Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

VLC Media Player VS QuickTime Player

Compare VLC Media Player VS QuickTime Player and see what are their differences

VLC Media Player logo VLC Media Player

VLC is a free and open source cross-platform multimedia player and framework.

QuickTime Player logo QuickTime Player

Watch Internet video, HD movie trailers, and personal media clips.
  • VLC Media Player Landing page
    Landing page //
    2021-09-13
  • QuickTime Player Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-06-28

VLC Media Player features and specs

  • Cross-Platform Compatibility
    VLC Media Player is available on multiple platforms including Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, and iOS, providing a consistent experience across different devices.
  • Wide Format Support
    VLC supports virtually all audio and video file formats, making it a versatile media player for various types of content.
  • Open Source
    Being an open-source project, VLC is free to use and its source code is accessible, allowing for community-driven modifications and improvements.
  • No Ads or Spyware
    VLC Media Player is free of advertisements, spyware, and user tracking, offering a clean and private user experience.
  • Customizable Interface
    Users can customize the interface with skins and add functionality through plugins and extensions, enhancing the user experience.
  • Streaming Support
    VLC can stream content over networks and manage internet radio streams, making it ideal for both local and remote media playback.
  • Frequent Updates
    The development team regularly updates VLC, ensuring it remains secure, stable, and compatible with the latest media formats.

Possible disadvantages of VLC Media Player

  • Resource Intensive
    VLC can be resource-intensive, which may cause performance issues on older or less powerful devices.
  • Complex Interface
    The extensive range of features and settings can be overwhelming for new or less tech-savvy users, making it difficult to navigate.
  • Occasional Bugs
    Like any software, VLC is not immune to bugs, which can sometimes result in crashes or unexpected behavior during playback.
  • Limited Library Management
    VLC's media library functionality is relatively basic compared to dedicated media management software, which may be a downside for users with large media collections.
  • Suboptimal Subtitle Support
    While VLC supports subtitles, the functionality can sometimes be glitchy, with occasional issues in displaying or syncing subtitles accurately.
  • Advanced Features Can Be Hidden
    Some advanced features are not immediately obvious and may require digging into the settings or using command-line options, which can be a barrier for less experienced users.

QuickTime Player features and specs

  • User-Friendly Design
    QuickTime Player offers an intuitive and straightforward interface that makes it easy for users of all skill levels to navigate and use.
  • High-Quality Playback
    The player supports high-definition video and offers smooth playback quality, ensuring an excellent viewing experience.
  • Screen Recording
    QuickTime Player includes built-in screen recording capabilities, which are useful for creating tutorials, presentations, and streaming.
  • Wide Format Support
    It supports a variety of video and audio formats, making it versatile for different types of media files.
  • Editing Features
    Basic editing tools, such as trimming, splitting, and merging video clips, are included within the application, allowing for simple video edits without needing additional software.
  • Free of Charge
    QuickTime Player is pre-installed on macOS and is available for free, which adds to its accessibility and convenience.

Possible disadvantages of QuickTime Player

  • Limited Advanced Features
    While it offers basic editing tools, QuickTime Player lacks advanced features found in professional editing software, which may not satisfy power users.
  • Windows Support Discontinued
    Apple has discontinued support for QuickTime on Windows, meaning no new updates or security patches, limiting inter-platform usability.
  • No Customization Options
    The player offers limited customization for playback settings, which can be restrictive for users looking for more control over their media experience.
  • Internet Dependency for Advanced Codecs
    Some advanced codecs require downloading additional components from the internet, which can be inconvenient for users with limited or no internet access.
  • Resource Intensive
    QuickTime can be demanding on system resources, which may affect performance, particularly on older or less powerful Macs.

VLC Media Player videos

VLC Media Player Review!

More videos:

  • Tutorial - VLC Media Player Android Review and Tutorial - Cool Features of VLC

QuickTime Player videos

QuickTime Player Review

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to VLC Media Player and QuickTime Player)
Audio Player
91 91%
9% 9
Media Player
91 91%
9% 9
Music Player
91 91%
9% 9
Video Player
100 100%
0% 0

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare VLC Media Player and QuickTime Player

VLC Media Player Reviews

  1. Muhammad Yaseen
    Playing Videos

    This is very useful application for me. Now i can watch videos of any format on my laptop with vlc player. It solved my all problems of video formats and play problem.


