Comparison

Aether Player vs Sparklux Go

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

Head to head
About

Aether Player

Features
Read full description

Aether is a personal media player for Plex, Jellyfin, Emby and your own files — 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 — Aether follows the best path automatically, per title. • MKV, HEVC, HDR, lossless audio: formats other players choke on play through a modern engine, GPU-accelerated for smooth 4K. • Picture in Picture, AirPlay, surround sound, lock-screen controls. • Switch audio and subtitle tracks mid-playback on every platform. • Offline downloads, including whole seasons — 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 — 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 — 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 — 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

About

Sparklux Go

Enhance your video playback with super resolution and HDR brightness. Stream content from your NAS or Mac, and enjoy features like frame interpolation and anime upscaling. All processing is done on-device with no ads or accounts required.

Highlights
  • HDR and Super Resolution playback
  • Stream from NAS and Mac via SMB
  • SDR to HDR conversion
  • Frame interpolation for smoother motion
  • Anime upscaling with trained models
  • A-B loop and playback speed control
  • Subtitle and audio track selection
Features
Read full description

Requires an HDR display (iPhone 12 or later, some iPad Pro models). Videos still play on other displays, but SDR to HDR conversion is not available. Watch the videos on your NAS or Mac sharper with super resolution and brighter in HDR. Sparklux Go is free to download, and you can try every feature free for 3 days; you will never be charged automatically. To keep using it, make a one-time purchase. There is no subscription. No ads, no account needed. Watch SDR video at HDR brightness. Browse the videos on your Mac or NAS by folder on your iPhone or iPad, and get the most out of your display. Motion goes up to 120fps. - Browse your shared folders Connect over SMB to Mac File Sharing or a NAS (Synology, QNAP and more) and play straight from the folder. You can also open videos from the Files app, your photo library, or a direct video link (.mp4 / .mov / .m3u8). WebDAV, Jellyfin and DLNA/UPnP servers are supported too. - SDR to HDR brightness Uses the extra brightness of your HDR display to make SDR video brighter and more vivid. Presets: Natural, Vivid, "Brighter, as is" and No conversion. A/B compare shows the original side by side. - Sharper and smoother Videos smaller than your screen are upscaled to its native resolution. Videos at 30 fps or lower can be smoothed with frame interpolation. Both pause automatically when the device is hot or in Low Power Mode. Up to 120fps on ProMotion displays. - Anime upscaling (only when you choose it) Choose Anime Super Resolution to sharpen anime such as DVD-quality episodes 2x or 4x with trained models on your device, or Anime (Light) for a lighter pass that cleans up line art. Uses trained models only when you choose it. Everything runs on your device and switches or backs off automatically to match its speed, temperature and Low Power Mode. - Playback controls Choose a playback speed from 0.5x to 2x. Set A and B to repeat a section (A-B loop). On iPhone, rotation lock keeps portrait or landscape. Double-tap to skip 10 seconds back or forward, press and hold for 2x speed, pinch to zoom. Import your own LUTs (.cube) from the Files app and apply them. - Subtitles, audio, lists and PiP Subtitles in the same folder as the video (Movie.srt / Movie.en.srt / .ass) appear automatically, and embedded MKV and MP4 subtitles can be selected. Switch between audio tracks. Folder lists show thumbnails, with sorting, search and favorites. Picture in Picture lets you keep watching while you use other apps (inside the PiP window, HDR highlights are more restrained due to iOS limits). - Formats MP4 / MOV / M4V / HLS / MKV / AVI (H.264, MJPEG and more). H.264 and HEVC (including 10-bit, HDR10, HLG and Dolby Vision 8.1). - Please note - Streaming services such as YouTube cannot be opened (their pages are not video files). - Shares that require SMB3 encryption are not supported yet. No data is collected. All processing happens on your device.

Screenshots

Aether Player4 screens
Sparklux Go4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is review sentiment: Sparklux Go at 100% against Aether Player's 50%. Sparklux Go also leads on rating (5.0 vs 2.5) and update cadence (every 2 days vs weekly). Aether Player's advantage is device support (5 vs 2). On price, ratings volume, ads and in-app purchases there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Aether Player sells 5 in-app purchases, starting at $0.99 per month and Sparklux Go sells 2 one-off in-app purchases. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Sparklux Go holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 2.5. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 2 and 1 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 50% of Aether Player's written reviews are positive against 100% of Sparklux Go's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Aether Player ships an update weekly, Sparklux Go every 2 days. The most recent releases landed on October 24, 2026 and October 20, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard4 real differences · 6 level
Aether Player versus Sparklux Go: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterAether PlayerSparklux Go
PriceFreeFree
Rating2.5 (2 ratings)5.0 (1 ratings) — better
Positive reviews50.0% of reviews100.0% of reviews — better
Number of ratings2 — better1
Update frequencyWeeklyEvery 2 days — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
Monetization—Free with in-app purchases
DevicesiPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple TV, Vision Pro — betteriPhone, iPad
Requires iOS26.026.0
Further details — not scored
Size135 MB35 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperVaclav ZmrhalFumiaki Monma

Customer experience

Aether Player

All ratings2 ratings
Positive50.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative50.0%
Written reviews2 reviews
Positive50.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative50.0%

Sparklux Go

All ratings1 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews1 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

In-app purchases

5 purchases

Aether Player

Subscriptions2
  • Supporter$0.991 Month
  • Supporter$9.991 Year
One-time3
  • Small Tip$0.99
  • Medium Tip$4.99
  • Large Tip$9.99
2 purchases

Sparklux Go

One-time2
  • 3-Day Free TrialFree
  • Sparklux Go (one-time)$3.99

Questions

Is Aether Player free?
Aether Player is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Sparklux Go free?
Sparklux Go is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Aether Player or Sparklux Go?
Sparklux Go is rated higher. Aether Player averages 2.5 out of 5 from 2 ratings, while Sparklux Go averages 5.0 from 1 ratings.
Do Aether Player or Sparklux Go have ads?
Neither Aether Player nor Sparklux Go shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Aether Player or Sparklux Go?
Aether Player ships an update weekly, and Sparklux Go every 2 days. Most recently, Aether Player was updated on October 24, 2026 and Sparklux Go on October 20, 2026.

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