# MPlayer

Hacker Approved page: https://hackerapproved.com/p/mplayer/

10 people recommended MPlayer in Hacker News comments, 2 had mixed feelings and 1 criticized it, November 2025 to October 2026. It was recommended in 6 of 12 months, in 9 threads. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** Plays nearly any video format, including on old machines and framebuffer consoles, and is praised for being open source. Critics note it has not been updated in a while.

Summary written by Claude from 12 comments.

## Why people recommend it

- Works without a graphical desktop (4 comments in the sample): "I have gone weeks at a time without using a graphical desktop at all thanks to these tools." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47803752)) "it worked fine as a movie watching device for my children using mplayer in FB mode" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47805400)) "it worked very nice, in console with `-vo mga" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49506667))
- Plays almost any video format (2 comments in the sample): "Used to be the go-to that played basically anything years ago." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48612545)) "could handle everything under the sun back then" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46470895))
- Good video output and subtitle support (2 comments in the sample): "both produced high-quality hardware YUV output" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47675863)) "mplayer supports displaying multiple subtitles" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47740630))

## What people warn about

- Has not been updated recently (1 comment in the sample): "MPlayer has not been updated for some times, and traction was lost" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45855661))

## Other music players people recommend

- [VLC media player](https://hackerapproved.com/p/vlc-media-player/): 139 recommend, 31 mixed, 79 criticize
- [mpv media player](https://hackerapproved.com/p/mpv/): 68 recommend, 11 mixed, 11 criticize
- [Infuse video player](https://hackerapproved.com/p/infuse/): 61 recommend, 14 mixed, 9 criticize
- [Winamp](https://hackerapproved.com/p/winamp/): 53 recommend, 6 mixed, 6 criticize

## The badge

A product earns the Hacker Approved badge when at least 10 people recommend it, recommenders outnumber critics at least 2 to 1 (mixed feelings count toward neither side), it was recommended in at least 4 of the 12 months and in at least 5 different threads, and no single thread supplies more than half of the people who recommend it. Health and money products are never badged.

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "MPlayer", https://hackerapproved.com/p/mplayer/ (10 recommend, 2 mixed, 1 criticize; Hacker News comments, November 2025 to October 2026).

Counts updated 2 Nov 2026, with data through October 31, 2026.