Comparison

tofa vs Photon Player

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

tofa

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tofa plays the movies and shows you already own. You run a tofa server on a computer at home and point it at your media folders. Sign in to this app with your tofa account and your server is there, with your libraries, your artwork, and your place in every episode. WATCH ON EVERY SCREEN Your progress follows you. Start a film on Apple TV, finish it on your phone on the train. There is nothing to copy across and nothing to sync by hand. BUILT FOR YOUR LIBRARY Movies and shows are organized automatically, with posters, backdrops, descriptions, and cast. Seasons and episodes land in the right order. When something is named unusually, you can correct the match yourself and it stays corrected. PLAYS YOUR FILES AS THEY ARE Most of your library plays exactly as it sits on disk, which means the best picture your device can show. When a file needs converting, your server handles it and playback keeps up. PICTURE AND SOUND Dolby Vision, HDR10, and 4K on the hardware that supports them. Surround audio passes through to your receiver. Pick the audio track and subtitles you want, and tofa remembers the choice. SUBTITLES THAT WORK Text and image subtitles both render, including styled subtitles. Sidecar files sitting next to your media are picked up automatically. SHARE WITH PEOPLE YOU TRUST Give family or friends access to some or all of your libraries. Everyone gets their own profile, their own watch history, and their own place in each show. YOUR MEDIA STAYS YOURS tofa does not host any content. It plays the files on the server you run. We do not track you across apps or websites, we do not serve ads, and we do not sell your data. You need a tofa server to use this app. Setting one up takes about ten minutes.

About

Photon Player

Features
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Photon is a native player for the library you already own. Connect your media servers, your cloud and network storage, and your Live TV subscription, and everything you can watch appears in one place — on iPhone, iPad, Apple TV and Mac, from a single purchase. YOUR OWN LIBRARY, TOGETHER • Works with Jellyfin, Emby, Plex and Silo • Connect a server free, or as many as you like with Pro. Home and Search bring them all together; the Library tab keeps each source's own shelves separate, so you can still ask what is on one server. • Play straight from an SMB, NFS, FTP or WebDAV share, a UPnP server on your network, or Dropbox, Google Drive and OneDrive, with no media server at all • Live TV from an Xtream Codes subscription: a full program guide, favorites, and a channel list built for thousands of channels • Open a video from Files or the Finder and it becomes a title like any other — with a resume point, artwork and a name you can match against your servers AS IT WAS MADE • Dolby Vision and HDR, with AVPlayer driving the display for real HDR output • MKV and 4K play as they are. Nothing is quietly downscaled or re-encoded behind your back. • Dolby Digital Plus with Atmos passed through untouched; TrueHD and DTS-HD decoded losslessly rather than folded to stereo, and with Pro, TrueHD Atmos rendered with its height • Subtitles drawn as overlays, never burned into the picture • Standing choices for audio language, subtitle language, and when subtitles should come on at all • Skip intros and credits, and go straight into the next episode EVERYWHERE YOU WATCH • Download for offline with Pro. Transfers carry on while you are elsewhere, with a Live Activity on the Lock Screen and a notice when a title lands. • Handoff picks a film up on the next device at the frame you left it • Spotlight opens a title directly • Top Shelf on Apple TV, a real menu bar on the Mac, and one design across all four platforms BUILT FOR THE PLATFORM Written in SwiftUI for iOS, tvOS and macOS, with full Dynamic Type, VoiceOver labels on every control, and Reduce Motion respected throughout. There is no account to create and no service of ours in the path: Photon talks to your servers and to your own iCloud, and to nothing else. PHOTON PRO The free app is the whole player: one media server and one Live TV subscription, every drive and network share, and every format — 4K, MKV, Dolby Vision, TrueHD and DTS — with browsing, search, Handoff and SharePlay, no advertising and nothing to sign up for. Pro adds: • Every source at once: as many servers and Live TV subscriptions as you like, together in Home and Search • Downloads, for watching offline • Dolby Atmos from TrueHD soundtracks, rendered for your speakers or headphones • AirPlay to an Apple TV or any AirPlay screen • Your servers, settings and the way you have arranged Home, on every device you sign in on Available monthly, yearly, or as a one-off Lifetime purchase, with a free week on either subscription. One purchase covers iPhone, iPad, Apple TV and Mac. Photon plays the media you already have on servers and storage you control. It is an independent client and is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by Jellyfin, Emby or Plex. Terms of Use (EULA): https://photon.oliverwalton.uk/terms/ Privacy Policy: https://photon.oliverwalton.uk/privacy/

Screenshots

tofa4 screens
Photon Player4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: tofa at none against Photon Player's 3. Photon Player's advantage is update cadence (daily vs every 3 days) and device support (5 vs 3). On price, ads and iOS requirement 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

CostPrice Ā· In-app purchases Ā· Ads Ā· Monetization

Both are free to download. Photon Player sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $1.99 per month. tofa asks for nothing beyond the download.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

tofa ships an update every 3 days, Photon Player daily. The most recent releases landed on October 10, 2026 and October 14, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard3 real differences Ā· 3 level
tofa versus Photon Player: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParametertofaPhoton Player
PriceFreeFree
Update frequencyEvery 3 daysDaily — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNo — betterYes
DevicesiPhone, iPad, Apple TViPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple TV, Vision Pro — better
Requires iOS26.026.0
Further details — not scored
Size54 MB37 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperTofa Software ehf.Oliver Walton

In-app purchases

None

tofa

No in-app purchases

3 purchases

Photon Player

Subscriptions2
  • Photon Pro Monthly$1.991 Month
  • Photon Pro Yearly$14.991 Year
One-time1
  • Photon Pro Lifetime$49.99

Questions

Is tofa free?
tofa is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Photon Player free?
Photon Player is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Do tofa or Photon Player have ads?
Neither tofa nor Photon Player shows ads.
Which is updated more often, tofa or Photon Player?
tofa ships an update every 3 days, and Photon Player daily. Most recently, tofa was updated on October 10, 2026 and Photon Player on October 14, 2026.

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