This is a listing of open-source

codec A codec is a computer hardware or software component that encodes or decodes a data stream or signal. ''Codec'' is a portmanteau of coder/decoder. In electronic communications, an endec is a device that acts as both an encoder and a decoder o ...

s—that is,

open-source software Open-source software (OSS) is Software, computer software that is released under a Open-source license, license in which the copyright holder grants users the rights to use, study, change, and Software distribution, distribute the software an ...

implementations of

audio Audio most commonly refers to sound, as it is transmitted in signal form. It may also refer to: Sound *Audio signal, an electrical representation of sound *Audio frequency, a frequency in the audio spectrum *Digital audio, representation of sound ...

video coding format A video coding format (or sometimes video compression format) is a content representation format of digital video content, such as in a data file or bitstream. It typically uses a standardized video compression algorithm, most commonly based on ...

audio codec An audio codec is a device or computer program capable of encoding or decoding a digital data stream (a codec) that encodes or decodes audio. In software, an audio codec is a computer program implementing an algorithm that compresses and decompres ...

s and

video codec A video codec is software or Computer hardware, hardware that data compression, compresses and Uncompressed video, decompresses digital video. In the context of video compression, ''codec'' is a portmanteau of ''encoder'' and ''decoder'', while ...

s respectively. Many of the codecs listed implement media formats that are restricted by patents and are hence not

open format An open file format is a file format for storing digital data, defined by an openly published specification usually maintained by a standards organization, and which can be used and implemented by anyone. An open file format is licensed with a ...

s. For example,

x264 x264 is a free and open-source software library and a command-line utility developed by VideoLAN for encoding video streams into the H.264/MPEG-4 AVC video coding format. It is released under the terms of the GNU General Public License. Histo ...

is a widely used open source implementation of the heavily patent encumbered MPEG-4 AVC video compression standard.

Video codecs

– H.264/MPEG-4 AVC implementation. x264 is not a codec (encoder/decoder); it is just an encoder (it cannot decode video). *

OpenH264 OpenH264 is a free software library for real-time encoding and decoding video streams in the H.264/MPEG-4 AVC format. It is released under the terms of the Simplified BSD License." History Move to free-to-use binaries On October 30, 2013, Rowa ...

– H.264 baseline profile encoding and decoding *OpenVVC an VVC /H.266 Real Time-

Decoder Decoder may refer to: Technology * Audio decoder converts digital audio to analog form * Binary decoder, digital circuits such as 1-of-N and seven-segment decoders * Decompress (compression decoder), converts compressed data (e.g., audio/video/i ...

for

Mac OS Mac operating systems were developed by Apple Inc. in a succession of two major series. In 1984, Apple debuted the operating system that is now known as the classic Mac OS with its release of the original Macintosh System Software. The system ...

Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

Linux Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...

and Android and special Version of

FFmpeg FFmpeg is a free and open-source software project consisting of a suite of libraries and programs for handling video, audio, and other multimedia files and streams. At its core is the command-line ffmpeg tool itself, designed for processing vide ...

, which was used for

Ateme Ateme S.A. is a multinational company that specializes in video compression, CDN/streaming, cloud recording and advertising. It develops software for video compression based on the main standards: MPEG2, H.264/AVC, H.265/HEVC, AV1 and H.266/V ...

Satellite A satellite or an artificial satellite is an object, typically a spacecraft, placed into orbit around a celestial body. They have a variety of uses, including communication relay, weather forecasting, navigation ( GPS), broadcasting, scient ...

Broadcast Broadcasting is the data distribution, distribution of sound, audio audiovisual content to dispersed audiences via a electronic medium (communication), mass communications medium, typically one using the electromagnetic spectrum (radio waves), ...

Test. *

x265 x265 is an encoder for creating digital video streams in the High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC/H.265) video compression format developed by the Joint Collaborative Team on Video Coding (JCT-VC). It is available as a command-line app or a softwa ...

– An encoder based on the

High Efficiency Video Coding High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC), also known as H.265 and MPEG-H Part 2, is a video compression standard designed as part of the MPEG-H project as a successor to the widely used Advanced Video Coding (AVC, H.264, or MPEG-4 Part 10). In compa ...

