Kodi

Kodi is a free and open source entertainment centre bringing local media to life, published with add-ons, developer resources, a wiki, forums and a store, maintained by a foundation with published sponsors.

Kodi occupies a distinct position because it is built around media you already hold rather than media you stream from a service, and that difference explains both its enduring appeal and its reputation.

Streaming services organise their own catalogues. What they do not do is organise a personal collection: ripped discs, home video, recorded broadcasts, music libraries assembled over decades, and material that was never commercially released or is no longer available anywhere. Kodi turns that into a browsable library with artwork, metadata and episode ordering, presented on a television rather than through a file manager.

The add-on architecture is what made it ubiquitous and also what gave it a complicated reputation. Because anyone can write an add-on, the ecosystem includes excellent tools and also add-ons that provide access to material illegally. The Kodi project itself does not distribute those, and pre-loaded boxes sold with piracy add-ons installed are not the project's doing, though the association has stuck. Used with your own media, Kodi is entirely legitimate software.

Running on almost every platform is a practical advantage for the use it serves, since a media centre frequently runs on old or low-powered hardware repurposed for the job rather than on a current machine.

Being foundation-governed with published sponsors matters for software that becomes the interface to a collection assembled over many years, since the project's continuity is what protects that investment of effort.

Kodi is free and open source with no cost, funded by donations and sponsorship.