react-player vs hls.js vs video.js vs plyr vs plyr-react vs videojs-record
Web Video Playback Libraries Comparison
1 Year
react-playerhls.jsvideo.jsplyrplyr-reactvideojs-recordSimilar Packages:
What's Web Video Playback Libraries?

These libraries are designed to facilitate video playback in web applications, providing various functionalities such as support for different video formats, customizable player interfaces, and integration with streaming protocols. They cater to different needs, from simple video playback to complex streaming scenarios, making it easier for developers to implement video features in their applications.

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react-player1,280,0549,7831.5 MB88a year agoMIT
hls.js1,119,26115,73924.1 MB18722 days agoApache-2.0
video.js665,41138,87418 MB5912 months agoApache-2.0
plyr153,41228,8165.3 MB9182 years agoMIT
plyr-react26,56849667.4 kB542 years agoMIT
videojs-record19,3751,4191.55 MB68a year agoMIT
Feature Comparison: react-player vs hls.js vs video.js vs plyr vs plyr-react vs videojs-record

Streaming Support

  • react-player:

    react-player supports a wide range of video sources including YouTube, Vimeo, and custom URLs, making it versatile for different streaming needs. However, it does not have built-in support for adaptive streaming.

  • hls.js:

    hls.js is specifically designed for HLS streaming, allowing for adaptive bitrate streaming which adjusts video quality based on the user's network conditions, ensuring smooth playback even on fluctuating connections.

  • video.js:

    video.js supports a variety of streaming protocols including HLS and DASH, making it a robust choice for applications that require extensive streaming capabilities.

  • plyr:

    Plyr supports various video formats including MP4, YouTube, and Vimeo, but does not specialize in streaming protocols. It is more suited for standard video playback rather than live streaming.

  • plyr-react:

    Similar to Plyr, plyr-react supports multiple video formats but is optimized for React applications. It does not provide specific streaming capabilities but can be used with other libraries for streaming.

  • videojs-record:

    videojs-record builds on video.js and allows for recording video and audio streams, making it ideal for applications that need to capture user-generated content.

Customization

  • react-player:

    react-player is flexible and allows for customization of the player component, including controls and playback options, but relies on the underlying video source for UI elements.

  • hls.js:

    hls.js is a low-level library with minimal UI components, allowing developers to build their own custom player interfaces. This provides flexibility but requires more development effort for UI.

  • video.js:

    video.js is highly customizable with a rich plugin ecosystem, allowing developers to extend functionality and modify the player interface to fit specific needs.

  • plyr:

    Plyr offers a highly customizable player interface with options for themes, controls, and layout, making it easy to match the player with the application's design.

  • plyr-react:

    Plyr-react inherits Plyr's customization features and allows for easy integration of custom styles and components within a React application, providing a cohesive user experience.

  • videojs-record:

    videojs-record allows for customization of the recording interface and settings, enabling developers to tailor the user experience for recording video and audio.

Accessibility

  • react-player:

    react-player does not have specific accessibility features, so developers must implement their own solutions to ensure the player is accessible to all users.

  • hls.js:

    hls.js does not provide built-in accessibility features, as it focuses on streaming functionality. Developers need to implement accessibility features separately.

  • video.js:

    video.js has a strong focus on accessibility, providing features like keyboard navigation and support for screen readers, making it a good choice for inclusive applications.

  • plyr:

    Plyr is designed with accessibility in mind, providing keyboard navigation and screen reader support, making it suitable for a wide range of users.

  • plyr-react:

    Plyr-react inherits Plyr's accessibility features, ensuring that the player is usable for all users, including those with disabilities, when integrated into React applications.

  • videojs-record:

    videojs-record provides some accessibility features, but developers need to ensure that the recording interface is accessible to all users as it may require additional implementation.

Integration

  • react-player:

    react-player is designed for React applications and allows for easy integration of various video sources, making it a flexible choice for developers.

  • hls.js:

    hls.js can be integrated into any web application but requires additional work to create a player interface, making it less convenient for quick implementations.

  • video.js:

    video.js can be integrated into any web application and has a large community and resources available, making it easy to find support and examples.

  • plyr:

    Plyr is easy to integrate into any web project and provides a straightforward API for developers, making it a popular choice for quick setups.

  • plyr-react:

    plyr-react is specifically designed for React applications, making integration seamless and straightforward for developers familiar with React.

  • videojs-record:

    videojs-record extends video.js and can be easily integrated into applications that already use video.js, providing additional recording functionality.

Community and Support

  • react-player:

    react-player has a strong community and is well-documented, making it easy for developers to get started and find solutions to common problems.

  • hls.js:

    hls.js has a growing community and is actively maintained, but it may not have as extensive resources as larger libraries.

