# Frame Player or VLC?

> VLC is the player everybody already has, and it has earned that — it plays almost anything, on almost any device. Frame Player is built on a different engine, mpv, with an interface designed from scratch around it. Here is where each of them is the better choice.

Source: https://frameplayer.app/compare/vlc
Updated: 2026-09-22

VLC is the default answer to "what should I use to play this file", and for good
reason: it plays nearly everything, it runs nearly everywhere, and it has for
twenty years. What people who switch away from it usually miss is not a format
but the experience around the picture — an interface that has changed little in
a decade, a seekbar that shows nothing when you hover it, subtitles found
through an extension. [Frame Player](https://frameplayer.app/) was built for exactly that part.

*Figure: Hovering the seekbar shows the frame you would land on, and the chapter it belongs to — the one thing VLC users ask for most often.*

## At a glance

| Compared | [Frame Player](https://frameplayer.app/) | VLC |
|---|---|---|
| Runs on | Windows 10 and 11, macOS on Apple Silicon | Windows (including ARM), macOS, Linux, Android, iOS and more |
| Engine | libmpv, with FFmpeg's decoders | libVLC, with FFmpeg's decoders |
| Seekbar previews | Built in | — |
| Subtitle search | Built in, OpenSubtitles, matched to the exact release | VLSub extension, OpenSubtitles |
| Remembers where you stopped | Yes, and the audio and subtitle tracks you chose | Asks whether to continue |
| Frame by frame | Forwards and backwards | Forwards only |
| Skip intro | From the file's chapters | — |
| Cast to a TV | Chromecast and DLNA, the picture never re-encoded | Chromecast, converting the video on the fly when the device cannot play it |
| Torrents | Built in, watch while downloading | — |
| Watch together | Built in | Through Syncplay |
| YouTube and other sites | Through yt-dlp, installed from the player | Through VLC's own scripts |
| Licence | GPL-3.0 | GPL-2.0 or later |

Checked against VLC 3.0.24 in September 2026. VLC 4, with a new interface, is in development but not released.

## What is the same

**The formats.** Both players decode with FFmpeg underneath, so the everyday
files — MKV, MP4, AVI, HEVC, AV1, every common audio and subtitle format — play
in either one, with hardware decoding where the graphics card has it.

**The price.** Both are free and open source, with no account, no subscription
and nothing sent home.

## Where Frame Player goes further

**An interface designed as a whole.** VLC has every function somewhere, in menus
several levels deep; Frame Player puts the ones you use on the video, and the
rest in one settings sheet. The small things are worked out: subtitles lift out
of the way when the controls appear, so the line you are reading is never behind
the seekbar; every tooltip and menu row shows its shortcut, and shortcuts follow
the physical key, so they work in any keyboard layout; when the window gets
narrow the control bar folds its extra buttons into one instead of pushing play
off center.

**Previews that show the frame you land on.** Hover the seekbar and you see where
you are going, with the chapter it belongs to. Once the cursor stops, the
thumbnail sharpens to the exact frame rather than the keyframe before it.

**The picture, mpv's way.** HDR is tone mapped by libplacebo, the renderer mpv
is known for, and that includes Dolby Vision releases with no HDR10 fallback,
which VLC 3 has long shown in green and purple.

**A series picks up where you left it.** Frame Player reopens a file at the
position you stopped at without asking, and remembers the dub and subtitles you
chose by their language and title — so the choice you made in episode one is
found again in episode two, even when the track number is different. When an
episode ends, the next one in the folder is offered; when a chapter is named as
an opening, a recap or the credits, a skip button appears.

*Figure: The audio menu. The track you choose is remembered for the whole folder, not just for one file.*

**Subtitles matched to your release.** Subtitle search is part of the player,
not an extension. It searches by the file's own fingerprint first, which finds
subtitles made for exactly that copy, and a subtitle made for a different frame
rate is flagged before you download it — that is the one that
[drifts further out of sync](https://frameplayer.app/guides/subtitles-out-of-sync) the longer you watch.

**Torrents and watching together, built in.** A magnet link plays while it
downloads ([how](https://frameplayer.app/torrent-streaming)), and a six-character code keeps friends in
other places on the same frame ([how](https://frameplayer.app/watch-together)); with VLC that takes
Syncplay, a separate program.

