iptv-org/iptv

A community-curated collection of publicly-available IPTV channel streams from around the world, distributed as M3U playlists.

What it is

A repository of publicly-broadcasted television streams (live TV channels from many countries) curated into M3U playlist files. Users point an IPTV player (VLC, Kodi, mpv, ffplay, IPTV-specific apps) at the playlist URL and get live access to thousands of channels. Streams come from public broadcast sources only — paid / region-locked / DRM-protected streams are explicitly out of scope. Sister repos under the iptv-org org handle EPG (electronic program guide), API, and tooling.

Key features

Thousands of channels across many countries grouped by region, language, category.
Multiple playlist variants — index.m3u (everything), per-country, per-language, per-category playlists.
Automated dead-stream pruning via scheduled CI.
Companion EPG (TV guide), API, and tooling repos under the same org.
Unlicense — public-domain-equivalent.
Static site at iptv-org.github.io for playlist browsing.

Tech stack

TypeScript primary (curation tooling, CI scripts).
M3U / M3U8 as the canonical playlist format.
GitHub Actions for automated stream-health checks.

When to reach for it

You're configuring a personal IPTV setup and want a curated playlist source.
You're building an IPTV-aware app (player, EPG aggregator, regional bouquet generator) and need a clean source.
You're studying community-maintained large-scale media curation as a model.

When not to reach for it

You want guaranteed legality across all jurisdictions — public-broadcast streams have varying redistribution rules per country; verify local laws.
You want premium / region-locked / DRM streams — explicitly out of scope.
You want SLAs — streams come from public sources with no uptime guarantees; the curation tooling prunes dead ones, but quality varies.

Maturity signal

116k stars, 6.2k forks, Unlicense, last push 2026-06-02 (the day this page was generated). 7-year-old project with active CI-driven stream-health automation. Open-issues count of 67 is unusually low — the maintainers process per-stream reports continuously. Unlicense + organizational structure (multiple coordinated repos) signal long-term institutional intent.

Alternatives

Per-country government broadcaster playlists (BBC iPlayer, NHK, etc.) — use when you need licensed, region-locked, official streams.
Commercial IPTV providers — use when you want premium content with SLAs.
Plex / Jellyfin live-TV add-ons — use when you have a tuner card and want to manage local broadcast.

Notes

Stream legality is jurisdiction-specific; the project itself only catalogs publicly-broadcast streams, but users in some regions may face local restrictions on redistribution. Unlicense is the most permissive available license — vendoring playlists into derivative tools is friction-free. The org-wide split (curation here, tooling elsewhere, API elsewhere) is a deliberate architecture for sustainability.

Wiki: iptv-org/iptv