VLC Media Player, developed by VideoLAN, is a free and open-source cross-platform multimedia player and framework that supports to play most multimedia files and streaming videos, and you can free download VLC player for Windows/Mac easily.
Although there is no denial that VLC player is one of the leading media players, it comes with some troublesome issues people can't bear with, such as the annoying "Rebuilding Font Cache", play HD videos with shutter, unfriendly user interface, bugs to VLC player update, etc.
You should know that VLC player is not the only good media player. There are also many media player software available that's better than VLC Media Player. In this article, we have listed 10 best Alternatives to VLC player for Windows/Mac, hope they can help you.
Aiseesoft Blu-ray Player is the best alternative to VLC Player for Windows. This media player support any frequently-used video/audio formats, like MP4, H.264/MP4 AVC, H.265/HEVC, MPG, M4V, TS, MTS, M2TS, MXF, RM, RMVB, WMV, ASF, MKV, AVI, 3GP, F4V, FLV, MP3, FLAC, AIFF, OGG, etc. You can also use it as a 4K/HD video player for H.264/MPEG-4 AVC, H.265/HEVC, TS, MKV, AVI, MOV, etc. As the name indicates, this Windows VLC Player alternative features playing Blu-ray disc, Blu-ray folder and ISO file. So if you are looking for a way to play SD/HD file smoothly, this would be your option.
https://potplayer.daum.net/
Daum PotPlayer is a pretty awesome free alternative to VLC player for Windows. It can play nearly all media files without requiring additional codecs yet supports OpenCodecs. PotPlayer makes it easy to select options like file associations, visualizations, subtitle formats including ASS/SSA. It also supports DVXA, CUDA, QuickSync, trying to get the best out of what you have.
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http://www.kmplayer.com/
KMPlayer (KMP) is a lightweight media player for Windows 7/Vista/XP/2000. The support of a wide variety of music and video codecs makes it a real alternative of VLC player. KMPlayer provides many customizable settings, you can slow down or increase playback speed, select parts of a video as favorites, do A-B repeats, choose your favorite skins and color schemes, etc.
Key Features:
http://player.gomlab.com/
GOM player is a completely free video player you can use instead of VLC Player for Windows. Like VLC Media Player, the built-in codecs enables GOM Player to play all popular video formats. Compatible with Windows 8.1/8/7/Vista, GOM player gives you the perfect DVD playback function that sucks on VLC player or Windows Media Player.
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http://smplayer.sourceforge.net/
SMPlayer is another free media player for Windows and Linux that can compete with VLC player for Windows. With powerful built-in codecs, you can free download this VLC player alternative and play virtually all video and audio formats. One more interesting features is that SMPlayer can remember the settings of all files you play, so that you can resume at the same point you left it.
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These are all five VLC Players for Windows alternatives we showed you. Apart from these great media players, you can also try to free download other Windows VLC Players alternative including Final Media Player, Wondershare Player, Zoom Player, Windows Media Player, MediaMonkey and more.
Free Mac Media Player is the perfect option when it comes to VLC Player for Mac. As the best free all-in-one media player for Mac users, you can free download this VLC Mac alternative and watch any movie/video/audio files on Mac smoothly with lossless video/audio effect.
http://mplayerx.org/
Similar to VLC Player for Mac - MPlayerX is an open source project which aims to be the most powerful, beautiful and easy-to-use multimedia player on Mac OS X. It can decode almost any file format on Mac. MPlayerX is inspired by QuickTime Player X. With a black interface and in-frame controls, MPlayerX makes you focus more on the video.
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Based on QuickTime and FFmpeg, Movist is called to be "the real alternative to VLC for Mac". this VLC player alternative for Mac features a simple and minimal UI with the control panel and playlist windows appearing as HUD panels. What's more, Movist distinguishes itself with its high quality capture features.
Key Features:
https://support.apple.com/quicktime
As the default media player for Mac running OS X, QuickTime is the most trustable VLC media player for Mac alternative. QuickTime player has multimedia functions including record Mac screen, play video of all popular formats, stream and view videos from Internet, etc.
Key Features:
http://www.divx.com/en/software/player/features
For those who left VLC player for Mac just because it cannot handle the high-quality video files well, DivX Player should be their first choice as it supports 4K Ultra HD. Besides, DivX Player is quite different from other media players which are only good for watching AVI, DIVX, MKV, MP4 and more video files, this VLC Player Mac alternative allows you to stream video to devices that are DLNA compatible.
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Apart from VLC player for Windows or Mac alternatives, you could still find Android or iOS player like VLC, BSPlayer, MX Player, Video Player Perfect, Style Jukebox, OP Player, etc. which enables you to play video file on mobile phone easily.
This page focuses on introduction of VLC Player alternatives for Windows and Mac. Hope you cna find the best one by yourself.
Extended reading: If you want to play DVD or Blau-ray files, then you could jump to CyberLink PowerDVD and Its Replacements.