Online video is no doubt an effective way to convey a message throughout the world. But it also comes with some technical issues which we need to resolve in order to provide a consistent experience to our website visitors.
The main issue is that different web browsers display the video with a different user interface. So, to look consistent everywhere we definitely need a custom interface for our video player. Here is a list of best free HTML5 video players which I have created to help you save your time while searching for a suitable video player for your next web project.
Video.js – HTML5 Video Player
Video.js is one of the most popular example of best free HTML5 video players. It is used in more than 400,000 websites which proves its popularity. As it is an open source project so it is actively maintained by hundreds of contributors from all over the world. A point to be noted is that it supports HTML5 as well as Flash video.
MediaElement.js
MediaElement.js is an advanced audio and video player which supports a wide variety of audio and video formats. It also supports HLS, YouTube, SoundCloud, Facebook, Dash etc. The main focus of this open source project is to create a video player that looks consistent and is cross browser compatible. It is licensed under MIT which allows you to freely use it for commercial purposes and even re-distribute it without any limitation.
Plyr
Plyr is a lightweight and modern example of best free HTML5 video players. It can be easily customizable according to your needs. According to its author, it works perfectly fine on latest version of all major web browsers. Some of its notable features include “Accessibility”, “Mobile friendly design”, “Live Streaming”, “Monetization”, “Standard API”, “Speed controls”, “Full screen”, “No dependencies”, “Multiple captions”, “Supports Safari’s picture-in-picture mode” and a lot more.
JW Player
JW Player is a game changer video player for the online world that is used on more than 2 million websites. It is created to provide us with a platform through which we can efficiently play videos of any format on all modern browsers. The only limitation of this open source JW Player is that you can only use it for non-commercial purposes. But if you want to use it for professional usage and are willing to get access to its much more advanced features then I would recommend you to purchase its premium version.
Videogular for AngularJS
Videogular for AngularJS as its name suggest is a video player that is specifically created for AngularJS users. It makes use of the HTML5 <video> tag which in turn allows it to be very flexible and easy to use. It comes with a great set of features but the most important are “Supports fullscreen natively”, “Bindable properties”, “Support for custom themes” and “Responsive design”.
Flowplayer
Flowplayer is an embeddable HTML5 video player. It can be used in a variety of ways which you can see on the demo page. The best thing about this video player is that it has a minimal interface which looks perfect in terms of UX.
Videogular2 – HTML5 video player for Angular 2
Videogular2 is considered as one of the best free HTML5 video players. The main reason behind its existence is to allow Angular 2 users to add a simple yet powerful video player on their sites. A point to be noted is that this project is supported by big companies such as “JET BRAINS” and “toptal”.
jPlayer – HTML5 Audio & Video for jQuery
jPlayer is based on popular JavaScript library jQuery. You can use it for both audio and video. It allows you to control the media files programmatically without any stress. Its unique user interface is mobile friendly and cross browser compatible. It also provides a fall back for old devices which are using Flash.
Spark Player – Enhanced HTML5 & Flash Video Player
Spark Player is also ranked among the best free HTML5 video players. According to its developer, it is an enhanced version of famous video player video.js because it retains all the original functionality as well as has some new improvements. It is packed with various advanced and powerful characteristics but the ones I liked the most are “Bandwidth saver module” and “Integrated Spark analytics module”.
video-react
video-react is an awesome online video player that is developed using React library. It is inspired by video.js video player that’s why the UI looks similar. It is most suitable for single page applications that makes use of the React library.
DPlayer
DPlayer is an open source video player which is created and actively maintained by a Chinese developer DIYgod. It is one of my most favorite HTML5 video player because it is enriched with a lot of unique features which you will not see in any other project. I’ll enlist some of them here which are “Allows you to take screenshot of video”, “Danmaku”, “Switch quality” etc.
Fluid Player
Fluid Player is a very lightweight example of best free HTML5 video players which allows you to easily integrate it within your web projects. It is developed from ground up to be completely complaint with the VAST specifications. It has everything well documented which allows a newbie web developer to start working with it in no time.
Accessible HTML5 Video Player
Accessible HTML5 Video Player is created and backed by major international company Paypal. The main purpose behind the development of this video player is to allow everyone including physically disabled people who are using screen reader to take benefit from HTML5 video functionality. It has some out of the box features such as “Accessible to screen readers and even keyboard-only users”, “Custom controls for video player”, “Support for captions”, “rewind and forward programmatically”, “Support for internationalization” and a lot more.
Rx-player
Rx-player is an ultrafast library that is used to create a DASH (Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP) complaint HTML5 video player right inside your web browser. It is programmed using TypeScript which is basically a superset of well-known programming language JavaScript. It is packed with some unique and advanced set of features which makes it stand out from the rest of best free HTML5 video players. The core objective of this open source project is to provide quality content without any delay or buffering.
