The default distribution of VLC includes many free decoding and encoding libraries, avoiding the need for finding/calibrating proprietary plugins. It is able to stream media over computer networks and can transcode multimedia files. VLC supports many audio- and video-compression-methods and file-formats, including DVD-Video, Video CD, and streaming- protocols. VLC is also available on digital distribution platforms such as Apple's App Store, Google Play, and Microsoft Store.

VLC is available for desktop operating systems and mobile platforms, such as Android, iOS and iPadOS. VLC media player (previously the VideoLAN Client and commonly known as simply VLC) is a free and open-source, portable, cross-platform media player software and streaming media server developed by the VideoLAN project.

GPL-2.0-or-later with some libraries under LGPL-2.1-or-later VLC for iOS (MPLv2.0) Windows, ReactOS, macOS, Linux, Android, ChromeOS, iOS, iPadOS, tvOS, watchOS, Xbox system software GUI: C++ (with Qt), Objective-C (with Cocoa), Swift, Java