(HEVC/H.265) standard. * Xvid –

MPEG-4 Part 2 MPEG-4 Part 2, MPEG-4 Visual (formally International Organization for Standardization, ISO/International Electrotechnical Commission, IEC 14496-2) is a video encoding specification designed by the Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG). It belongs to ...

codec, compatible with

DivX DIVX (Digital Video Express) is a discontinued digital video format. Created in part by Circuit City, it was an unsuccessful attempt to create an alternative to video rental in the United States. The format's poor reception from consumers resu ...

libvpx libvpx is a free software video codec library from Google and the Alliance for Open Media (AOMedia). It serves as the reference software implementation for the VP8 and VP9 video coding formats, and for AV1 a special fork named libaom that ...

–

VP8 VP8 is an open format, open and royalty-free Video coding format, video compression format released by On2 Technologies in 2008. Initially released as a Proprietary software, proprietary successor to On2's previous VP7 format, VP8 was released a ...

and VP9 implementation; formerly a proprietary codec developed by

On2 Technologies On2 Technologies, formerly known as The Duck Corporation, was a small publicly traded company (on the American Stock Exchange), founded in New York City in 1992 and headquartered in Clifton Park, New York, that designed video codec technology. ...

, released by Google under a BSD-like license in May 2010. *SVT-AV1 – An

AV1 AOMedia Video 1 (AV1) is an open, royalty-free video coding format initially designed for video transmissions over the Internet. It was developed as a successor to VP9 by the Alliance for Open Media (AOMedia), a consortium founded in 2015 tha ...

encoder originally developed by

Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and Delaware General Corporation Law, incorporated in Delaware. Intel designs, manufactures, and sells computer compo ...

and

Netflix Netflix is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service. The service primarily distributes original and acquired films and television shows from various genres, and it is available internationally in multiple lang ...

, which is available as

FOSS Free and open-source software (FOSS) is software available under a license that grants users the right to use, modify, and distribute the software modified or not to everyone free of charge. FOSS is an inclusive umbrella term encompassing free ...

now. SVT-AV1 is generally considered to be the most optimized and fastest free AV1 encoder, which is why it serves as the base for the development of new, free, general-purpose and production-ready implementations in the ''AOMedia Software Implementation Working Group''. While SVT-AV1 already performs very well in constrained quality mode and is economically usable for many scenarios, as of the time being commercial implementations like Aurora1 may still beat it. *

VideoLAN VideoLAN is a Nonprofit organization, non-profit organization which software development, develops software for playing video and other media formats. It originally developed two computer program, programs for media streaming media, streaming, ...

dav1d – An

decoder for decoding videos with AV1 codec * Xiph.Org rav1e – An

encoder written in

Rust Rust is an iron oxide, a usually reddish-brown oxide formed by the reaction of iron and oxygen in the catalytic presence of water or air moisture. Rust consists of hydrous iron(III) oxides (Fe2O3·nH2O) and iron(III) oxide-hydroxide (FeO(OH) ...

Google Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...

libgav1 – An

decoder by Google * xvc – An open source video codec, aiming to compete with h.265 and

. The reference implementation is released under the LGPL 2.1 and currently available in version 2.0 (as of 12/2020) *

codecs – Codecs in the

libavcodec libavcodec is a free and open-source library of codecs for encoding and decoding video and audio data. libavcodec is an integral part of many open-source multimedia applications and frameworks. The popular MPV, xine and VLC media players use ...

library from the FFmpeg project ( FFV1,

Snow Snow consists of individual ice crystals that grow while suspended in the atmosphere—usually within clouds—and then fall, accumulating on the ground where they undergo further changes. It consists of frozen crystalline water througho ...

, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4 part 2, MSMPEG-4, WMV2, SVQ1, MJPEG, HuffYUV and others). Decoders in the libavcodec (H.264, SVQ3, WMV3, VP3, Theora, Indeo, Dirac, Lagarith and others). * Lagarith – Video codec designed for strong lossless compression in RGB(A) colorspace (similar to ZIP/RAR/etc.) *libtheora – A

reference implementation In the software development process, a reference implementation (or, less frequently, sample implementation or model implementation) is a program that implements all requirements from a corresponding specification. The reference implementation ...

of the

Theora Theora is a free lossy video compression format. It was developed by the Xiph.Org Foundation and distributed without licensing fees alongside their other free and open media projects, including the Vorbis audio format and the Ogg contai ...

format, based on VP3, part of the Ogg Project * Dirac as dirac-research, a

wavelet A wavelet is a wave-like oscillation with an amplitude that begins at zero, increases or decreases, and then returns to zero one or more times. Wavelets are termed a "brief oscillation". A taxonomy of wavelets has been established, based on the n ...

based codec created by the

BBC Research BBC Research & Development is the technical research department of the BBC. Function It has responsibility for researching and developing advanced and emerging media technologies for the benefit of the corporation, and wider UK and European m ...

