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84 open-source media players

Open Source Media Players

The most popular open-source media players for Windows, macOS and Linux on GitHub are Lx Music Desktop, IINA and mpv. appsgit lists 84, including free alternatives to Windows Media Player, QuickTime Player and Plex, each with its platforms, license and install commands.

Updated Oct 28, 2026

Open Source Media Players

Showing 1-48 of 84 by GitHub stars. All desktop apps A to Z · JSON API

FAQ

Media players: FAQ

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What are the best open-source media players?

By GitHub stars, Lx Music Desktop is the most popular (54,833 stars), followed by IINA and mpv. People often use these instead of Windows Media Player, QuickTime Player and Plex. Each page lists the platforms, license and last commit.

Which of these run on Windows, Mac and Linux?

72 of the 84 open-source media players listed here run on Windows, 68 on macOS and 69 on Linux; on a Mac, the most starred is Lx Music Desktop. 34 can be installed with a package manager such as Flathub, Homebrew, winget or Chocolatey.

Are these open-source media players free?

Yes. All 84 use an open-source license (OSI-approved or FSF-free), so you can use, copy and change them for free.

How are these open-source media players chosen?

Apps come from desktop awesome lists (Awesome Linux Software, awesome-mac, awesome-windows, awesome-electron and the media and file sections of awesome-cli-apps), more than 70 GitHub topics such as desktop-app, electron-app, tauri-app, gtk, qt, macos-app, pdf-editor, cad and remote-desktop, and a hand-picked list of flagship apps. An app is listed only if it has a license (one GitHub detects, or one appsgit checked by hand), a README and a commit in the last six months, is not archived or a fork, and has 1000+ GitHub stars (topics), 500+ (awesome lists) or 100+ (hand-picked). It must also be an end-user application with a desktop signal: installers in its releases, install instructions for Windows, macOS or Linux, or a Flathub, Homebrew, winget, Chocolatey, Snap or AUR package. Libraries, frameworks, themes, plugins and servers are left out, and source-available apps are labelled as such.