What is VLC used for?

VLC is a free, open-source media player and multimedia engine that plays most file formats, discs and streams on nearly every platform. It is a good fit for everyday video and music playback, converting media between formats, and embedding playback in your own application.

Yes. VLC is open source under the GPL-2.0 licence. Its source code is on GitHub at videolan/vlc and is written mainly in C.

Yes. VLC is open source, so the software itself is free to use.

Yes. VLC can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure; there is no official hosted version.

What is VLC an alternative to?

VLC is an open-source alternative to Infuse. Other open-source alternatives to Infuse include Kodi, IINA and Cinetry.

Is VLC actively maintained?

Yes. The most recent commit to VLC was on 2 October 2026. The project has 20k stars on GitHub.

VLC: open-source alternative to Infuse

About VLC

VLC is a media player and multimedia engine from the VideoLAN project. It is built to play nearly anything, including most multimedia files, discs, streams and capture devices, and it can also convert, encode, stream and otherwise manipulate media into many formats.

The player is available for Windows, macOS, GNU/Linux, BSD, Android, iOS and several other platforms, including Android TV, Apple TV and iPadOS. Its core is also packaged as libVLC, an engine that third-party applications can embed in their own software.

VLC is developed and supported by a community of volunteers and is written mainly in C. The player is released under GPLv2 or later, and on some platforms it effectively ends up GPLv3 because of dependency licenses, while libVLC uses the more permissive LGPLv2 or later so it can be embedded in applications under other licenses.

Key features

Plays most audio and video formats
Plays discs, streams and capture devices
Converts and encodes media files
Streams media over a network
libVLC engine for embedding in apps
Desktop and mobile platform support

Good fit for

→Everyday video and music playback
→Converting media between formats
→Embedding playback in your own application

Built with: C
Tags: media-player; video-player; multimedia; streaming; libvlc; cross-platform; gpl; codecs

VLC: questions and answers

What is VLC used for?: VLC is a free, open-source media player and multimedia engine that plays most file formats, discs and streams on nearly every platform. It is a good fit for everyday video and music playback, converting media between formats, and embedding playback in your own application.
Is VLC open source?: Yes. VLC is open source under the GPL-2.0 licence. Its source code is on GitHub at videolan/vlc and is written mainly in C.
Is VLC free?: Yes. VLC is open source, so the software itself is free to use.
Can I self-host VLC?: Yes. VLC can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure; there is no official hosted version.
What is VLC an alternative to?: VLC is an open-source alternative to Infuse. Other open-source alternatives to Infuse include Kodi, IINA and Cinetry.
Is VLC actively maintained?: Yes. The most recent commit to VLC was on 2 October 2026. The project has 20k stars on GitHub.