Detailed Comparison of MakeMKV vs HandBrake | Your Best Bet in 2025

The digital market offers many converters and rippers, and choosing a reliable one is not always simple. MakeMKV and HandBrake are two common options for beginners who want to rip discs. Both tools have different features, so understanding MakeMKV vs HandBrake helps you see which software fits your needs. This section looks at the core differences between HandBrake vs MakeMKV and also introduces a ripping solution that can serve as an alternative for advanced features and higher output quality.

MakeMKV vs HandBrake: Introduction

Before learning the differences between MakeMKV vs HandBrake, let's understand the two programs to get an idea of their unique offerings.

MakeMKV

For users who care most about video quality, MakeMKV is a free program that can rip DVDs to high-quality MKV files on Windows, Linux, or Mac computers. What makes this free software easier to use is its ability to remove copy protection and decrypt DVD AACS and BD+. Beginners and non-experts can work with its straightforward UI without special technical knowledge. It can also automatically detect the main movie title, which makes it easier for anyone to pick the right track. Its fast ripping speed saves time when converting different input formats while still keeping high video quality.

👍Pros of MakeMKV

• Preserves original quality
• Faster ripping speed
• Straightforward interface
• Removes encryption from discs

👎Cons of MakeMKV

• Rips in MKV only
• No file compression is available
• Lacks features compared to its competitors

HandBrake

Almost everyone knows HandBrake is a free transcoder (open-source), but its ability to rip DVDs in different video formats makes it versatile software. Its widely supported codecs offer seamless playback on various platforms, catering to a range of modern devices. Also, HandBrake gives users the leverage to customize the quality and size of output, making it easier to compress the final video for optimized storage space. Flexible customization ensures a thoughtful balance between quality (with the best settings for specific needs) and your device's available storage.

👍Pros of HandBrake

• Supports widespread compatible formats such as MKV, MP4, and WebM
• Extensive customization options are available
• File compression is available to save space
• Convert videos from numerous file formats

👎Cons of HandBrake

• Relatively slow compression speed
• Complex to understand and use for beginners
• Degraded output quality

HandBrake vs MakeMKV: Comparison

To make the differences between HandBrake vs MakeMKV easier to see, we compared them feature by feature across five aspects: input/output formats, output quality, output file size, ripping speed, and additional features. Choose the tool according to the point you care about most.

MakeMKV vs HandBrake: Supported Formats

HandBrake: DVD/BD/ISO/Folder → MP4/MKV/WebM

HandBrake can rip DVDs to MP4 and MKV and also supports WebM. In practice, that means you can target widely compatible codecs like H.264 or H.265, or choose newer, higher-efficiency options such as AV1. For audio, it supports common formats including AAC, AC3/E-AC3, TrueHD, Opus, FLAC, and ALAC. Subtitles can be included as soft subs or burned in, depending on container support. This makes HandBrake a great choice when you need outputs that play nicely across devices and platforms.

For inputs, HandBrake can open a wide range of video files as well as DVD/Blu-ray discs or their VIDEO_TS/BDMV backups. However, it does not remove copy protection by itself, so discs must be unencrypted or already decrypted/copied to storage using another tool. As a result, HandBrake shines as a post-rip encoder when you want device-friendly deliverables.

MakeMKV:  DVD/BD/UHD/ISO/Folder → MKV

MakeMKV is a ripping tool that outputs MKV only. It copies the original video, audio, chapters, subtitles, and metadata from DVD, Blu-ray, and UHD Blu-ray into Matroska without re-encoding. MKV is a flexible format that can store multiple video and audio tracks along with chapter data and different subtitle types, and MakeMKV keeps that structure unchanged.

For input, MakeMKV fully supports DVD, offering Blu-ray support in paid version or with MakeMKV beta key. Compared with HandBrake, its range of input formats is narrower, but because MakeMKV can handle AACS and BD+ protected discs, it has an advantage on the input side in the HandBrake vs MakeMKV comparison. 

MakeMKV vs HandBrake: Output Quality

HandBrake always re-encodes video, so image quality depends on the encoder and settings. It supports H.264, H.265, and AV1, and you can adjust quality by targeting "Constant Quality" or an average bitrate. For audio, HandBrake offers clear choices: re-encode to common formats like AAC or Opus, or pass through the original track. Pass-through preserves quality and supports common disc formats such as AC3/E-AC3, TrueHD, AAC, and MP3. You can also keep the surround layout or downmix to stereo.

MakeMKV does not re-encode video; it remuxes the original disc streams into MKV, so the resulting image quality is the disc's native quality. For audio as well, MakeMKV preserves the disc's contents by default. HD tracks like Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD MA are copied straight into the MKV. If you later need compression or a format change, you can transcode from this lossless rip in a separate step.

