Curatio Media Player vs Aether Player
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side ā with what reviewers say about each.
Curatio Media Player
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Your media, your way. Curatio is a premium player for the library you already own. Bring your own server and the sources you already use ā Curatio gives them a beautiful, cinematic home on Apple TV, iPhone, and iPad. It hosts nothing and tracks nothing. Your library stays entirely yours. Powered by a custom mpv engine with HDR10 and HLG, Curatio plays your video the way it was mastered. On Apple TV it matches your TV's refresh rate and dynamic range automatically. On iPhone and iPad it matches ProMotion frame-for-frame. BUILT FOR YOUR LIBRARY ⢠Cinematic home screen with hero art and title logos ⢠Curated shelves and rich detail pages ā story, cast, and similar titles ⢠Fast search across everything you've connected PLAYBACK THAT LOOKS RIGHT ⢠HDR10 & HLG high dynamic range ⢠Automatic refresh-rate & dynamic-range matching on Apple TV ⢠Hardware-accelerated decoding ā HEVC, H.264, VP9, AV1 and more ⢠Instant source switching with automatic failover PREMIUM BY DESIGN ⢠Picture-in-Picture on iPhone & iPad ⢠Skip Intro & Credits, detected automatically ⢠Continue Watching, synced across all your devices ⢠Up to 10 profiles, each with its own history and library ⢠Offline downloads on iPhone & iPad ⢠Top Shelf on Apple TV YOUR SERVER, YOUR SOURCES Connect your own media server and the addons you already use. Curatio is the player ā what you watch, and where it comes from, is entirely up to you. Nothing is hosted for you, and nothing is tracked. ONE APP, EVERY SCREEN iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV, with your profiles, history, and watchlist always in sync via iCloud. Your media. Your way.
Aether Player
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Aether is a personal media player for Plex, Jellyfin, Emby and your own files ā built natively for every Apple screen. Connect your server and your whole library appears: movies, shows, music, Continue Watching, Recently Added. Add a second server and both merge into one deduplicated view, with a picker that tells you which copy is the better file. Your media, not theirs. PLAY ANYTHING ⢠Direct play or server-transcoded ā Aether follows the best path automatically, per title. ⢠MKV, HEVC, Dolby Vision, DTS: formats other players choke on play through a modern engine, GPU-accelerated for smooth 4K. ⢠Picture in Picture, AirPlay, Dolby Atmos, lock-screen controls. ⢠Switch audio and subtitle tracks mid-playback on every platform. ⢠Offline downloads, including whole seasons ā and Smart Downloads that keep the next unwatched episodes ready. EVERYONE IN THE HOUSE ⢠Profiles: separate Continue Watching, watchlist, ratings, Home rails and trackers, with a PIN on the way in and per-profile library visibility. ⢠A child's profile can be held to an age rating. ⢠Pair a profile to your Plex Home profile, or to its own Jellyfin or Emby user, so watched state stays separate on the server too. ⢠Two profiles are included; up to five with Supporter. SUBTITLES, DONE PROPERLY ⢠Aether reads subtitle files itself and times them against the picture, so they sit where you put them ā in the black bars or over the video, in your own style, with sync and size adjustable in the player. ⢠Search OpenSubtitles from a title's own page in thirty-one languages, ranked against the exact file you're playing. YOUR LIBRARY, YOUR WAY ⢠One library across every connected source, filtered by genre, year, rating, country, audio language, server or the libraries you curated on them. ⢠Continue Watching, Up Next and a Discover tab with trending titles and Where to Watch availability in your region. ⢠Person pages, franchise collections, and ratings from IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic and TMDb. ⢠Music as its own tab ā artists, albums, playlists, and a player built for it, with the catalog kept on disk so it opens offline. ⢠Live TV from a playlist you already have, with a full guide, categories you make yourself, Xtream Codes accounts and HDHomeRun tuners. Bring-your-own: Aether provides no channels. BEAUTIFUL ON EVERY SCREEN ⢠iPhone and iPad: cinematic hero art, a page that grows out of the poster you tapped. ⢠Apple TV: precision focus design, and your Continue Watching in the top shelf. ⢠Apple Vision Pro: an auditorium around the picture ā raked seating, masking walls, house lights down. ⢠Mac: a native app with a menu-bar mode, a series browser, and Apple's own decoder for what it can play. PRIVATE BY DESIGN Aether connects only to the servers you configure. No account of ours, no cloud, no ads, no cross-app tracking. Your ratings, watchlist and resume positions live on your devices and in your own iCloud. Optional anonymous usage statistics can be turned off any time. SOURCES ⢠Plex (multi-server, multi-account) ⢠Jellyfin (multi-server) ⢠Emby (multi-server, Live TV, music) ⢠Silo ⢠SMB / network shares, with Bonjour discovery ⢠WebDAV ⢠Local files Optional, all bring-your-own: connect your own Seerr to request what you don't have, your own Trakt or Simkl account to track what you watch, and your own OpenSubtitles account for subtitle search. Aether requires a Plex, Jellyfin, Emby or Silo media server, an SMB or WebDAV share, or local video files. It is not a streaming service and does not provide any content. Plex, Jellyfin, Emby, Silo, Trakt, Simkl and OpenSubtitles are trademarks of their respective owners. Aether is an independent, third-party client and is not affiliated with, sponsored or endorsed by them. Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Privacy Policy: https://aetherplayer.com/privacy
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Curatio Media Player at none against Aether Player's 5. Curatio Media Player also leads on iOS requirement (17.5 vs 26.0). Aether Player's advantage is device support (5 vs 3). On price, update cadence and ads there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price Ā· Rating Ā· Positive reviews Ā· Number of ratings Ā· Update frequency Ā· Ads Ā· In-app purchases Ā· Monetization Ā· Best chart rank Ā· Devices Ā· Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Aether Player sells 5 in-app purchases, starting at $0.99 per month. Curatio Media Player asks for nothing beyond the download.
Both ship on a similar rhythm, roughly weekly. The most recent releases landed on October 15, 2026 and October 10, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Curatio Media Player | Aether Player |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Update frequency | Weekly | Weekly |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No ā better | Yes |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, Apple TV | iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple TV, Vision Pro ā better |
| Requires iOS | 17.5 ā better | 26.0 |
| Further details ā not scored | ||
| Size | 52 MB | 107 MB |
| Age rating | 12+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Colin Young | Vaclav Zmrhal |
In-app purchases
Curatio Media Player
No in-app purchases
Aether Player
- Supporter$0.991 Month
- Supporter$9.991 Year
- Small Tip$0.99
- Medium Tip$4.99
- Large Tip$9.99
Questions
Is Curatio Media Player free?
Is Aether Player free?
Do Curatio Media Player or Aether Player have ads?
Which is updated more often, Curatio Media Player or Aether Player?
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