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Media Players & Streaming
Media players, media servers and streaming front ends for video, music and games.
22 results in Media Players & Streaming
Active Pro listings from this category appear first. Your sort applies within Pro and Free results.
5 views11,166 stars
FreeTubeMedia Players & StreamingFreeTube is an open-source YouTube desktop client for Windows, macOS and Linux that plays videos without ads and keeps subscriptions on your computer.Open sourceSoftwareViews · 7 daysTop 16%
InvidiousMedia Players & StreamingInvidious provides a web interface for watching YouTube videos without ads or tracking. It supports independent subscriptions, audio-only playback, data imports and exports, and a developer API.Open sourceSelf-hostedViews · 7 daysTop 29%
JellyfinMedia Players & StreamingJellyfin is a free software media server that manages your media and streams it from a dedicated server to end-user devices through multiple apps.Open sourceSelf-hostedViews · 7 daysTop 29%
KodiMedia Players & StreamingKodi is a free, open source media player and entertainment hub from the XBMC Foundation for Android, Linux, BSD, macOS, iOS, tvOS and Windows.Open sourceSelf-hostedViews · 7 daysTop 29%
LoopsMedia Players & StreamingLoops is an AGPL-3.0 server and web app for short vertical videos. Communities run their own instance with Docker or on a Laravel stack, use the official iOS and Android apps, and follow accounts across the fediverse.Open sourceSelf-hostedViews · 7 daysTop 10%
MornyeMedia Players & StreamingMornye is an LGPL-3.0 music app built with Flutter and Rust for Android and iOS, with desktop builds. It plays local and network libraries, tags files with metadata, cover art and synced lyrics, and adds sources through community extensions.Open sourceSoftwareFreeViews · 7 daysNo views in 7 days
NavidromeMedia Players & StreamingNavidrome is a GPL-3.0 music server written in Go. It indexes your own library from its tags, streams it to a browser or to Subsonic, OpenSubsonic and Jellyfin clients, and runs as a single binary or Docker container, even on a Raspberry Pi.Open sourceSelf-hostedViews · 7 daysTop 16%
NewPipeMedia Players & StreamingNewPipe is a libre, lightweight Android streaming front-end for YouTube, PeerTube, Bandcamp, SoundCloud and media.ccc.de that needs no account.Open sourceSoftwareViews · 7 daysTop 29%
NightingaleMedia Players & StreamingNightingale turns your own music library into karaoke. It separates vocals with UVR or Demucs, finds or transcribes word-timed lyrics, scores microphone pitch and supports multiplayer. It runs as a desktop app or a self-hosted web server.Open sourceSelf-hostedViews · 7 daysTop 29%
NuclearMedia Players & StreamingNuclear is a free AGPL-3.0 music player for Windows, macOS and Linux. Plugins supply search, streams, lyrics and dashboards, and a local MCP server, HTTP API and MPD server let agents and scripts control it.Open sourceSoftwareViews · 7 daysTop 29%
OBS StudioScreen Capture & RecordingOBS Studio captures screens, windows, games, cameras and audio, composes them into scenes, then records the result or streams it over RTMP or WHIP. It runs on Windows, macOS and Linux under GPL-2.0-or-later, with plugins, scripting and WebSocket control.Open sourceSoftwareViews · 7 daysTop 10%
OpenTubeXMedia Players & StreamingOpenTubeX is an AGPL-3.0 YouTube client forked from FreeTube for Windows, macOS, Linux, Android and experimental iOS. It keeps subscriptions and history on the device and does not use the official YouTube API.Open sourceWeb platformViews · 7 daysNo views in 7 days
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PeerTubeMedia Players & StreamingPeerTube is Framasoft's AGPL-3.0 video hosting server. Each instance runs its own catalogue, users and moderation, federates with other instances and Mastodon over ActivityPub, and offloads viewer traffic with WebRTC peer-to-peer.Open sourceSelf-hostedViews · 7 daysTop 29%
PlayniteMedia Players & StreamingPlaynite is an open source game library manager and launcher for Windows that unifies Steam, Epic, GOG, EA App and Battle.net libraries with emulation support.Open sourceSoftwareViews · 7 daysTop 16%
RyotMedia Players & StreamingGPL-3.0 self-hosted tracker for media and fitness: movies, TV, books, games, workouts and measurements. Runs from a Docker image with PostgreSQL, imports from Trakt and Goodreads and syncs with Jellyfin and Plex.Open sourceSelf-hostedFreemiumViews · 7 daysNo views in 7 days
SeriesGuideMedia Players & StreamingSeriesGuide is a GPL-licensed Android app that tracks TV shows and movies with TMDB data, Trakt integration, lists, statistics, widgets and an extensions API. A yearly subscription unlocks cloud sync and notifications.Open sourceSoftwareFreemiumViews · 7 daysNo views in 7 days
