VLC media player: iPhone vs Android
VLC media player gets 100k+ downloads a day worldwide (AppInsider estimate, October 2026, rounded down to a band).
VLC media player by VideoLAN is on both the App Store and Google Play. Here are both versions together: downloads, users, revenue, ratings and chart positions, store by store with totals.
Family FreeVLC media player at a glance
AI summary written from our chart and store data, 2026-10-25. It can be wrong: check the numbers above.
VLC for Android is a free, open-source multimedia player that supports a wide range of video and audio formats, network streams, and DVD ISOs without ads or in-app purchases. The app maintains strong visibility by ranking #1 in the UAE Family Free category and consistently placing within the top 4 across major markets including India, Canada, Spain, Japan, Australia, Italy, South Korea, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Taiwan.
Similar apps: MX Player, KMPlayer, BSPlayer
App Store
App details
Tech stack
Google Play
App details
Tech stack
Android app v3.7.1 · checked 27 Sep 2026
VLC media player downloads & installs
Both stores, worldwide. Bands are open; exact numbers are free with an account.
| Store | Downloads / day | Lifetime installs |
|---|---|---|
| iPhone | 1k+ | 1M+ |
| Google Play | 100k+ | 500M+ Measured |
| Other Android stores | 5k+ | – |
| Total | 100k+ Confidence | 500M+ Confidence |
How this is calculated
Where VLC media player's downloads come from Modelled
Last 30 days: organic search, browsing the store, features and paid ads.
Active users
All platforms, worldwide. Free with an account.
Retention · share of new users still active
Time spent · per daily user
How this is calculated
Where it ranks now
Both stores, across every country we track.
Ratings
Both stores. Store data, measured.
| Store | Rating | Ratings |
|---|---|---|
| App Store | 3.7 ★ | 6k |
| Google Play | 4.0 ★ | 2M 26k written reviews |
| Both stores | 4.0 ★ weighted by ratings | 2M |
What users say about VLC media player
From the 74 most recent App Store reviews in the US.
Mixed (41% of recent reviews give 4–5 stars). People like it for working reliably, and its features and content. The main complaints are about crashes and bugs, and the design.
What people like
- Crashes & bugs: “Does it have bugs that need fixed?”
- Features & content: “The only thing that could make it better would be a Picture in Picture feature!”
- Updates: “Yes does it need to be updated?”
- Connection & sync: “With this aside this app is extremely good for listening to tracks offline”
Common complaints
- Crashes & bugs: “Uploading files via link not working as of 10.06.26”
- Design: “CONS: Awful, awful, AWFUL user interface”
About VLC media player
It can play all your movies, shows and music in most formats directly without conversion.
It allows file synchronization with Dropbox, GDrive, OneDrive, Box, iCloud Drive, iTunes, direct downloads and through Wi-Fi sharing as well as streaming from SMB, FTP, SFTP, NFS, UPnP/DLNA media servers and the web.
VLC offers support for advanced subtitles including full SSA compatibility, multi-track audio, playback speed control and rendering through Chromecast.
VLC is completely free and open source.
VLC media player iPhone
VLC media player gets 100k+ downloads a day worldwide (AppInsider estimate, October 2026, rounded down to a band).
VLC media player is #25 in Photo & Video Free in United States and charting in 28 of 30 countries we track.
Updated 25 Oct 2026 · rankings refresh through the day
24 Sep 2026
Photo & Video FreeVLC media player on the App Store
App details
Tech stack
VLC media player downloads
Worldwide, per day, and installs to date. The band is open; the exact number is free with an account.
How this is calculated
Where VLC media player's downloads come from Modelled
Last 30 days: organic search, browsing the store, features and paid ads.
Active users
All platforms, worldwide. Free with an account.