  • video.js:

    video.js has a large and active community with extensive documentation, tutorials, and plugins available, making it a reliable choice for developers.

  • plyr:

    Plyr has a supportive community and good documentation, making it easy for developers to find help and examples.

  • plyr-react:

    plyr-react benefits from the Plyr community and has documentation tailored for React developers, ensuring support for integration issues.

  • videojs-record:

    videojs-record has a smaller community compared to video.js but benefits from the video.js ecosystem, providing some level of support and resources.

How to Choose: react-player vs hls.js vs video.js vs plyr vs plyr-react vs videojs-record
  • react-player:

    Use react-player if you need a versatile player that supports multiple video sources, including YouTube and Vimeo. It is highly customizable and works well within React applications, making it a good choice for projects that require flexibility in video sources.

  • hls.js:

    Choose hls.js if you need to implement HTTP Live Streaming (HLS) in your web application. It is lightweight and specifically designed for HLS playback, making it ideal for streaming live video content.

  • video.js:

    Choose video.js for a robust and widely-used video player that supports a variety of formats and has a large plugin ecosystem. It is suitable for applications that require extensive customization and features like analytics and advertising.

  • plyr:

    Select Plyr for a simple, customizable, and accessible video player that supports various media types. It provides a clean interface and is easy to integrate into any project, making it suitable for general video playback needs.

  • plyr-react:

    Opt for plyr-react if you are developing a React application and want to leverage Plyr's features with React's component-based architecture. It allows for seamless integration and customization within React apps.

  • videojs-record:

    Select videojs-record if you need to implement recording capabilities in your video player. It extends video.js to allow users to record audio and video directly from the browser, making it ideal for applications that require user-generated content.

README for react-player

ReactPlayer

Latest npm version Test Coverage Become a sponsor on Patreon

A React component for playing a variety of URLs, including file paths, YouTube, Facebook, Twitch, SoundCloud, Streamable, Vimeo, Wistia, Mixcloud, DailyMotion and Kaltura. Not using React? No problem.


Using Next.js and need to handle video upload/processing? Check out next-video.

✨ The future of ReactPlayer

Maintenance of ReactPlayer is being taken over by Mux. The team at Mux have worked on many highly respected projects and are committed to improving video tooling for developers.

ReactPlayer will remain open source, but with a higher rate of fixes and releases over time. Thanks to everyone in the community for your ongoing support.

Usage

npm install react-player # or yarn add react-player
import React from 'react'
import ReactPlayer from 'react-player'

// Render a YouTube video player
<ReactPlayer url='https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXb3EKWsInQ' />

By default, ReactPlayer supports many different types of url. If you only ever use one type, use imports such as react-player/youtube to reduce your bundle size. See config keys for all player keys.

import React from 'react'
import ReactPlayer from 'react-player/youtube'

// Only loads the YouTube player
<ReactPlayer url='https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXb3EKWsInQ' />

If your build system supports import() statements, use react-player/lazy to lazy load the appropriate player for the url you pass in. This adds several reactPlayer chunks to your output, but reduces your main bundle size.

import React from 'react'
import ReactPlayer from 'react-player/lazy'

// Lazy load the YouTube player
<ReactPlayer url='https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysz5S6PUM-U' />

Demo page: https://cookpete.github.io/react-player

The component parses a URL and loads in the appropriate markup and external SDKs to play media from various sources. Props can be passed in to control playback and react to events such as buffering or media ending. See the demo source for a full example.

For platforms without direct use of npm modules, a minified version of ReactPlayer is located in dist after installing. To generate this file yourself, checkout the repo and run npm run build:dist.

Autoplay

As of Chrome 66, videos must be muted in order to play automatically. Some players, like Facebook, cannot be unmuted until the user interacts with the video, so you may want to enable controls to allow users to unmute videos themselves. Please set muted={true}.

Props

Prop | Description | Default ---- | ----------- | ------- url | The url of a video or song to play
  ◦  Can be an array or MediaStream object playing | Set to true or false to pause or play the media | false loop | Set to true or false to loop the media | false controls | Set to true or false to display native player controls.
  ◦  For Vimeo videos, hiding controls must be enabled by the video owner. | false light | Set to true to show just the video thumbnail, which loads the full player on click
  ◦  Pass in an image URL to override the preview image | false volume | Set the volume of the player, between 0 and 1
  ◦  null uses default volume on all players #357 | null muted | Mutes the player
  ◦  Only works if volume is set | false playbackRate | Set the playback rate of the player
  ◦  Only supported by YouTube, Wistia, and file paths | 1 width | Set the width of the player | 640px height | Set the height of the player | 360px style | Add inline styles to the root element | {} progressInterval | The time between onProgress callbacks, in milliseconds | 1000 playsinline | Applies the playsinline attribute where supported | false pip | Set to true or false to enable or disable picture-in-picture mode
  ◦  Only available when playing file URLs in certain browsers | false stopOnUnmount | If you are using pip you may want to use stopOnUnmount={false} to continue playing in picture-in-picture mode even after ReactPlayer unmounts | true fallback | Element or component to use as a fallback if you are using lazy loading | null wrapper | Element or component to use as the container element | div playIcon | Element or component to use as the play icon in light mode previewTabIndex | Set the tab index to be used on light mode | 0 config | Override options for the various players, see config prop

