# Kodi 64 Hacker News commenters recommended Kodi and 38 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 12 of 13 months; owners who said how long report a median of 15 years (3 owners). **Verdict:** Free open-source media player praised for playing local, NAS and streamed video on cheap hardware and deep customization. Critics call the interface dated and add-ons weak. ## Why people recommend it - Runs on cheap boxes and Raspberry Pi (6 comments): "slap LibreELEC/Kodi or whatever on it, and use that device as your "smart" device" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48637570)) "It's silent, reasonably self-contained, and is appliance-like to get going" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47771965)) "music to a Kodi installation on a Raspberry Pi with no issues" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48992963)) - Plays local files and NAS content (5 comments): "Kodi on my older Sony Android direct played anything I threw at it flawlessly for years." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50213491)) "Kodi does support playing DVD backups (.iso or VIDEO_TS) with menus and everything." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50011253)) "once hardware HEVC decode was actually enabled in Kodi it played 1080p smoothly" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50209889)) - Customizable, works as Jellyfin front end (4 comments): "Kodi supporting just using my directory layout is why I use it over something like Jellyfin!" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46009655)) "you can use XBMC or Jellyfin and have a certain degree of control over your frontend" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49600286)) "needs tons of customization (which is also a positive)" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46363678)) - No ads or subscriptions (3 comments): "I prefer the stock Kodi interface (not perfect, but doesn't try to sell me anything.)" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48200146)) "There is Kodi Youtube plugin that takes a developer token and is then ad-free." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49118577)) "It's fully FOSS, with no weird subscription/lock-in shenanigans going on." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46055425)) ## What people warn about - Dated, convoluted navigation (4 comments): "The global navigation paradigm of Kodi, which is aimed at making every plugin and feature browsable in the same way (drill down menus basically) won't change though" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47287058)) "Kodi is super complex. The last straw was me wanting to launch Dolphin games from the UI and not being able to figure it out." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47658811)) "Also Kodis interface is terrible. I couldn't make a more convoluted and hard to navigate interface for TVs even if I tried." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47286484)) - Weak add-ons and plugins (2 comments): "either you are using plain kodi or some simple kodi extensions (say youtube) that just aren't as nice to use as their android app equivalents" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46839345)) "it is very good on its core, and very bad on the addons side" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47289916)) - Crashes, slow load, idle CPU use (3 comments): "I am sick and tired of its crashing, poor playback performance, and increasingly bloated feature set." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46521148)) "I tried Kodi and its alternatives years ago but never found them to be faster to load the apps" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50210365)) "Kodi still doesn't know how to minimize CPU consumption when one is doing nothing on the UI" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47658607)) ## 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 - [TV Explorer](https://hackerapproved.com/p/tv-explorer.md): 37 recommend - [Stremio](https://hackerapproved.com/p/stremio.md): 23 recommend ## Cite as Hacker Approved, "Kodi", https://hackerapproved.com/p/kodi/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).