Retention · share of new users still active
Time spent · per daily user
How this is calculated
Where it ranks now
Every top chart it appears in across 30 countries.
| Country | Charts | Rank |
|---|---|---|
| United States | Photo & VideoFree | #25 |
 India | Photo & VideoFree | #12 |
 Germany | Photo & VideoFree | #22 |
 United Kingdom | Photo & VideoFree | #29 |
 Japan | Photo & VideoFree | #53 |
 Canada | Photo & VideoFree | #19 |
 France | Photo & VideoFree | #28 |
| United Arab Emirates | Photo & VideoFree | #9 |
 Australia | Photo & VideoFree | #26 |
 South Korea | Photo & VideoFree | #49 |
| Italy | Photo & VideoFree | #33 |
| India | All AppsFree | #116 |
 Spain | Photo & VideoFree | #31 |
 Russia | Photo & VideoFree | #45 |
 Saudi Arabia | Photo & VideoFree | #36 |
 Poland | Photo & VideoFree | #27 |
 Brazil | Photo & VideoFree | #76 |
 Netherlands | Photo & VideoFree | #31 |
 Sweden | Photo & VideoFree | #24 |
 Mexico | Photo & VideoFree | #58 |
 Turkey | Photo & VideoFree | #45 |
 Taiwan | Photo & VideoFree | #70 |
 Indonesia | Photo & VideoFree | #80 |
 South Africa | Photo & VideoFree | #31 |
 Argentina | Photo & VideoFree | #59 |
 Philippines | Photo & VideoFree | #66 |
 Vietnam | Photo & VideoFree | #76 |
 Malaysia | Photo & VideoFree | #57 |
 Colombia | Photo & VideoFree | #64 |
Apps near VLC media player on the chart
Photo & Video Free, around #25.
Ratings
App Store, worldwide.
What users say about VLC media player
From the 74 most recent App Store reviews in the US.
Mixed (41% of recent reviews give 4–5 stars). People like it for working reliably, and its features and content. The main complaints are about crashes and bugs, and the design.
What people like
- Crashes & bugs: “Does it have bugs that need fixed?”
- Features & content: “The only thing that could make it better would be a Picture in Picture feature!”
- Updates: “Yes does it need to be updated?”
- Connection & sync: “With this aside this app is extremely good for listening to tracks offline”
Common complaints
- Crashes & bugs: “Uploading files via link not working as of 10.06.26”
- Design: “CONS: Awful, awful, AWFUL user interface”
About VLC media player
It can play all your movies, shows and music in most formats directly without conversion.
It allows file synchronization with Dropbox, GDrive, OneDrive, Box, iCloud Drive, iTunes, direct downloads and through Wi-Fi sharing as well as streaming from SMB, FTP, SFTP, NFS, UPnP/DLNA media servers and the web.
VLC offers support for advanced subtitles including full SSA compatibility, multi-track audio, playback speed control and rendering through Chromecast.
VLC is completely free and open source.
Latest updates
VLC for Android Android
VLC for Android gets 100k+ downloads a day worldwide (AppInsider estimate, October 2026, rounded down to a band).
VLC for Android is #2 in Family Free on Google Play in Japan and charting in 23 of 23 countries we track.
Updated 25 Oct 2026 · rankings refresh through the day
Family FreeVLC for Android at a glance
AI summary written from our chart and store data, 2026-10-25. It can be wrong: check the numbers above.
VLC for Android is a free, open-source multimedia player that supports a wide range of video and audio formats, network streams, and DVD ISOs without ads or in-app purchases. The app maintains strong visibility by ranking #1 in the UAE Family Free category and consistently placing within the top 4 across major markets including India, Canada, Spain, Japan, Australia, Italy, South Korea, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Taiwan.
Similar apps: MX Player, KMPlayer, BSPlayer
VLC for Android on Google Play
App details
Tech stack
Android app v3.7.1 · checked 27 Sep 2026
Its iPhone app is most likely native Swift.
VLC for Android downloads
Worldwide, per day, and installs to date. The band is open; the exact number is free with an account.
How this is calculated
Where VLC for Android's downloads come from Modelled
Last 30 days: organic search, browsing the store, features and paid ads.
On Android app stores
The same app (org.videolan.vlc) on every Android store we track. Known Android installs: at least 524M (Google Play band + AppGallery count).
| Store | Installs | Rating | Version | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Google Play | 500,000,000+ | ★ 4.0 (2M) | Open ↗ | |
| Huawei AppGallery | 24M | ★ 3.3 | 3.6.5 | Open ↗ |
Active users
All platforms, worldwide. Free with an account.
