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videolan/vlc

📈 Trending★ 18,404CAudience · developerComplexity · 4/5ActiveLicenseSetup · hard

TLDR

Free, open-source media player that plays nearly any file format and can be embedded in other apps. Runs on Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, iOS, and more.

Mindmap

mindmap
  root((repo))
    What it does
      Play any media
      Convert streams
      Encode formats
      Retransmit streams
    Platforms
      Windows
      macOS
      Linux
      Android
      iOS
    Tech stack
      C core
      C++
      Objective-C
      Rust
    Use cases
      Standalone player
      Embedded engine
      Stream conversion
      Format encoding
    Community
      Volunteer maintained
      GitLab-based
      Self-hosted infra

Things people build with this

USE CASE 1

Build a custom media player application by embedding libVLC into your own software.

USE CASE 2

Convert or encode video and audio streams between different formats and codecs.

USE CASE 3

Create a streaming server that can retransmit media in multiple formats to different clients.

USE CASE 4

Play media files from local storage, optical discs, or streaming sources in your application.

Tech stack

CC++Objective-CRustAssembly

Getting it running

Difficulty · hard Time to first run · 1day+

Building from source requires platform-specific toolchains (Xcode for macOS/iOS, NDK for Android, MSVC for Windows) and multiple dependencies; pre-built binaries may be easier for testing.

VLC is licensed under the GPL; libVLC (the embeddable engine) is licensed under the LGPL, allowing third-party apps to use it without adopting the GPL.

In plain English

This repository is the source code for VLC, a free and open source media player and multimedia engine. VLC can play nearly any type of media file, disc, or streaming source, and can also convert, encode, and retransmit streams in many formats. The project runs on a wide range of operating systems including Windows, macOS, Linux, BSD variants, Android, and iOS. Beyond the standalone media player application, VLC's underlying engine (called libVLC) can be embedded into third-party applications. libVLC is licensed separately under the LGPL, which allows other software to incorporate it without being required to adopt the GPL license that covers VLC as a whole. The readme notes that contributions must be submitted as merge requests on the project's own GitLab instance rather than as GitHub pull requests, which are not reviewed here. The project is maintained by a volunteer community, and development, bug tracking, and code review all happen on the team's own infrastructure. The codebase is primarily written in C, with significant portions in C++, Objective-C, assembly, and Rust.

Copy-paste prompts

Prompt 1
How do I embed VLC's libVLC engine into a C++ application to add media playback?
Prompt 2
Show me how to use VLC to convert a video file from one format to another via command line.
Prompt 3
What are the steps to compile VLC from source on Linux and customize the build?
Prompt 4
How can I use VLC to stream a local video file to multiple clients with different format requirements?
Prompt 5
What codecs and container formats does VLC support for playback and encoding?
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Generated 2026-05-18 · Model: sonnet-4-6 · Verify against the repo before relying on details.