, and Schrödinger, an implementation developed by David Schleef. * Huffyuv –

Lossless Lossless compression is a class of data compression that allows the original data to be perfectly reconstructed from the compressed data with no loss of information. Lossless compression is possible because most real-world data exhibits statisti ...

codec from BenRG * Daala – Experimental

Video codec A video codec is software or Computer hardware, hardware that data compression, compresses and Uncompressed video, decompresses digital video. In the context of video compression, ''codec'' is a portmanteau of ''encoder'' and ''decoder'', while ...

which was under development by the Xiph.Org Foundation and finally merged into

. *

Thor Thor (from ) is a prominent list of thunder gods, god in Germanic paganism. In Norse mythology, he is a hammer-wielding æsir, god associated with lightning, thunder, storms, sacred trees and groves in Germanic paganism and mythology, sacred g ...

– Experimental royalty free video codec which was under development by

Cisco Systems Cisco Systems, Inc. (using the trademark Cisco) is an American multinational corporation, multinational digital communications technology conglomerate (company), conglomerate corporation headquartered in San Jose, California. Cisco develops, m ...

, and merged technologies into

. *Turing – A

(HEVC/H.265) encoder implemented by

. * libaom –

Reference implementation In the software development process, a reference implementation (or, less frequently, sample implementation or model implementation) is a program that implements all requirements from a corresponding specification. The reference implementation ...

for the royalty free

video coding format by AOMedia, inheriting technologies from VP9, Daala and

. * Kvazaar – An academic open-source encoder based on the

(HEVC/H.265) standard. *UVG266 academic

open-source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use and view the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open source model is a decentrali ...

VVC/H.266 encoder based on Kvazaar. (on 3 Clause BSD License for

macOS macOS, previously OS X and originally Mac OS X, is a Unix, Unix-based operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 2001. It is the current operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. With ...

, and in Development) *VVenC & VVdeC – An open-source encoder and decoder released by Fraunhofer HHI based on the Versatile Video Coding (VVC/H.266) standard available on GitHub. *XEVE (the eXtra-fast Essential Video Encoder) MPEG-5 Part 1:

Essential Video Coding MPEG-5 Essential Video Coding (EVC), standardized as ISO/IEC 23094-1, is a video compression standard that has been completed in April 2020 by decision of MPEG Working Group 11 at its 130th meeting. The standard consists of a royalty-free subs ...

*XEVD (the eXtra-fast Essential Video Decoder) MPEG-5 Part 1:

*REVC – a

-based MPEG-5 Part 1:

baseline encoder and

decoder Decoder may refer to: Technology * Audio decoder converts digital audio to analog form * Binary decoder, digital circuits such as 1-of-N and seven-segment decoders * Decompress (compression decoder), converts compressed data (e.g., audio/video/i ...

Audio codecs

FLAC FLAC (; Free Lossless Audio Codec) is an audio coding format for lossless compression of digital audio, developed by the Xiph.Org Foundation, and is also the name of the free software project producing the FLAC tools, the reference software ...

– Lossless codec developed by Xiph.Org Foundation. *

LAME LAME is a software encoder that converts digital audio into the MP3 audio coding format. LAME is a free software project that was first released in 1998 and has incorporated many improvements since then, including an improved psychoacoustic ...

– Lossy compression (MP3 format). * TooLAME/ TwoLAME – Lossy compression (MP2 format). *

Musepack Musepack or MPC is an open source lossy audio codec, specifically optimized for transparent compression of stereo audio at bitrates of 160–180 (manual set allows bitrates up to 320) kbit/s. It was formerly known as MPEGplus, MPEG+ or MP+ ...

