foobar2000 vs VLC media player
foobar2000
foobar2000.orgVLC media player
videolan.orgSide by side
| Figure | foobar2000 | VLC media player |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| iOS | Yes | Yes |
| Android | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | — |
| Plans published | 2 | 1 |
| Spec score · Media Player Software | 9.0 (#5) | 9.1 (#1) |
| Customization | The Windows and macOS versions support customizable user interface layouts, and the player supports customizable keyboard shortcuts. | Supports skins, skin creation with VLC Skin Editor, and extensions. |
| Format support | MP3,MP2,MP1,M4A/AAC/Apple Lossless,Ogg Vorbis,Opus,Musepack,Speex,AC3,DTS,WMA,FLAC/Ogg FLAC,WavPack,Monkey's Audio,TAK,WAV,Wave64,RF64,AIFF,AU/SND,Matroska/WebM,MPEG Transport Stream,Audio CD,HLS radio | MPEG-1/2,MPEG-4,H.264,DivX,XviD,WMV,MKV,MP4,MOV,AVI,WebM,MP3,AAC,FLAC,DVD,Audio CD,VCD |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| License model | free | VideoLAN software is licensed under various open-source licenses. |
| Network playback | It can stream music on a local network and control network audio players or another foobar2000 instance. | Yes |
| Platforms | Official versions are available for Windows, macOS, Android and iOS; the Windows build can run on Linux through Wine. | Windows,macOS,Linux,iOS,Android |
Plans
In their own words
foobar2000
foobar2000 has no write-up on Specifiction yet; its figures are above.
VLC media player
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.