LibreELEC
Hacker ApprovedShares rank 2 of 6 smart TV OSes by recommenders
A free, lightweight Kodi-based operating system people install on spare hardware or Raspberry Pi to turn a device into a local media player; it is not plug and play.
A free, lightweight Kodi-based operating system people install on spare hardware or Raspberry Pi to turn a device into a local media player; it is not plug and play.
15 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 13
- criticize it
- 2
- approval share
- 87%
Recommended in 6 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 13 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 6.5 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 6 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Turns spare devices into media players
“slap LibreELEC/Kodi or whatever on it, and use that device as your "smart" device”
Comment from 22 Jun 2026 in “Nearly Half of LG Smart TV Apps Contain Residential Proxy SDKs” “the CM4 running libreELEC does everything I need and then some”
Comment from 8 Sep 2026 in “LG TVs caught spying even when offline or on standby” “slap LibreElec on it even at today's crazy prices”
Comment from 13 Oct 2026 in “New Apple TV 4K” - Comment from 7 Sep 2026 in “216M Spy TVs – The LG Smart TV Problem [video]”
Plays local networked media well
“It does great with local [networked] media and that's all I use it for.”
Comment from 16 Jun 2026 in “Fox to Buy Roku Streaming Service in $22B Deal” “It decodes 4k content just fine. It has HDMI CEC.”
Comment from 31 Jul 2026 in “Read This Before You Buy That TV Streaming Stick”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Not plug and play
“these options are rarely plug and play”
Comment from 13 Dec 2025 in “LG TV's new software update installed MS Copilot, which cannot be deleted” Limited compared to alternatives
“LibreELEC or other Kodi distributions suck. They are too limited.”
Comment from 22 Jun 2026 in “Nearly Half of LG Smart TV Apps Contain Residential Proxy SDKs”
Other smart TV OSes people recommend
The four most recommended other smart TV OSes, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Projectivy Launcher | 29 | 2 | 94% | 8 | — | Approved |
| LibreELECThis page | 13 | 2 | 87% | 6 | — | Approved |
| Google TV | 13 | 23 | 36% | 7 | — | — |
| LG webOS | 8 | 15 | 35% | 5 | 10 yrs5 owners | — |
| FLauncher | 8 | 0 | 100% | 5 | — | — |
What people said
14 of the 16 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“slap LibreElec on it even at today's crazy prices”
“The basic install of Kodi on LibreELEC blocks the ads on YouTube.”
“the CM4 running libreELEC does everything I need and then some”
“Raspberry Pi + LibreElec.”
“It decodes 4k content just fine. It has HDMI CEC.”
“LibreELEC or other Kodi distributions suck. They are too limited.”
“slap LibreELEC/Kodi or whatever on it, and use that device as your "smart" device”
“It does great with local [networked] media and that's all I use it for.”
“At least if LibreElec does something I don't like Claude can fix it.”
“LibreELEC might be a good choice depending on the content you're streaming.”
“It is trying to be heavily customized, but in the end is just worse, buggy, bad wifi support”
“leave the TV offline and dumb”
“these options are rarely plug and play”
“Just feels the best that it's not a commercial product, rather a project built by cool people.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.