7 Best DLNA, Chromecast and Media Server Apps for Android in 2026

Every list in this category makes the same mistake: it mixes two products that share almost nothing.

A server client — Jellyfin, Emby, Kodi — talks to software you are already running on a PC, a NAS or a spare mini-PC at home. It browses that library, shows artwork and episode ordering, remembers where you stopped, and asks the server to transcode when your phone cannot handle the file. Install it without a server and it does nothing at all.

A sender — BubbleUPnP, LocalCast, AllCast — takes a file that is on your phone, or on a network share your phone can read, and pushes it to a screen. No server, no library, no setup beyond both devices being on the same Wi-Fi.

So the first question is not which app. It is whether there is a server in your house. If there is, entries 1 to 3 matter and the rest are mostly redundant. If there is not, skip straight to entry 4 and you will have installed one app instead of five.

Worth clearing up while we are here, because it causes most of the confusion in this category: DLNA and Chromecast are not the same protocol, and neither is screen mirroring. With DLNA and UPnP the playback device pulls the file itself and has to decode it, so an unsupported codec is a hard failure. With Google Cast your phone hands over a URL and the receiver fetches it — which is why the phone can be locked while playback continues. Screen mirroring re-encodes your entire display and streams it as video: universally compatible, visibly worse, and hard on the battery.

Every version, size, minimum Android and licence below is the catalogue entry for the package this site serves.

The server clients

1. Jellyfin — start here, and it is free software

Jellyfin is the client to try first, and the reason is history rather than features.

• Version: v2.6.2 · Size: 12.8 MB · Android: 5.0+ · Licence: open source · Developer: Jellyfin Project

In 2018 Emby's server moved to a closed-source licence. Jellyfin is the fork taken from the last version before that change, developed as free software ever since — server and client both. No paid tier, no account, no unlock, and the source is readable by anyone who wants to check what it does with their library.

At 12.8 MB it is also the smallest client here by a factor of five, which matters more than it sounds: a media client is a thin thing, and 66 MB of app to browse a library you already own is a lot of app.

The honest trade is polish and reach. Emby has had more years and more paid development on its clients for televisions, streaming sticks and consoles; if your household plays media on four different brands of device, you may find Emby's coverage smoother. On Android specifically, Jellyfin is fine.

Pick this one if: you are choosing a server today, or you already run Jellyfin.

2. Emby — the polished commercial option

Emby is the client for the other server, and it is a good one.

• Version: v3.4.15 · Size: 66.0 MB · Android: 6.0+ · Licence: freeware · Developer: Emby Media

Live TV with an electronic programme guide, DVR recording, server-side transcoding so an old phone can play a file it could never decode locally, and offline sync for a flight. The Live TV and DVR side is genuinely more mature than the alternatives, and if you have a tuner card this is the reason to choose it.

Two things to know. It is 66.0 MB — the largest download on this page — and "freeware" here means the download costs nothing, not that everything inside is free: several features, offline sync among them, sit behind Emby Premiere. And it needs Android 6.0 rather than 5.0.

Pick this one if: you already run Emby Server, or Live TV and DVR is the whole point for you.

3. Kodi — the one that is a player as well as a client

Kodi is a different shape from the two above. It is a full media centre that happens to be able to act as a client.

• Version: v21.0 · Size: 76.3 MB · Android: 5.0+ · Licence: open source · Developer: Kodi Foundation (XBMC)

Kodi plays local files, browses SMB and NFS shares, connects to UPnP servers, scrapes metadata itself, handles 4K HDR, and drives a television from across a room with a remote. It is the only entry here that is useful with no server and no casting target — it will simply play your files.

Two caveats. It is the largest install on the page at 76.3 MB, and the ten-foot interface is designed for a TV screen and a remote rather than a phone in your hand, which makes it awkward as a phone app. Its own scraping is also not a substitute for a server when several people share a library — Kodi keeps its watched state locally unless you go and configure a shared database.

Pick this one if: you are setting up an Android TV box, or you want one app that plays everything without a server behind it.

The senders

4. BubbleUPnP — the one that fixes the file rather than blaming the TV

BubbleUPnP is the strongest sender here, and it is the answer to the single most common complaint in this category.

• Version: v4.3.3 · Size: 22.7 MB · Android: 5.0+ · Licence: freeware · Developer: Bubblesoft

When a cast fails, the network is rarely at fault. Google Cast receivers decode a defined list of formats, and the classic failure is an MKV whose audio track is DTS or TrueHD: the picture appears, the sound does not, or nothing starts. The TV cannot decode it and there is nothing on the TV to fix.

