Kodi has a thriving addon development scene, so it’s a natural choice for anyone who wants to access a huge amount of different content in one place. Unfortunately, though, some developers aren’t as concerned with things like copyright as others, which is why Kodi is plagued by piracy-focused addons and repositories.
Kodi Bae was one of these. It quickly became popular as it was one of the only repos hosting addons like cCloud TV, 9Anime, and SportsDevil when the Colossus repository was taken down. Now, Kodi Bae itself is offline. Below, we’ll explain the risks involved with unauthorized streaming addons and recommend some of our favorite, free to use Kodi addons so that you can watch whatever you want legally.
Warning: Kodi should only be used for content to which you have the legal right to access. Neither the Kodi Foundation nor Comparitech advocates the use of Kodi for piracy.
Always use a VPN with Kodi
You can protect yourself by using a Virtual Private Network (VPN) with Kodi. Their encryption hides your activities from snoopers, makes it harder to for your ISP to justify throttling, and renders most Man-in-the-Middle attacks useless. With so many different VPN providers to choose from, though, it’s easy to inadvertently choose one that’s pretty poor for streaming.
We recommend using NordVPN. This service boasts first-class security and privacy features, a true no-logs policy, and high-speed servers in 60 countries. Additionally, it offers its own Amazon Fire Stick and Nvidia Shield apps. With a 30-day money-back guarantee, you can try it risk-free and get a full refund if unsatisfied.
What was the Kodi Bae repo?
The Kodi Bae Repo was a repository that held some very popular third-party Kodi addons, including 9Anime, cCloud TV, Exodus, PrimeWire, SportsDevil, Ultimate IPTV, and others. Some of these addons were previously part of the old Fusion and Colossus repositories. When these old repos were shut down, Kodi Bae became a popular place to find these addons.
Fans of Exodus, cCloud TV, PrimeWire, etc. claimed that these addons provided access to a huge catalog of free movies and TV. While this might have seem great, they failed to make clear that these addons pulled from unofficial sources, meaning they were illegal in most countries.
Problems with the Kodi Bae Repo
All of Kodi Bae’s addons scraped links from unauthorized streaming sites. This is why they were able to provide access to movies that hadn’t yet been released for streaming, and why users could watch anything they liked for free. In other words, Kodi Bae had nothing to offer people who wanted to stream legally.
Copyright holders obviously know all about piracy sites, and frequently submit takedown requests. That’s why these kinds of addons are almost always full of dead links, which can make it difficult and time-consuming to find a working source. Additionally, the people who create piracy addons for Kodi tend to disappear, abandoning or taking their work down overnight (usually for legal reasons).
Finally, as piracy addons are so popular, they’re a great target for anyone looking to compromise a lot of systems. We’ve seen once-popular repos like Bubbles and Gaia infect their users with cryptomining malware before, and it could easily happen again.
This all sounds quite serious but don’t worry: you can minimize the risk by using official Kodi addons and only installing repos from trustworthy, law-abiding Kodi developers. Here are just a few of our favorites.
Alternatives to Kodi Bae repo
The following Kodi repos provide addons that stream from authorized, official sources. In addition, these repos are quick to expel addons that are found to have malicious code in them. Although no Kodi repo is 100% safe, these are significantly less risky than Kodi Bae.
Official Kodi addon repository
If you want to use Kodi to see free shows and movies, you don’t have to install any third-party addons at all. There are hundreds of Kodi addons available “out of the box,” from the official Kodi repository. To install video addons from the official repo, just click Add-ons → Download → Video add-ons. Then click the title of the addon, followed by Install. Here is a list of some of the best Kodi addons in the official repo:
- PBS Kids – A great Kodi addon full of cartoons and early-years content
- PopcornFlix – A Kodi movie addon with hundreds of movies
- Pluto.tv – Live TV with news, video-game info, celebrity gossip, sports, and more
- Crackle – A free-to-watch streaming service offering hundreds of TV shows and movies, with a strong focus on reality TV
- TV Ontario Kids – Popular on-demand children’s shows from Canada (requires a VPN if outside Canada)
- WNBC Programs – On-demand shows from NBC (requires a VPN if outside the US)
- iPlayer WWW – Access BBC iPlayer through Kodi! Almost a dozen live BBC channels and thousands of on-demand titles to browse (UK only, TV License required)
- CBC – Canadians can stream CBC channels directly in Kodi. You’ll have to sign in with your cable provider first though.
- YouTube – Lets you watch YouTube videos through Kodi
SlyGuy repository
This repo was created by Matt Huisman, a veteran Kodi addon developer. Most importantly, all of the addons in the SlyGuy repo are either free to use, or require you to login before you can watch anything.
If you subscribe to a lot of streaming services (particularly Australian ones), you’ll find plenty to like here. There are dedicated addons for streaming ESPN (including ESPN+), Disney+, Hulu, Kayo, Paramount+, Sky Go, and more directly from Kodi.
You can download the SlyGuy repository from the developer’s GitHub.
Kodi: Your questions answered
What exactly is Kodi and how do I get started?
Kodi is essentially just a media center app. It gathers all of the music, movies, and photos you have on your device and lets you browse them in one place. Of course, it goes further than that too — users can install mini apps called addons that let them grab video from a variety of online sources, automatically sync your watch history, or find appropriate subtitles.
To get started, just download and install the latest version of Kodi. There’s an app for almost any device including PC, Amazon Fire Stick, Nvidia Shield, and Apple TV. Next, open the official Kodi repo and install any addons that catch your eye. Finally, start watching!
Which Kodi addons are best?
This is quite a broad question! There are hundreds of Kodi addons available and more are created every week, so “the best” addons could change at any moment. It might be better to ask yourself what kind of content you’d like to see: we’ve created guides on the best Kodi addons for streaming TV and movies, cartoons, sports, and anime so you’ll never be short of something to watch.
How do I find legal Kodi addons?
The easiest way to find legal Kodi addons that pull from properly-licensed sources is to simply use addons from the official Kodi repository.
Of course, not every legal addon is listed here. You could also check the Kodi forum, which has a specific board for newly-released addons (and this forbids piracy-focused addons outright, which is a great start).
Really, the best tip we can give is to consider every addon with a healthy amount of suspicion. If everyone is talking about an addon that’s free to use but somehow manages to have every movie imaginable on it, that addon is almost certainly pulling from video piracy sites and should be avoided.