## Casting to a television

This is where the two differ most. VLC can send a video to a Chromecast, and when
it works it is convenient — but its bug tracker lists
[56 open Chromecast issues](https://code.videolan.org/videolan/vlc/-/issues/?label_name%5B%5D=Component%3A%3AStream%20output%3A%20Chromecast),
and the same few come up again and again: a
[black screen with only the title on it](https://code.videolan.org/videolan/vlc/-/issues/25359),
[HEVC](https://code.videolan.org/videolan/vlc/-/issues/27671) and
[10-bit video](https://code.videolan.org/videolan/vlc/-/issues/27127) that play
as sound only, casting that
[stops after a few minutes](https://code.videolan.org/videolan/vlc/-/issues/25366),
an [audio track that will not change](https://code.videolan.org/videolan/vlc/-/issues/25492)
while casting, and, since 3.0.22, some Chromecasts
[no longer appearing in the list at all](https://code.videolan.org/videolan/vlc/-/issues/29654).
When the device cannot play a file, VLC converts the video on the fly and warns
that the conversion can use all the power the computer has — which is where the
stutter comes from.

Frame Player's casting was built and measured against real televisions, and it
works the other way round:

- **It says what will happen before anything starts.** Each television in the
  cast panel says, for this file, whether it **plays as it is**, is **prepared
  before it starts**, or cannot play and why. A file the device cannot show is
  never sent to it, so there is no black screen to wait out.
- **The picture is never re-encoded.** When only the container is the problem,
  the file is repacked with the video copied as it is — about ten seconds for a
  film, and the copy is kept, so casting it again is instant. After that the
  television plays a plain file, which is why seeking on it is as quick as on
  anything else it plays.
- **DLNA as well as Chromecast.** A DLNA television plays the file with its own
  player, so a release the set already handles goes over untouched — measured on
  a 4K LG set with a 6.3 GB HEVC HDR10 MKV and Dolby 5.1 sound, seeking included.
  When a set speaks both, the player picks the one that fits the file, and falls
  back to the other if a start fails.
- **The window becomes the remote.** The seekbar, the keys, chapters, the queue
  and the audio track all act on the television; changing the dub prepares the
  new track while the old one keeps playing, then swaps. Disconnecting hands the
  film back to the window at the position the set had reached.
- **When something is wrong, it says what.** The search also asks the devices on
  your network directly, for routers that do not pass discovery between Wi-Fi
  bands; a television that is found but never starts is reported as the firewall
  problem it almost always is; and a check under each device shows what the set
  says it can play, with a copy button for a bug report.

The details are in [how casting works](https://frameplayer.app/cast-to-tv).

## Where VLC is the better choice

> **Note.** **On Linux, a phone, an Intel Mac or a Windows ARM laptop**, use VLC: Frame Player runs on Windows on Intel and AMD, and on Apple Silicon Macs.

- **It runs everywhere.** One player on the desktop, the phone, the tablet and
  the Apple TV is worth a lot, and nothing else covers as much.
- **Discs.** VLC plays DVDs with their menus. Frame Player plays files and links,
  not discs.
- **Beyond playback.** VLC converts files, records streams, streams to other
  machines and plays internet radio and podcasts. Frame Player is a player and
  nothing else.
- **Extensions.** VLC can be extended with Lua scripts. Frame Player has no
  plugin system — though your mpv.conf applies underneath it.
- **Twenty years of use.** VLC has met more strange files than any other player,
  and the long tail of fixes that comes with that.

If what you want is one tool that does everything media on every device, that is
VLC. If what you want is the best time watching films and series on a Windows PC
or a Mac, that is what Frame Player is for. And if you came here looking for
IINA on Windows, [that comparison is here](https://frameplayer.app/compare/iina).

## Questions

### Is Frame Player based on VLC?

No. VLC is built on its own engine, libVLC. Frame Player is built on libmpv, the library form of mpv, which is the engine behind IINA and mpv.net as well. Both use FFmpeg's decoders underneath, so the list of formats that play is much the same.

### Does VLC have thumbnail previews on the seekbar?

Not as of VLC 3.0.24, the current release. It has been asked for for years. Frame Player shows the frame under the cursor as you hover the seekbar, and sharpens it to the exact position once the cursor stops.

### Why does VLC show a black screen on my Chromecast?

Usually because the file's video is something the device cannot decode — HEVC and 10-bit video are the common cases — and VLC sent it anyway, so the television shows the title and a black picture while the sound plays. It is one of 56 open Chromecast issues in VLC's bug tracker. Frame Player checks each file against each device before it starts and says what will happen, so a file the device cannot show is never sent to it.

### Can VLC cast to a DLNA television?

VLC 3 casts to Chromecast devices through Playback → Renderer, converting the video on the fly when the device cannot play it. It can browse a DLNA media server, but it cannot send a video to a DLNA television. Frame Player does both, Chromecast and DLNA.

### Is Frame Player free like VLC?

Yes. Both are free and open source — Frame Player under the GPL-3.0, VLC under the GPL-2.0 or later. Neither has an account, a subscription or advertising.

### Does Frame Player run on Linux, Android or iPhone?

No — Windows 10 and 11, and macOS on Apple Silicon. On Linux, on a phone, on an Intel Mac or on a Windows ARM laptop, VLC is the one to use.