– Lossy compression; based on MP2 format, with many improvements. *

Speex {{More citations needed, date=May 2025 The Speex project is an attempt to create a free software speech codec, unencumbered by patent restrictions. Speex is licensed under the BSD License and is used with the Xiph.org Foundation's Ogg containe ...

– Low bitrate compression, primarily voice; developed by Xiph.Org Foundation. Deprecated in favour of Opus according to www.speex.org. *

CELT The Celts ( , see Names of the Celts#Pronunciation, pronunciation for different usages) or Celtic peoples ( ) were a collection of Indo-European languages, Indo-European peoples. "The Celts, an ancient Indo-European people, reached the apoge ...

– Lossy compression for low-latency audio communication * libopus – A reference implementation of the

Opus Opus (: opera Opera is a form of History of theatre#European theatre, Western theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by Singing, singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera ...

format, the IETF standards-track successor to CELT. (Opus support is mandatory for

WebRTC WebRTC (Web Real-Time Communication) is a free and open-source project providing web browsers and mobile applications with real-time communication (RTC) via application programming interfaces (APIs). It allows audio and video communication and ...

implementations.) * libvorbis – Lossy compression, implementation of the

Vorbis Vorbis is a free and open-source software project headed by the Xiph.Org Foundation. The project produces an audio coding format and software reference encoder/decoder ( codec) for lossy audio compression, libvorbis. Vorbis is most comm ...

format; developed by Xiph.Org Foundation. *

iLBC Internet Low Bitrate Codec (iLBC) is a royalty-free narrowband speech audio coding format and an open-source reference implementation (codec), developed by Global IP Solutions (GIPS) formerly Global IP Sound (acquired by Google Inc in 2011). It w ...

– Low bitrate compression, primarily voice * iSAC – Low bitrate compression, primarily voice; (free when using the WebRTC codebase) * TTA – Lossless compression *

WavPack WavPack is a free and open-source lossless audio compression format and application implementing the format. It is unique in the way that it supports hybrid audio compression alongside normal compression which is similar to how FLAC works. ...

– Hybrid lossy/lossless * Bonk – Hybrid lossy/lossless; supported by fre:ac (formerly BonkEnc) *

Apple Lossless The Apple Lossless Audio Codec (ALAC, ), also known as Apple Lossless, or Apple Lossless Encoder (ALE), is an audio coding format, and its reference audio codec implementation, developed by Apple Inc., Apple for lossless data compression of digit ...

– Lossless compression (MP4) *

Fraunhofer FDK AAC Fraunhofer FDK AAC is an open-source library for encoding and decoding digital audio in the Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) format. Fraunhofer IIS developed this library for Android 4.1. It supports several Audio Object Types including MPEG-2 an ...

– Lossy compression (AAC) * FFmpeg codecs in the ''

'' library, e.g. AC-3, AAC, ADPCM, PCM, Apple Lossless, FLAC, WMA, Vorbis, MP2, etc. * FAAD2 – open-source decoder for

Advanced Audio Coding Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) is an audio coding standard for lossy digital audio compression. It was developed by Dolby, AT&T, Fraunhofer and Sony, originally as part of the MPEG-2 specification but later improved under MPEG-4.ISO (2006ISO/ ...

. There is also

FAAC FAAC (Freeware Advanced Audio Coder) is a software project which includes the Advanced Audio Coding, AAC data compression, encoder FAAC and Audio decoder, decoder FAAD2. It supports MPEG-2 AAC as well as MPEG-4 AAC. It supports several MPEG-4 Au ...

, the same project's encoder, but it is proprietary (but still

free of charge The adjective ''free'' in English is commonly used in one of two meanings: "at no monetary cost" (''gratis'') or "with little or no restriction" (''libre''). This ambiguity can cause issues where the distinction is important, as it often is in ...

). * libgsm – Lossy compression ( GSM 06.10) * opencore-amr – Lossy compression ( AMR and AMR-WB) * liba52 – a free ATSC A/52 stream decoder (AC-3) * libdca – a free DTS Coherent Acoustics decoder * Codec2 – Low bitrate compression, primarily voice

References

{{Compression formats

Codecs A codec is a computer hardware or software component that encodes or decodes a data stream or signal. ''Codec'' is a portmanteau of coder/decoder. In electronic communications, an endec is a device that acts as both an encoder and a decoder o ...

Video codecs

Audio codecs

See also

References