altogether, the media player has been downloaded more than 2.3 multiple times on every working framework. The VLC player furnishes a useful UI with amazing codec support. In any case, it may be that the VLC player isn’t exactly adequate for explicit prerequisites. Is it true that you are searching for alternatives to VLC that offer somewhat various highlights? There are a few projects that merit an attempt.
A few clients are searching for a program to compose their media records and watch their motion pictures on TV, while others need distributed storage, or the capacity to change over films and music, or perhaps representations that are played corresponding to music.
XBMC Media Center
This freeware program is likewise open source, joining a huge amount of arrangements into one simple to utilize player. This will play DVDs without downloading codecs, and you can change the playback alternatives without any problem. Stream recordings on the web, as well. You can stack XBMC on any number of working frameworks, including OSX and Linux. Associate your Android gadget and use it as a remote control, as well. XBMC is on a few online life stages and Wikipedia on the off chance that you need any specialized help.
RealPlayer
It is well known as th ebest media player over the internet. It bolsters different mainstream designs. Also, it can change over your video documents into various organizations and download spilling content on the web, What’s more, you can impart your clasps to companions on Facebook. In any case, on the off chance that you need to get more highlights, you should pay $49.99 to get the RealPlayer Plus 16.
MPlayerX
One incredible thing about this program is that in numerous regions it’s conceivable to adjust the player’s highlights to your requirements. In any case, the program is restricted to the most significant capacities. The smooth playback of video and music records in the most well known arrangements can be accomplished by means of hard circle or system. The MPlayerX is perfect with Apple Remote and supports multi-checking, permitting advantageous remote control.
Vlc Player Mac Alternative Software
KMPlayer
KMPlayer is a free and lightweight media player for Windows 2000/XP/Vista/7. The help of a wide assortment of music and video codecs makes it a genuine option of VLC player. Additionally, you can modify it as you like, for instance, you can back off or speed up, select pieces of a video as top choices, do A-B rehashes, pick your preferred skins and shading plans, and so on.
UMPlayer
UMPlayer is a simple to-utilize media player. It underpins most mainstream positions. You can likewise look through recordings on YouTube, play online TV and radio. Furthermore, it gives you the alternative to download captions consequently from opensubtitles.org.
DivX
DivX is another acceptable option to VLC. It can play most famous video groups. Other than that, you can utilize it to watch spilling recordings in DivX, AVI and MKV positions through the web player.
BS.Player
This program is a force sipper, so it won’t charge your processor, yet it despite everything has a huge amount of highlights. It’s equipped for playing a wide scope of video organizations, and it has part and caption capacity. You can even alter the captions to look how you need them to just as change the dialects, in any event, during film playback. In the event that you are viewing a widescreen film on a 4:3 screen, you can use the container and sweep highlight to have the option to see the entire thing. Hotkeys are programmable for your preferred highlights.
GOM Player
This freeware player lets you play with the settings to accomplish the perfect blend for you. Good with Windows 8, it gives you back your DVD player that was lost when Windows quit accompanying WMP. You can even load an application that lets you utilize your Android and iOS compact gadgets as remote controls. While the program is free, it accompanies some extra projects packaged in, so like with KMPlayer, be certain you watch the containers during establishment. GOM can play the significant video designs and a few of the gushing arrangements, as well.
Media Player Classic Home Cinema
In the event that you adored Windows Media Player, this program is for you. Intended to have the look and feel of WMP variant 6.4, it’s a decent program for DVD playback that doesn’t occupy a great deal of room on your PC. It doesn’t have any extra projects packaged in, so you can introduce and go, and it functions admirably on more established PCs, as well. You can modify it how you wish, include toolbars, and focus in on your preferred film. Not exclusively would you be able to play DVDs however you can likewise play recordings in the regular configurations like Real Video and AVI.
SMPlayer
This program is free, and ground-breaking enough to deal with practically the entirety of your recordings, paying little mind to design. It accompanies all the codecs it needs packaged in. It has a worked in capacity to recollect where you left off in a film, and what settings you were utilizing, so you can get right the last known point of interest. SMPlayer is based on MPlayer, so on the off chance that you’ve utilized it previously, you’ll be comfortable with SMPlayer. You can download captions for your film, and you can look for and watch YouTube recordings on SMPlayer, as well. There are cool channels you can try out, and you can change the playback speed in the event that you’re out of time however you need to complete the film.
Winamp
Winamp is a well known media player, built up in the mid-1990s. These days, it’s fallen into insensibility. In any case, Winamp is as yet a decent decision for Windows clients. The completely highlighted program accompanies a profoundly adjustable plan. You can introduce representations, or change the presence of the player with several skins. Winamp underpins an immense determination of video and sound configurations, including MPG, MPEG, MP3, MP4, and OGG.
AnyMP4 Blu-beam Player
On the off chance that you need to play high-goals recordings on your PC or MAC, the AnyMP4 Blu-beam Player could be the correct option to VLC for you. The program from the AnyMP4 Studio is an expert media player for every normal rendition of Windows and macOS. With the all inclusive player, you can open practically all well known video and sound configurations (MP4, MOV, MKV, M4A, AAC, FLAC, and the sky is the limit from there). The greatest favorable position of the AnyMP4 Blu-beam player is the smooth playback of 4K and full HD recordings with a high piece rate (720p is likewise conceivable).