Callback props

Callback props take a function that gets fired on various player events:

Prop | Description ---- | ----------- onReady | Called when media is loaded and ready to play. If playing is set to true, media will play immediately onStart | Called when media starts playing onPlay | Called when media starts or resumes playing after pausing or buffering onProgress | Callback containing played and loaded progress as a fraction, and playedSeconds and loadedSeconds in seconds
  ◦  eg { played: 0.12, playedSeconds: 11.3, loaded: 0.34, loadedSeconds: 16.7 } onDuration | Callback containing duration of the media, in seconds onPause | Called when media is paused onBuffer | Called when media starts buffering onBufferEnd | Called when media has finished buffering
  ◦  Works for files, YouTube and Facebook onSeek | Called when media seeks with seconds parameter onPlaybackRateChange | Called when playback rate of the player changed
  ◦  Only supported by YouTube, Vimeo (if enabled), Wistia, and file paths onPlaybackQualityChange | Called when playback quality of the player changed
  ◦  Only supported by YouTube (if enabled) onEnded | Called when media finishes playing
  ◦  Does not fire when loop is set to true onError | Called when an error occurs whilst attempting to play media onClickPreview | Called when user clicks the light mode preview onEnablePIP | Called when picture-in-picture mode is enabled onDisablePIP | Called when picture-in-picture mode is disabled

Config prop

There is a single config prop to override settings for each type of player:

<ReactPlayer
  url={url}
  config={{
    youtube: {
      playerVars: { showinfo: 1 }
    },
    facebook: {
      appId: '12345'
    }
  }}
/>

Settings for each player live under different keys:

Key | Options --- | ------- youtube | playerVars: Override the default player vars
embedOptions: Override the default embed options
onUnstarted: Called when state changes to unstarted (usually when video fails to autoplay) facebook | appId: Your own Facebook app ID
version: Facebook SDK version
playerId: Override player ID for consistent server-side rendering (use with react-uid)
attributes: Extra data attributes to pass to the fb-video element soundcloud | options: Override the default player options vimeo | playerOptions: Override the default params
title: Set the player iframe title attribute mux | attributes: Apply element attributes
version: Mux player version wistia | options: Override the default player options
playerId: Override player ID for consistent server-side rendering (use with react-uid) mixcloud | options: Override the default player options dailymotion | params: Override the default player vars twitch | options: Override the default player options
playerId: Override player ID for consistent server-side rendering (use with react-uid) file | attributes: Apply element attributes
forceVideo: Always render a <video> element
forceAudio: Always render an <audio> element
forceHLS: Use hls.js for HLS streams
forceSafariHLS: Use hls.js for HLS streams, even on Safari
forceDisableHLS: Disable usage hls.js for HLS streams
forceDASH: Always use dash.js for DASH streams
forceFLV: Always use flv.js
hlsOptions: Override the default hls.js options
hlsVersion: Override the hls.js version loaded from jsdelivr, default: 0.13.1
dashVersion: Override the dash.js version loaded from cdnjs, default: 2.9.2
flvVersion: Override the flv.js version loaded from jsdelivr, default: 1.5.0

Methods

Static Methods

Method | Description ------ | ----------- ReactPlayer.canPlay(url) | Determine if a URL can be played. This does not detect media that is unplayable due to privacy settings, streaming permissions, etc. In that case, the onError prop will be invoked after attempting to play. Any URL that does not match any patterns will fall back to a native HTML5 media player. ReactPlayer.canEnablePiP(url) | Determine if a URL can be played in picture-in-picture mode ReactPlayer.addCustomPlayer(CustomPlayer) | Add a custom player. See Adding custom players ReactPlayer.removeCustomPlayers() | Remove any players that have been added using addCustomPlayer()

Instance Methods

Use ref to call instance methods on the player. See the demo app for an example of this.

