5KPlayer vs VLC media player

5KPlayer is a free media player for Windows, macOS, and iOS, with playback, streaming, downloading, radio, and library features presented without a subscription. It handles video, audio, DVD, IPTV, HDR, HEVC, AV1, and VR 360° content. Listed formats include MP4, MKV, AV1, MOV, WMV, FLV, AVI, MPEG, MTS, M2TS, VOB, WebM, MP3, AAC, FLAC, and APE. The player supports network playback, subtitles, hardware acceleration, and 4K playback. AirPlay and DLNA support wireless streaming, mirroring, and multi-screen sharing; DLNA-certified devices can access its media library. It can download video and audio from more than 300 hosting sites and works with Android, PC and Mac, smart TVs, PlayStation, Xbox, and DLNA devices. The listed plan requires no subscription, and the media player and related features are presented as free. No trial or refund policy is stated. 5KPlayer and DearMob are brands of Digiarty Software, Inc.; DearMob iPhone Manager is a related product.

VLC media player is a free media player for Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS and Android. It plays multimedia files, DVDs, Audio CDs, VCDs and streams, with sources including files, discs, webcams and connected devices. Supported formats include MPEG-1/2, MPEG-4, H.264, DivX, XviD, WMV, MKV, MP4, MOV, AVI, WebM, MP3, AAC and FLAC. It supports subtitles, network playback, hardware acceleration and 4K playback, and most codecs work without a separate codec pack. VLC also supports skins, extensions and skin creation through VLC Skin Editor. Additional downloads are listed for Apple TV, Windows variants, several GNU/Linux distributions and systems including Chrome OS, FreeBSD and Solaris. VideoLAN is a non-profit project, and its source code can be obtained directly. The free plan states that VLC has no spyware, ads or user tracking; no other free-tier limits are listed.