Best VLC Alternative Media Players
Users might seek alternatives to VLC Media Player due to preferences for a different user interface, additional features not available in the program, performance issues like lagging or compatibility problems, or specialized needs such as specific codec support. While VLC offers robust functionality and broad compatibility, exploring other media players can address personal...
9 Best VLC Alternatives to Play Media in Any Format
In today's fast-paced world, media players have become an essential part of our lives. VLC Media Player has always been a popular choice, but it seems that the video player exhibits more problems as time goes on. A quick search of user reviews proves that it has fallen behind competitors in terms of advanced features, and newer updates of VLC are fraught with bugs, glitches,...
10 Best VLC Media Player Alternatives in 2024 (Free)
Some years before VLC Media Player provided a lot of useful and satisfying features to the users as one of the best Media Players but as the use of Media Players increased many more alternatives to VLC Media Player developed that became its competitors. These not only serve similar features as VLC Media Player but also provide more useful features and various file formats...
Top 5 GOM Player Alternatives for Windows
You can spot VLC Media Player on the first position of almost every media-player-based list. It’s been one of the standards for playing wide variety of media formats — including audio and video. Being an open-source program, you are completely free to use VLC. As far as playing media in Windows is concerned, VLC Media Player comes with the best-in-class support. You will...
Source: xtendedview.com
Top 5 Alternatives of VLC for iPad
VLC player is one of the famous media players that is commonly used across multiple operating systems, including iPadOS. It's an open-source and easy-to-use media player that shows compatibility with every mainstream video and audio format. IPad users can use the file synchronization feature to stream videos saved in cloud storage platforms like Dropbox, iCloud Drive,...

QuickTime Player Reviews

4 Best Ways to Convert AVI files to MP4 on Mac/ Windows
But before converting, you need to upgrade QuickTime Player to Pro version. QuickTime Player Pro comes with an "Export" option that converts files to multiple file types, including MP4, with just a few clicks.
10 Best free screen recorder for mac no watermark
QuickTime Player is a watermark-free recording software designed by Apple for Mac users. It is a tool that comes with the Mac system, and it does not require any installation and configuration. At the same time, its recording procedure is also very simple, and the recorded files do not have the problem of file format incompatibility. QuickTime allows editing of the recorded...
Top 20+ Free Video Cropping Software in 2022
In fact, the built-in QuickTime Player can't crop videos, but the paid QuickTime Pro can do it. Although cropping is a simple function in most video croppers on Mac and requires nothing but simple dragging, it is a little complicated in QuickTime Pro. To remove annoying borders or unwanted parts in the frame, you need to create a mask in Photoshop first. And then apply this...

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, VLC Media Player should be more popular than QuickTime Player. It has been mentiond 3 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

VLC Media Player mentions (3)

  • The 10 tools I install on every new Mac I get
    VLC - plays everything, has excellent keyboard shortcuts and can in a pinch even record screens for you (free). - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
  • Why Open Source Software VLC's official website has been blocked for over 5 months now?
    Try accessing it without the 'www' subdomain (https://videolan.org/vlc/). Source: almost 3 years ago
  • AV1 no working
    I think I recommend you to use VLC Media Player without AV1 extension, it just decode. Source: over 3 years ago

QuickTime Player mentions (2)

  • Which video editing tool is best for deleting clips in the middle of a video?
    Some more on using QuickTime in general is here: https://support.apple.com/guide/quicktime-player/welcome/mac. Source: about 4 years ago
  • Videos don't play in Firefox/Firefox Nightly correctly
    Have you tried installing the QuickTime Player? I believe that is required to play back h264 content. Source: about 4 years ago

What are some alternatives?

When comparing VLC Media Player and QuickTime Player, you can also consider the following products

AIMP - AIMP : Free Audio Player : Официальный сайт программы

KMPlayer - KMPlayer is a freeware and supporting 36 different languages with 300 million users globally. PCKMPlayer is a freeware and supporting 36 different . ConnectKMP Connect allows you to connect your.

Winamp - Winamp is a media player that allows users to play multiple-file formats, arrange media in a varied file-management system, and play unique media with AAC encoding.

Amarok - The Amarok team is proud to announce the immediate availability of the result of 2 years of hard work, the beta release of Amarok 2. 9. This release is marked by improvements, corrections and polishing of nearly all Amarok features.

foobar2000 - An advanced freeware audio player for the Windows platform.

Windows Media Player - Get information about Windows Media Player and other Windows Media technologies.