Retention · share of new users still active
Time spent · per daily user
How this is calculated
Where it ranks on Google Play
Every top 200 chart it appears in across 23 countries.
ThailandApps near VLC for Android on the chart
Family Free, around #2.
Ratings
Google Play, worldwide.
What users say about VLC for Android
From the 200 most recent Google Play reviews in the US.
Users overwhelmingly praise VLC for being free, ad-free, and highly compatible with various media formats. However, significant complaints focus on playback instability, such as crashes during seeking, audio pitch errors, and issues with casting or playlist management.
Mostly positive (77% of recent reviews give 4–5 stars). People like it for few ads, and its features and content. The main complaints are about crashes and bugs, and price and subscriptions.
What people like
- Ads: “truly best app ever without an ads 😉”
- Features & content: “😍 the Many(ZOOMing, Audio, etc)<OPTIONS”
- Useful: “Excellent App, recommended”
- Ease of use: “minimalistic, no ads and user friendly”
Common complaints
- Crashes & bugs: “many glitches and techno listing”
- Price & subscription
About VLC for Android
This is the port of VLC media player to the Android™ platform. VLC for Android can play any video and audio files, as well as network streams, network shares and drives, and DVD ISOs, like the desktop version of VLC.
VLC for Android is a full audio player, with a complete database, an equalizer and filters, playing all weird audio formats.
VLC is intended for everyone, is totally free, has no ads, no in-app-purchases, no spying and is developed by passionate volunteers. All the source code is available for free.
Features
––––––––
VLC for Android™ plays most local video and audio files, as well as network streams (including adaptive streaming), DVD ISOs, like the desktop version of VLC. It also support disk shares.
All formats are supported, including MKV, MP4, AVI, MOV, Ogg, FLAC, TS, M2TS, Wv and AAC. All codecs are included with no separate downloads. It supports subtitles, Teletext and Closed Captions.
VLC for Android has a media library for audio and video files, and allows to browse folders directly.
VLC has support for multi-track audio and subtitles. It supports auto-rotation, aspect-ratio adjustments and gestures to control volume, brightness and seeking.
It also includes a widget for audio control, supports audio headsets control, cover art and a complete audio media library.
Permissions
––––––––––––
VLC for Android needs access to those categories:
• "Photos/Media/Files" to read your all media files :)
• "Storage" to read your all media files on SD cards :)
• "Other" to check network connections, change the volume, set the ringtone, run on Android TV and display the popup view, see below for details.
Permission Details :
• It needs "read the contents of your USB storage", in to order to read your media files on it.
• It needs "modify or delete the contents of your USB storage", in order to allow deletion of files and store subtitles.
• It needs "full network access", to open network and internet streams.
• It needs "prevent phone from sleeping" in order to prevent... your phone from sleeping when watching a video.
• It needs "change your audio settings", in order to change audio volume.
• It needs "modify system settings", in order to allow you to change your audio ringtone.
• It needs "view network connections" in order to monitor whether device is connected or not.
• It needs "draw over other apps" to start the custom picture-in-picture widget.
• It needs "control vibration" to give feedback on the controls.
• It needs "run at startup" to set recommendations on Android TV launcher screen, only used on Android TV devices.
• It needs "microphone" to provide voice search on Android TV devices, only asked on Android TV devices.
What's new
* Remote access: allow playing audio media in the browser
* Add back the deletion for multiple file sin the browser
* Update the remote access OTP code length
* Improve the feedback UI
* Add more size options for the subtitle size
* Crash fixes
Similar apps
Apps people compare with VLC media player: the same core purpose or gameplay, checked one by one.
PLAYit-All in One Video PlayerPLAYIT TECHNOLOGY PTE. LTD. · ★ 4.5
KodiKodi Foundation · ★ 3.7
HD Video Player All FormatLitter Penguin · ★ 4.7
HD Video Player All FormatsZee Brains
Network Stream (Video) PlayerNSTeam · ★ 3.9
ZoZo Player - URL Video PlayerZoZo · ★ 3.6
Video Player for AndroidAccountlab · ★ 4.5
Video Player All FormatAva Solution · ★ 4.2