HandBrake vs MakeMKV: File Size

With HandBrake, you can freely choose the balance between size and quality. Because HandBrake re-encodes, it can shrink file size substantially. The actual size depends on the codec, resolution, filters, and whether you use a hardware encoder. Hardware encoders tend to produce larger files at the same quality.

MakeMKV does not compress video, so the resulting MKV is nearly the same size as the original stream on the disc. For Blu-ray or UHD, a single title can be tens of gigabytes.

Our Test: With a 6 GB source video, HandBrake produced a 675 MB .mp4 video, while MakeMKV created a MKV almost the same size as the original at about 6 GB. The difference is dramatic, with HandBrake coming out to roughly one ninth the size.

MakeMKV vs HandBrake: Speed

Ripping speed is determined mainly by the optical drive's read speed and the condition of the disc. Since MakeMKV copies streams without re-encoding, if the disc is clean and the drive is fast, the process is limited mostly by the drive's data read rate.

Encoding takes longer than copying streams. Total time varies with the codec, quality settings, filters, and whether hardware acceleration is used. In practice, because HandBrake must decode and re-encode the video, it tends to be slower than MakeMKV for the same disc.

Our Test: In our test with a ~6 GB source, HandBrake took about 12 minutes to create an MP4, while MakeMKV took about 1 minute 30 seconds to create an MKV that was nearly the same size as the source.

HandBrake vs MakeMKV: Additional Features

HandBrake excels at processing and delivery. In addition to batch queuing and official presets, it offers a rich set of filtering tools such as detelecine, deinterlace, denoise, sharpening, and colorspace adjustments. Subtitle handling is flexible, too. HandBrake also provides presets, and you can customize them to meet your size or quality targets.

MakeMKV focuses on lossless conversion. It decrypts discs for playback and streams them to players, while preserving chapters, multiple audio tracks, and subtitles. These capabilities make it a go-to tool for archiving common copy-protected DVDs.

Which is Better: MakeMKV vs HandBrake

Take a look at the quick differences to learn about HandBrake vs MakeMKV and settle on the tool that best meets your needs.

MakeMKV is a great choice for users who focus on speed to preserve original video quality without compression. On the contrary, HandBrake prioritizes flexibility regarding the output formats to convert videos to MKV, MP4, and WebM while compressing the output for smaller file sizes. Both free software programs have distinct advantages. However, they do not please all users with their offerings.

For example, MakeMKV often produces larger files and only outputs in the MKV format. This suits users who mainly want to preserve the content and do not mind storage use, but it offers limited format choices. HandBrake usually needs more time and processing power, and its many customization options can make it harder to use for everyday tasks.

For those seeking a balance between quality, speed, and flexibility, DVDFab DVD Ripper stands out as a great alternative. It combines fast ripping with versatile format support, allowing users to convert and compress videos without losing significant quality. This solution works for a wider variety of media needs. Let's explore the ripping software in depth.

Best Alternative to MakeMKV and HandBrake: DVDFab DVD Ripper

DVDFab DVD Ripper

DVDFab DVD Ripper can detect and remove any typical DVD copy protection like CSS, APS, RC, Sony DADC , and more, making DVD to digital conversion possible. Moreover, newly purchased encrypted DVDs can also be recognized and decrypted thanks to DVDFab's exclusive Cloud Decryption Service. This superb DVD ripper lets you open any old or new disc in 5 to 10 seconds.

How to Use DVDFab DVD Ripper to Digitize DVDs

Step 1: Get DVDFab DVD Ripper

Download and open DVDFab 13 on Windows PC 11/10/8.1/8 and 7 or Mac OS 10.10 - 14x.

Step 2: Add the desired DVD

Pick the Ripper module from the left sidebar and drag the DVD you wish to rip into the main interface. You can add multiple DVDs to rip and convert them to videos.

Step 3: Select video customization parameters

Once your source DVD is loaded, you can choose to preserve the audio tracks and subtitles in the final video.

Set video and audio parameters to modify or tailor the final results. Advanced Settings option can help you with the customization process. The built-in Video Edit option further helps edit the output video to trim and crop for perfection.

Step 4: Process and save the video

Once you have set the video parameters, click the Save to button. Press the blue Start button to convert and digitize your DVD to the desired format. Compared to other competitors, the program boasts GPU acceleration with 50 times faster results, so you need not wait long to enjoy your converted files.

Final Wrap

That's all we have to offer in this debate of MakeMKV vs HandBrake. Both tools have unique strengths that cater to different users' needs. While MakeMKV stands out in preserving original quality, the latter offers flexibility in customization and file compression benefits. In this MakeMKV vs HandBrake article, you must have decided which one to use after going through their offerings and differences. However, we suggest you try DVDFab DVD Ripper for a complete DVD-related solution. Its advanced features and a broader range of output formats deliver safe ripping and conversion.