Kodi Builds – The Good, The Bad and the Ugly

What are Kodi builds? While they seem cool, read this to learn of the various downfalls and far-reaching negative impact they have on the Kodi community.  Let’s explore the good, the bad, and the ugly in the world of Kodi builds.

Kodi Builds – The Good

A Kodi build is essentially a preconfigured Kodi file that someone creates. They are usually installed through a repository. These builds install tons of addons into your Kodi program and preconfigure a lot of shortcuts to specific areas of addons.

The reason that many people use Kodi builds is that they are easy to install and offer newer users a highly customized version of Kodi with many streaming addons already built in.

Many different Kodi builds have very specific sections. Some examples would be Latest Movies, Kids section, Adult Section and TV Shows.

Kodi builds are an easy way to get started using Kodi without learning how to install repositories or basically knowing how to use Kodi.

Kodi Builds – The Bad

At first, Kodi builds seem like a great idea; someone creates a beautiful build with tons of addons and lots of convenient shortcuts. But there are definitely downfalls of using builds.

Bloating Under-powered Devices

The first downfall is using Kodi builds on lower powered and lower storage devices. One of these devices is the Kodi Fire Stick. Most of these builds are loaded with tons of addons and take up a lot of space on the devices internal memory. When you add a large Kodi cache, your device can run out of RAM and internal memory very quickly.

Broken Kodi Shortcuts

Another issue with most builds is those convenient shortcuts we mentioned earlier. Most Kodi builds will take a specific section of an addon such as latest movies and create a shortcut to that specific section of the addon. While this is convenient for the end user, if the addon changes where that specific section is within the addon or the addon goes down, the shortcut no longer works. If the build is not updated consistently, you will eventually end up with a “swiss cheese” Kodi build. This is a build that looks great but half or more of the shortcuts are now dead. For users who become dependent on these shortcuts and do not learn how to actually navigate addons and Kodi, this can become crippling.

Outdated Addons without Repository Updates

Another large issue with Kodi builds is that many of them do not install the repositories for the addons in the build. They take only the addon and not the repository. This leaves the addon with no way to update. Once the developer pushes an update or fix for the addon, if your build does not contain the repository you now have an outdated addon. This can cause many headaches for the end user.

All Kodi Builds Eventually Die

Please do not think that I think that all Kodi builds are bad. But in my experience most of them have a very similar life cycle. They get released, tons of bloggers and YouTubers report on them, many people install them, they get updated a few times, and then the developer loses interest and the build slowly starts to die. This leaves users three options:

1. Leave the build and just accept that lots of links don’t work
2. Jump to a newest build and use it until it starts to die
3. Wipe Kodi and start over

Kodi Builds – The Ugly

The ugly part of Kodi builds is amateur box sellers looking to make a quick buck. Instead of learning how to actually create a good Kodi build that they will be able to provide support for, these fly-by-night sellers simply install a nice looking build. They post pictures of this build with headlines in their ads like “Completely Custom Kodi” and “Best Kodi Ever.”

Amateur Kodi Box Sellers Give Kodi a Bad Name

After these sellers sell a couple boxes and make a few bucks, they start to see more and more customer service calls and emails (if they even provide a support number or email). The build slowly starts to die, and the people who bought these boxes are left with no customer service to help. These customers get mad and have no one to help them. So they think to themselves, “Let me contact the makers of Kodi and give them a piece of my mind.” They log into the Official Kodi forum and begin firing away about how crappy their program is, how they got ripped off by some guy on Craigslist, and how they should provide support for their program.

Discouraging Devs with a Support Nightmare

This happens on a daily basis on the official Kodi forum from people who have no idea that Kodi is only the shell program and that they have nothing to do with builds or any addons that are in the build. This has led to Team Kodi becoming extremely frustrated that they are getting slammed on their own forum from people who do not know any better.

This same scenario has discouraged many developers from creating and maintaining many of the great addons within Kodi. Imagine being a developer, creating a great addon in your spare time, spending your free time maintaining and updating your addon, and then opening your forum or Twitter account only to see tons of negative posts about your addon. Posts like “Addon XYZ is horrible, nothing works in it” and “Hey Dev, fix your addon, it is down!”

After asking some questions, you find out that they bought a box with a build on it, and the version of your addon was not updated because your repository was not installed on their build. Multiply that same scenario a couple hundred times and you can see why the developers get discouraged and possibly stop doing addons altogether.

As we stated earlier, not all Kodi builds are bad. Some of them are actually quite good. But in the end, these Kodi builds cause a lot of problems in the Kodi community.

Learn How to Use Kodi for Yourself

I highly recommend learning how to install repositories and addons on your own. Yes, there is a slight learning curve, but in the end, you will be able to keep your Kodi up to date, install new addons, and have a better understanding of Kodi overall.

Don’t worry, installing Kodi addons using their repositories is actually very easy!  I have written plenty of awesome Kodi tutorials in my Kodi section, so please check those out to learn how to get the most out of your Kodi experience.

Big thanks to the folks at SkystreamX Android TV Box for their contribution on this post!

If you have any comments, please share them below.  I would love to hear from you and answer any questions you may have.

Thanks!