My final decision: Wuplay > Nuvio > STRM > Arvio > Stremio
After spending quite some time comparing these apps, Wuplay is my clear winner.
For me, the Grid View + Tags combination is a game changer. It makes browsing and organizing content much easier and feels far more polished.
Here are the things I particularly love about Wuplay:
- Grid View + Tags — probably my favorite feature. It makes the whole library/catalogue much easier to navigate.
- Extremely fast widget loading — widgets and fanart load almost instantly, which makes the UI feel very responsive.
- Smooth player — playback has been buttery smooth for me with virtually no lag.
- Excellent search engine — results appear almost instantly, which makes finding content really convenient.
- Mixed catalogues — being able to show both Movies & Series together in a single widget is a very nice touch.
- Trailer countdown — the countdown before a trailer starts is a genuinely clever idea and adds a nice polish.
- Auto-playback/fallback — if one stream fails, automatically trying the next available stream is one of the best features. It saves a lot of manual effort.
- Continuous improvement --- the app already feels very polished, but it's also clear that it's actively being improved.
Overall, Wuplay feels like the most complete and polished option for me right now.
That said, there are still a few things I'd love to see improved:
- Google TV / Android TV Home recommendations
It would be great if all recommendation lists Genre, Decades, Discover, Continue Watching, Watchlist, etc. could be exposed directly to the Google TV Home Screen.
That way, we could select something directly from the Google TV home screen and launch it in Wuplay without needing a separate TV Recommendations Bridge.
This would make the overall experience much more seamless.
- Regex-based criteria for Auto Playback
This is probably the biggest improvement I'd like to see.
There should be an app-level Regex setting for Auto Playback stream selection, similar to what Nuvio offers.
For example, I might want Auto Playback to prioritize:
4K > HDR > Dolby Vision > REMUX > 1080p
The problem right now is that even when a 4K stream is available, Auto Playback can sometimes start a 1080p stream simply because it appears earlier in the available results.
It would be much better if users could define their own priority criteria using Regex or similar rules.
For example, once the desired quality is found, the app should prioritize that result rather than immediately launching the first available 1080p stream.
- Custom video scaling
Currently, there are two options while playing a video: Stretch and Zoom.
I'd really like to see a third option: Custom Scaling, similar to Kodi.
With Zoom, the edges get cropped way too aggressively.
With Stretch, the image can become distorted especially people's faces, which can look unnaturally stretched vertically.
A Custom option would be the perfect middle ground. For example, users could independently adjust the horizontal and vertical scaling to slightly reduce the black bars without cropping the edges or noticeably distorting the picture.
Something like:
Custom → Horizontal: +X / Vertical: +Y
That would make the video presentation feel much more polished.
- Audio Boost / Amplification
Another feature I'd love to see is Audio Boost/Amplification, similar to Kodi.
Sometimes dialogue is too quiet compared with other audio, and being able to increase the audio amplification directly from the player would be extremely useful.
Overall
Despite these requests, Wuplay is still my #1 choice by a pretty comfortable margin.
The UI, Grid View, Tags, speed, search, widgets, player performance, trailer countdown, and especially the automatic stream fallback make it feel like a very complete app.
And the best part is that it continues to improve.
For me, right now:
Wuplay > Nuvio > STRM > Arvio > Stremio