Method | Description ------ | ----------- seekTo(amount, type) | Seek to the given number of seconds, or fraction if amount is between 0 and 1
  ◦  type parameter lets you specify 'seconds' or 'fraction' to override default behaviour getCurrentTime() | Returns the number of seconds that have been played
  ◦  Returns null if unavailable getSecondsLoaded() | Returns the number of seconds that have been loaded
  ◦  Returns null if unavailable or unsupported getDuration() | Returns the duration (in seconds) of the currently playing media
  ◦  Returns null if duration is unavailable getInternalPlayer() | Returns the internal player of whatever is currently playing
  ◦  eg the YouTube player instance, or the <video> element when playing a video file
  ◦  Use getInternalPlayer('hls') to get the hls.js player
  ◦  Use getInternalPlayer('dash') to get the dash.js player
  ◦  Returns null if the internal player is unavailable showPreview() | When using light mode, returns to the preview overlay

Advanced Usage

Light player

The light prop will render a video thumbnail with simple play icon, and only load the full player once a user has interacted with the image. Noembed is used to fetch thumbnails for a video URL. Note that automatic thumbnail fetching for Facebook, Wistia, Mixcloud and file URLs are not supported, and ongoing support for other URLs is not guaranteed.

If you want to pass in your own thumbnail to use, set light to the image URL rather than true.

You can also pass a component through the light prop:

<ReactPlayer light={<img src='https://example.com/thumbnail.png' alt='Thumbnail' />} />

The styles for the preview image and play icon can be overridden by targeting the CSS classes react-player__preview, react-player__shadow and react-player__play-icon.

Responsive player

Set width and height to 100% and wrap the player in a fixed aspect ratio box to get a responsive player:

class ResponsivePlayer extends Component {
  render () {
    return (
      <div className='player-wrapper'>
        <ReactPlayer
          className='react-player'
          url='https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysz5S6PUM-U'
          width='100%'
          height='100%'
        />
      </div>
    )
  }
}
.player-wrapper {
  position: relative;
  padding-top: 56.25%; /* Player ratio: 100 / (1280 / 720) */
}

.react-player {
  position: absolute;
  top: 0;
  left: 0;
}

See jsFiddle example

SDK Overrides

You can use your own version of any player SDK, assuming the correct window global is set before the player mounts. For example, to use a local version of hls.js, add <script src='/path/hls.js'></script> to your app. If window.Hls is available when ReactPlayer mounts, it will use that instead of loading hls.js from cdnjs. See #605 for more information.

Standalone player

If you aren’t using React, you can still render a player using the standalone library:

<script src='https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/react-player/dist/ReactPlayer.standalone.js'></script>
<script>
  const container = document.getElementById('container')
  const url = 'https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d46Azg3Pm4c'

  renderReactPlayer(container, { url, playing: true })

  function pausePlayer () {
    renderReactPlayer(container, { url, playing: false })
  }
</script>

See jsFiddle example

Adding custom players

If you have your own player that is compatible with ReactPlayer’s internal architecture, you can add it using addCustomPlayer:

import YourOwnPlayer from './somewhere';
ReactPlayer.addCustomPlayer(YourOwnPlayer);

Use removeCustomPlayers to clear all custom players:

ReactPlayer.removeCustomPlayers();

It is your responsibility to ensure that custom players keep up with any internal changes to ReactPlayer in later versions.

Mobile considerations

Due to various restrictions, ReactPlayer is not guaranteed to function properly on mobile devices. The YouTube player documentation, for example, explains that certain mobile browsers require user interaction before playing:

The HTML5 <video> element, in certain mobile browsers (such as Chrome and Safari), only allows playback to take place if it’s initiated by a user interaction (such as tapping on the player).

Multiple Sources and Tracks

Passing an array of YouTube URLs to the url prop will load them as an untitled playlist.

<ReactPlayer
  url={[
    'https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUFJJNQGwhk',
    'https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNgP6d9HraI'
  ]}
/>

When playing file paths, an array of sources can be passed to the url prop to render multiple <source> tags.

<ReactPlayer playing url={['foo.webm', 'foo.ogg']} />

You can also specify a type for each source by using objects with src and type properties.

<ReactPlayer
  playing
  url={[
    {src: 'foo.webm', type: 'video/webm'},
    {src: 'foo.ogg', type: 'video/ogg'}
  ]}
/>

<track> elements for subtitles can be added using config.file:

<ReactPlayer
  playing
  url='foo.webm'
  config={{ file: {
    tracks: [
      {kind: 'subtitles', src: 'subs/subtitles.en.vtt', srcLang: 'en', default: true},
      {kind: 'subtitles', src: 'subs/subtitles.ja.vtt', srcLang: 'ja'},
      {kind: 'subtitles', src: 'subs/subtitles.de.vtt', srcLang: 'de'}
    ]
  }}}
/>

Migrating to v2.0

ReactPlayer v2.0 changes single player imports and adds lazy loading players. Support for preload has also been removed, plus some other changes. See MIGRATING.md for information.

Supported media

Contributing

See the contribution guidelines before creating a pull request.

Thanks


Jackson Doherty

Joseph Fung