head to head · open source
Kodi vs M3UAndroid
Kodi has 21,229 GitHub stars, 6,598 forks, 466 open issues and last shipped yesterday. M3UAndroid has 1,252 stars, 158 forks, 84 open issues and last shipped 5 days ago. Kodi leads on adoption by 1,596% (21,229 vs 1,252 stars). Kodi is written in C++ under a custom or non-standard licence; M3UAndroid is written in Kotlin under GPL-3.0. Kodi has attracted 31% as many forks as stars, M3UAndroid 13%. Kodi was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (android), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| Kodi | M3UAndroid | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 21K | ★ 1.3K |
| License | Custom / other | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | C++ | Kotlin |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-13 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.6K | ⑂ 158 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Kodi if
- You weight community size — 21K stars and counting
- You want the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches C++
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick M3UAndroid if
- You want the M3UAndroid feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Kotlin
- You evaluated both and M3UAndroid fits your workflow better
About Kodi
Kodi is a free and open source home theater and media center application, also described as an entertainment hub for digital media. It is written mainly in C++ and distributed as a native application for Android, BSD, Linux, macOS, iOS, tvOS, and Windows, with support for many common processor architectures. The project began in 2003 and is run by the XBMC Foundation, with development and support carried out by volunteers worldwide.
About M3UAndroid
M3UAndroid is an open source IPTV player for Android phones, tablets, and Android TV. It lives in the Android ecosystem, is written in Kotlin, uses Jetpack Compose, and is licensed under GPL 3.0. The project targets users who want a clean, practical, ad free way to watch IPTV streams from their own playlist sources.
read the full M3UAndroid overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Kodi or M3UAndroid more popular?
Kodi has 21,229 GitHub stars and M3UAndroid has 1,252. Kodi has the larger community by that measure.
Are Kodi and M3UAndroid free?
Both are open source. Kodi has no licence declared in this registry, and M3UAndroid is licensed under GPL-3.0. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Kodi and M3UAndroid?
Kodi is written in C++ and M3UAndroid in Kotlin. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Kodi or M3UAndroid?
Choose Kodi if you want the larger community (21,229 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose M3UAndroid if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.