Bomi Player Review, Pricing & Features

Bomi is a free, open-source GUI media player built on mpv. Explore its playback history, subtitle support, hardware decoding, and platform availability.

Category
Developer Tools
Pricing
open-source, from Free
Verified
Not yet
Last updated
July 19, 2026
Founded
2008
Open Source

What Is Bomi Player

Bomi is a free, open-source graphical media player built on top of the mpv playback engine. It began life around 2008 as CMPlayer, created by South Korean developer Lee Byoung-young (xylosper), and was renamed Bomi around 2014 to 2015. The project is licensed under GPLv2 and hosted on GitHub, with its documentation and downloads available at bomi-player.github.io.

Rather than reinventing video decoding, Bomi focuses on wrapping the well-regarded mpv engine in a full desktop GUI, adding conveniences like automatic history tracking, playlist management, and rich subtitle handling on top of mpv's playback quality.

Bomi's primary and best-supported platform is Linux. It did include macOS support in earlier releases, but that support was disabled after version 0.8.17 and has not been officially maintained since, so users on macOS today would rely on legacy builds rather than current, supported releases.

Key Features

Bomi records playback history automatically and lets users resume any file exactly where they left off, alongside remembering audio track and subtitle selections per file. It also auto-generates playlists and can restore the last-played list on startup.

Subtitle handling is one of Bomi's strongest areas: it can render multiple subtitle files simultaneously and supports styled formats such as SAMI and ASS, not just plain SRT files. On Linux, it takes advantage of hardware-accelerated decoding through VA-API and VDPAU where available, and its interface, including keyboard and mouse gestures, can be extensively customized. The interface itself is available in English, Korean, and Japanese.

Pricing

Bomi is completely free and open source under the GPLv2 license. There are no paid tiers, subscriptions, license keys, or premium feature gates of any kind.

Anyone can download, use, modify, and redistribute Bomi's source code under the terms of the GPL, consistent with its origins as a community-driven project.

Key Features

Pros & Cons

Pros

  • Completely free and open source with no paid tiers
  • Built on the powerful and well-regarded mpv playback engine
  • Extensive, best-in-class subtitle format and multi-track support
  • Deep interface customization including keyboard and mouse gestures
  • Lightweight compared to many full-featured media center applications

Cons

  • Primarily a Linux application, with macOS support discontinued after early versions
  • Development activity appears to have slowed considerably in recent years
  • Smaller community and less frequent updates compared to VLC or mpv itself
  • Advanced configuration options can be overwhelming for casual users
  • Documentation is sparser than more mainstream media player projects

Pricing

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Bomi Player?

Bomi is a free, open-source graphical media player built on the mpv playback engine, originally released as CMPlayer around 2008 and renamed Bomi around 2014 to 2015.

Is Bomi free to use?

Yes. Bomi is distributed under the GPLv2 open-source license with no cost, subscriptions, or paid tiers.

Does Bomi support macOS?

Bomi had macOS support in earlier versions up through around release 0.8.17, but that support was disabled afterward and has not been an officially maintained part of the project since.

What is Bomi built on?

Bomi is built on top of the mpv media playback engine, adding a full graphical interface, playback history, and enhanced subtitle handling.

Was Bomi previously known by a different name?

Yes. Bomi was originally released as CMPlayer before being renamed to Bomi around 2014 to 2015.

Is Bomi still actively maintained?

Development activity has slowed considerably in recent years compared to the project's earlier active period, though the software remains available for download and use.

What subtitle formats does Bomi support?

Bomi supports a wide range of subtitle formats, including plain SRT as well as styled formats like SAMI and ASS, and can display multiple subtitle tracks at once.

How is Bomi different from plain mpv or VLC?

Bomi wraps the mpv engine in a full graphical interface with features like automatic playback history and advanced subtitle handling, positioning it between bare mpv and more mainstream players like VLC.

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