VLC crosses 7 billion downloads
The open-source media player VLC has reached a milestone of 7 billion downloads across all platforms. Developer VideoLAN is currently working on the upcoming VLC 4 release and expanding support for new hardware like Amazon's Vega OS.
Why it matters
VLC remains a critical piece of global open-source infrastructure, serving as a primary media consumption tool for billions of users without the constraints of commercial streaming platforms.
In our world of expensive streaming platforms, the very free and offline VLC media player, developed by the non-profit VideoLAN, has crossed 7 billion downloads across all platforms.
Jean-Baptiste Kempf, the president and lead developer of VLC, sent this update in an email. This milestone comes almost 18 months after the app breached the 6 billion download mark in January 2025 .
Kempf mentioned that the company recently ported VLC to Amazon’s new Vega OS for TVs. The company said it is also working on supporting all other platforms and codecs, and that VLC is preparing for the VLC 4 release, but it is taking time in development.
Last year, VideoLAN had teased AI-powered translation and subtitles using local models, but it is not clear if those features were ever released .
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