MPlayer
Hacker ApprovedRanked 16 of 38 music players by recommenders
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.
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.
13 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 12
- criticize it
- 1
- approval share
- 92%
Recommended in 9 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 12 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 12 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 9 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
Works without a graphical desktop
“I have gone weeks at a time without using a graphical desktop at all thanks to these tools.”
Comment from 17 Apr 2026 in “FIM – Linux framebuffer image viewer” “it worked fine as a movie watching device for my children using mplayer in FB mode”
Comment from 17 Apr 2026 in “FIM – Linux framebuffer image viewer” “it worked very nice, in console with `-vo mga`”
Comment from 31 Aug 2026 in “Matrox: Graphics for Professionals” - Comment from 1 Jul 2026 in “Old Computer Challenge”
Plays almost any video format
“Used to be the go-to that played basically anything years ago.”
Comment from 20 Jun 2026 in “Windows 11 New Media Player Uses 3.5x More RAM, Charges for Popular Video Codecs” “could handle everything under the sun back then”
Comment from 2 Jan 2026 in “What You Need to Know Before Touching a Video File” Good video output and subtitle support
“it worked very nice, in console with `-vo mga`”
Comment from 31 Aug 2026 in “Matrox: Graphics for Professionals” “both produced high-quality hardware YUV output”
Comment from 7 Apr 2026 in “Every GPU That Mattered” “mplayer supports displaying multiple subtitles”
Comment from 12 Apr 2026 in “Apple update looks like Czech mate for locked-out iPhone user”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Has not been updated recently
“MPlayer has not been updated for some times, and traction was lost”
Comment from 8 Nov 2025 in “VLC's Jean-Baptiste Kempf Receives the European SFS Award 2025”
Other music players people recommend
The four most recommended other music players, 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| VLC media player | 172 | 83 | 67% | 12 | 20 yrs7 owners | Approved |
| mpv media player | 82 | 12 | 87% | 12 | — | Approved |
| Infuse video player | 78 | 11 | 88% | 11 | — | Approved |
| Kodi | 64 | 38 | 63% | 12 | 15 yrs3 owners | — |
| MPlayerThis page | 12 | 1 | 92% | 9 | — | Approved |
What people said
12 of the 16 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“it worked very nice, in console with `-vo mga`”
“Ditto with mplayer and fbdev2.”
“Used to be the go-to that played basically anything years ago.”
“What a breath of fresh air by comparison.”
“it worked fine as a movie watching device for my children using mplayer in FB mode”
“I have gone weeks at a time without using a graphical desktop at all thanks to these tools.”
“mplayer supports displaying multiple subtitles”
“both produced high-quality hardware YUV output”
“it was the open code (FLOSS) the one who survived every takedown attempt”
“sometimes MPlayer can still be faster than MPV with legacy machines”
“could handle everything under the sun back then”
“MPlayer has not been updated for some times, and traction was lost”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.