BubbleUPnP transcodes the offending track on the fly on your phone and sends the receiver something it can play. That is the reason to install it and it is not a small one — it converts "this file does not work" into "this file works", which no amount of choosing a different casting app will do.

Beyond that it routes between almost anything: local storage, a NAS, cloud drives, out to Chromecast, DLNA televisions, Sonos and Roku, and it can act as a UPnP renderer itself so another device can push audio to your phone.

Transcoding costs battery and heat, since your phone is doing real work for the length of the film. That is the trade, and it is worth it.

Pick this one if: something has already refused to cast, or your library is full of MKV files.

5. LocalCast — the one with a browser and Windows share support

LocalCast covers the two sources the others miss.

• Version: v12.2.0 · Size: 42.5 MB · Android: 6.0+ · Licence: freeware · Developer: Stefan Pledl (LocalCast)

It browses SMB shares directly, so a video sitting in a shared folder on a Windows PC can go to the TV without any server software being installed anywhere. It also has a built-in browser that will pick up a video embedded in a web page and cast that. And it pulls subtitles from OpenSubtitles and lets you nudge the timing, which is the difference between subtitles that work and subtitles you give up on.

At 42.5 MB it is nearly twice BubbleUPnP's size and it does not transcode, so an unsupported audio track is still an unsupported audio track.

Pick this one if: your files live on a Windows share, or subtitles are the part that keeps failing.

6. AllCast — the small, simple one

AllCast is the minimal version of this idea, from ClockworkMod's Koushik Dutta.

• Version: v2.0.6 · Size: 29.5 MB · Android: 5.0+ · Licence: freeware · Developer: ClockworkMod (Koushik Dutta)

Open it, it finds the screens on your network — Chromecast, Roku, Apple TV, DLNA televisions — and you send photos, music or a home video. No library, no configuration, no transcoding. For showing holiday photos on the television it is the fastest route from intent to picture.

One caution worth stating plainly: at v2.0.6 this carries the lowest version number on this page by a wide margin. Take that as a hint about how much has changed here lately. If device discovery fails on a current-generation Chromecast, try BubbleUPnP before concluding your network is broken.

Pick this one if: you want to cast photos and clips and nothing more.

7. CX File Explorer — the step people forget

CX File Explorer is not a casting app, and that is why it is here.

• Version: v2.4.2 · Size: 8.6 MB · Android: 5.0+ · Licence: freeware · Developer: Cx File Explorer Inc.

A great many "casting does not work" problems are actually "my phone cannot see the files" problems. The video is on a NAS or a Windows machine, the share is there, and nothing on the phone speaks SMB. CX File Explorer does — network shares alongside local storage in one browser, at 8.6 MB with no advertising.

Once the phone can reach the file, everything above becomes possible. On its own it will not put anything on a television.

Pick this one if: your media is on a network share and your phone currently cannot open it.

The seven, side by side

What none of these fix

Four limits, stated so this page does not read as more than it is.

None of them provides content. Every app here plays files that already exist, on your phone, on a share or on a server you run. They are plumbing.

A subscription service will not cast through them. Netflix, Disney+ and the rest use their own casting path inside their own app, protected by DRM. No third-party sender can pick up a protected stream, and none of these tries.

They cannot rescue a weak network. Transcoding fixes formats, not bandwidth. A 4K remux over 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi from the other end of a house will stutter no matter which app sends it — that is a wiring and access-point problem.

A sideloaded package does not update itself. An APK installed by hand stays where you left it. If a new copy refuses to install over an old one, our guide to the "App not installed" error covers the signing-key conflict that usually causes it.

The two-minute version

Server at home already? Install the client that matches it. Choosing a server now? Jellyfin — free software, 12.8 MB, no paid tier.

No server, and something refused to cast? BubbleUPnP. It is the only entry that fixes the file rather than reporting that the file is broken.

No server, files on a Windows PC? LocalCast for casting them, or CX File Explorer if the phone cannot see the share yet.

Setting up an Android TV box? Kodi, and skip the rest.

Every app named here resolves to a page in the FileCobra catalogue — the build fails if one does not. Versions, package sizes and system requirements are read from that catalogue rather than written by hand. Where our ingestion worker has fetched a release itself, it records a SHA-256 of the exact file we serve and publishes it on the app’s page. We do not run an antivirus lab: where a VirusTotal report exists we link it, and where none exists we say so rather than imply one.