Chimee
Chimee is a free HTML5 video player for the web that can play video in different formats including mp4, m3u8, flv, and many more. The best of this media player is that it supports a plugin system and you can arrange these plugins in a plugin array according to your priority. Like other video players, you also have to give some parameters such as src, height, and width of the video that the video element requires.
ivy-videojs
Ivy video.js is a set of Ember components for the video.js HTML5 Video Player. These components are Reusable markup text and styles. It is the integration of the Ember components in the video.js Html5 video player. Here the important thing to consider is that currently it only supports html5 video technology.
afterglow
Afterglow is a drop-in replacement of sublime video. After the termination of the sublime video for the user, you can replace it with afterglow.
The process of replacing it with sublime video is very easy. You just need to replace the link in the src tag which you can find in the <head> or bottom of your HTML file.
But afterglow becomes inefficient due to its stale code. We recommend you to use other video players in the list.
Open Standard Media Player
Open standard media player is a free and open-source HTML5 video player under the license of MIT. It supports a wide variety of audio and video media including Youtube, Vimeo, and Flash.
The object-oriented plugin of Open Standard Media Player makes it completely customizable because it provides you complete control over every aspect of your web media.
PragmaticPlayerJs
PragmaticPlayerJS is a free, customize, and responsive HTML5 video player which allows you to easily integrate youtube and HTML videos into your project.
if your user’s browser does not support HTML5 videos then you can easily use youtube API because the player has the adapter for it and this player is programmed in javascript.
Amalia.js
Amailia.js is a responsive HTML5 video player which is used for both audio and video media. The algorithm of the player allows you to view the metadata of your media.
Amailia.js is designed by the French Research department of INA. The default language of the player is French but you can add a translation javascript file in your <header> for English.
Cacophony
Cacophony is an interactive HTML5 video player and this video player is mostly used for music videos. It is programmed in javascript and HTML.
The best feature of this player is its interactiveness. You can move an object around the screen and insert values in the popup boxes that appear on the screen along with videos. You can also make a drawing on the running video with the help of the cursor.
vue-video
It is an HTML5 video player component for vue.js and it is programmed in javascript. You just need to import the myvideo function from the vue-video library.
You can play high-quality videos inside your website using this player and it doesn’t support audio media files.
ReactJS Video
This is an open source HTML5 video player and it is designed only for Reactjs. Reactjs is the most popular library of javascript and this player is programmed in HTML and CSS.
But this player has still some deficiencies and the developer are trying to improve it. The main issue with the video player is that it is not responsive and the volume slider doesn’t work on some browsers.
Playr – yet another HTML5 <video> player
Playr is an open source and easy to integrateHTML5 video player under the MIT license and it works on all the major Browsers. It is programmed in javascript and HTML.
Some best features of this player are that it gives you the support of multiple tracks, full screen, and you can control your player with the help of the keyboard keys.
Sewise Player – HTML5 Video Player
Sewise player is an open source HTML5 video player under the MIT license and it is developed by the Chinese developer name jack Zhang. It is programmed in javascript, HTML, and CSS.
You can embed this player into your website as a JS file. You can play videos on Windows, MAC, Android, or IOS using web view.
Ckin – Custom HTML5 Video Player Skins
Ckin is an open source, lightweight HTML5 video player and it is programmed using javascript, HTML, and CSS.
You just need to add the link of Javascript and CSS files to your HTML page and refresh the page you will see that your video Element automatically changed.
ABPlayerHTML5
ABplayerHTML5 is an open source HTML5 video player under the MIT license and it is a compiled version of CommentcoreLibrary.
This player is programmed in HTML, javascript, and Coffeescript and it can be added to any HTML5 existing Library.
ice-video
Ice-video is an open source HTML5 video player under the MIT license and it is a web danmaku video player built using Reactjs library. This video player is programmed in HTML, CSS, and javascript.
You can import the React Component in the code where you need and you can also set the font size, color, date, and other conventions of your danmaku server.
VPlayer – Custom HTML5 Video Player
Vplayer is an open source, responsive, and customized HTML5 video player under the MIT license. It is programmed in javascript, HTML, and CSS.
This player runs smoothly inside your website and its features work properly like Full screen, volume control, and Replay button at the end of the video.
ktPlayer
Ktplayer is an open source HTML5 video player under the MIT license and it is programmed in javascript, HTML, and CSS. It is a web video player based on html5.
You just need to add the link of Javascript and CSS files to your file and in the case of native Environment and jquery, you have to add the KTplayer function.
HTML5-MV show
This a free and simple HTML5 video player and it is programmed in HTML, CSS, Javascript, and PHP. And the important thing about this video player is it runs on PHP based web server.
The basic function of this video player is “sound adjustment”, “progress play”, “buffer loading”, “full-screen playback”, and “opening and closing effect”
I love the way you explained and provided a live demo preview and download button for each of these HTML5 players. I’m trying out a couple of them, checking to see which one would be ideal for my site. Thanks for sharing
I’m pleased to know that you found it helpful. Please let me know if any of these links are not working.
Great List! Also, I would like to recommend the best alternative HLS HTML5 Player with different handy features like embedding processes with uncompromising delivery, multi-format, adaptive bitrate etc..
Nice to hear about this video player.
HLS is not free… 🙁