ShowlyMedia Players & StreamingShowly is a GPL-3.0 TV show and movie tracking app for Android and iOS. It records episode progress, shows an upcoming calendar and syncs with Trakt.tv. It does not stream or download any video.Open sourceSoftwareFreemiumViews · 7 daysNo views in 7 days
StremioMedia Players & StreamingStremio is a media center with add-on-based content discovery, video playback and account-based viewing progress sync across devices. It does not supply content itself.Open sourceWeb platformViews · 7 daysTop 29%
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Tonkatsu BoxMedia Players & StreamingTonkatsu Box is a free, MIT-licensed Flutter app that tracks games, movies, series, anime, manga, visual novels, books and audio in a local SQLite library. It runs on Windows, Linux, macOS and Android, or self-hosted in a browser.Open sourceSelf-hostedViews · 7 daysTop 16%
Shortlists for Media Players & Streaming
Explore collections with tools relevant to this category, grouped by deployment, source model or workload.
Open-source IT tools →
22 matching tools from this category
IT tools with an API →
10 matching tools from this category
Self-hosted IT tools →
9 matching tools from this category
How to choose media players & streaming tools
Media players and streaming tools play, organize and serve video, music and games, from local files on one device to a home media server streaming to every screen. The category also includes alternative front ends for video platforms that reduce ads and tracking, and launchers that unify game libraries. It differs from media downloaders, which create offline copies, and from editing tools, which change the media itself.
Who uses these tools
- Home lab owners running a family media server
- Users seeking ad-free, privacy-friendly video front ends
- Gamers consolidating libraries from several storefronts
Capabilities to compare
- Codec support and hardware-accelerated transcoding
- Client apps for TVs, phones and browsers
- Library metadata, subtitles and watch progress
- Multi-user profiles and parental controls
- Plugin or add-on ecosystem
Operating considerations
- Transcoding load on server CPU or GPU
- Remote access exposure for home media servers
- Unofficial add-ons with legal or malware risk
- Front ends break when platforms change their APIs
- Storage growth for large libraries
Selection checklist
- List the devices your household or team watches on and confirm a native client or browser path exists for each.
- Check hardware transcoding support on your server, especially for streaming to phones or over slow connections.
- Review how remote access works and prefer a VPN or authenticated proxy over open ports.
- Vet add-ons and plugins by source, since third-party repositories can carry malware or infringing streams.
What belongs in this category: Products appear here when playback, library management, streaming to clients or a front end for watching or listening is the main job, rather than downloading, editing or converting media files.
Media Players & Streaming on iThub in figures
iThub lists 22 tools in Media Players & Streaming. 22 of 22 are open source, 9 of 22 can be self-hosted, 22 of 22 have a free, freemium or open-source pricing model and 10 of 22 offer an API.
- Tools listed
- 22
- Open source
- 22
- Self-hostable
- 9
- Free to start
- 22
- With an API
- 10
- Web app
- 10
- Desktop app
- 16
Recently added: OpenTubeX, Mornye, Nightingale, Ryot
Typical use cases
- Streaming a personal movie and music library to smart TVs
- Watching video platforms without ads or account tracking
- Launching games from several stores in one interface
- Playing local media files on an old laptop or set-top box
Trade-offs to model
- A self-hosted media server keeps your library private and free of subscriptions, but you handle storage, updates and remote access.
- Alternative front ends remove tracking and ads, yet they break more often because they depend on unofficial platform access.
Common mistakes
- Forwarding the media server port straight to the internet without TLS or an authenticated reverse proxy.
- Skipping hardware transcoding checks and finding the server stalls when several people stream at once.
Browse media downloaders →Browse audio editing and music tools →See self-hosted IT tools →
Decision resources
Continue the technical evaluation
Use the resources that match your decision stage. Profile data and linked sources were refreshed through November 10, 2026.
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