2.0/5
Trustpilot rating
24 reviews
Report
Should I Use The Movie Database (TMDB)?
The Movie Database (TMDB) is a popular, user editable database for movies and TV shows.
Worth it
Worth itBuy if you need free movie and TV metadata for personal or non-commercial projects; it is the de facto community standard.
Free, community-built movie/TV metadata used by Kodi, Stremio, Letterboxd. Great for hobby projects; commercial use needs approval.
Confidence: Medium
$0
Starting price
Free API for non-commercial use
Yes
Free tier
Website browsing and API access free
5+
Known integrations
Kodi, Stremio, Letterboxd, Coda, Maltego
Value for money
5
Free API and community data
Ease of use
4
Widely integrated; simple developer docs
Feature depth
4
Movies, TV, images; scrapeable, dataset-ready
Support quality
2
2.0/5 Trustpilot across 24 reviews
Security posture
2
No public security page found
Pros
Cons
Gotchas
- highCommercial API use is not self-serve; you must contact TMDB for business terms.⁵
- mediumCommunity moderation can remove content unpredictably; users report unexplained purges.⁴
- mediumTrustpilot sits at 2.0/5; support satisfaction looks poor.²
- mediumNo published security page; limited transparency on practices.10
Best for
- Personal movie/TV tracking tools
- Media center metadata (Kodi, Stremio)
- Hobby dev projects needing free metadata
- Data analysis and ML datasets
Not for
- Commercial apps wanting self-serve licensing
- Teams needing guaranteed data accuracy or SLAs
- Anyone requiring paid support
- Buyers needing published security posture
Companies that use it
- Letterboxd³
- Kodi
- Stremio
- Emby
- Maltego
Pricing
Non-commercial API
Free
- Personal and non-commercial use
- Attribution required per API terms
API for Business
Not disclosed
- Commercial rights
- Contact TMDB for pricing
Security
No known public vulnerabilities found in the sources reviewed.
What users say
Users value the free, comprehensive catalog but complain about arbitrary content removals, moderation, and metadata linking issues.
“TMDb is ruining Letterboxd for me”
“TMDB just purged a bunch of RLM content”
“[TMDB] The Movie Database only linking series”
Alternatives
Compare The Movie Database (TMDB) with each alternative.
IMDb
Bigger editorial catalog; licensing for apps is costly
The Movie Database (TMDB) vs IMDbOMDb API
Simple IMDb-backed API; cheap paid tier
The Movie Database (TMDB) vs OMDb APIWikidata
Fully open film metadata; no usage restrictions
The Movie Database (TMDB) vs WikidataLetterboxd
Better for personal tracking and reviews, not an API
The Movie Database (TMDB) vs LetterboxdFull analysis
Based on ~30 public sources; many Reddit snippets truncated, so sentiment is directionally reliable.
Sources
- The Movie Database (TMDB)themoviedb.orgofficial
- The Movie Database Reviews - Trustpilottrustpilot.comreview
review
- API for Business - TMDBthemoviedb.orgofficial
- API Terms of Use - TMDBthemoviedb.orgofficial
- TMDB Developer FAQdeveloper.themoviedb.orgofficial
- TMDB TV Shows Scraper - Apifyapify.comofficial
official
- Security page - themoviedb.orgthemoviedb.orgsecurity
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