# IINA media player

21 Hacker News commenters recommended IINA media player and 1 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 8 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** A free macOS video and music player built on mpv, praised for clean, no-frills playback, scripting and reliability. One critic reports problems with some color spaces.

## Why people recommend it

- Best free video player on macOS (3 comments): "The best Media Player on macOS. It is so good I often wished macOS shipped with it as default." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49941609)) "MPlayerX and IINA are the best free video players for macOS, hands down." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48187229)) "IMHO the de-facto video player for macOS" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46400480))
- Reliable for years of daily use (3 comments): "I also like IINA and have used it extensively in the past" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48213142)) "has been perfect for everything for years" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46111122)) "IINA is a fantastic player" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48385729))
- Plays both video and music cleanly (2 comments): "a video Swiss Army knife that just plays video and doesn't force me into an experience I don't want" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48489462)) "You open the music you download with something like IINA or Doppler, and you're off to the races." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48722736))
- Built on mpv, scriptable (2 comments): "MPV-based player GUI on macOS, https://github.com/iina/iina is quite good." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46466361)) "IINA is my go-to mpv wrapper nowadays" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48611214))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [VLC media player](https://hackerapproved.com/p/vlc-media-player.md): 172 recommend
- [mpv media player](https://hackerapproved.com/p/mpv.md): 82 recommend
- [Infuse video player](https://hackerapproved.com/p/infuse.md): 78 recommend
- [Kodi](https://hackerapproved.com/p/kodi.md): 64 recommend
- [TV Explorer](https://hackerapproved.com/p/tv-explorer.md): 37 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "IINA media player", https://hackerapproved.com/p/iina/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).