IPTV Deck and TiviMate, compared
TiviMate is the reference point in this category, and it earned that on Android TV over years. This page is written by the developer of IPTV Deck, so read it with that in mind: the aim here is to say where the two genuinely differ, and where TiviMate is still the safer answer, rather than to claim a clean win.
Devices
This is the largest difference and the easiest one to check. TiviMate runs on Android: Android TV, Google TV, Fire TV and Android phones and tablets.
IPTV Deck runs on those and on the rest of the house: Android TV, Fire TV, Android, iPhone and iPad, Apple TV, macOS and Windows. If everything you own runs Android, this difference is worth nothing to you. If there is an Apple TV in the bedroom or a laptop on the desk, it decides the question on its own.
What syncing actually means
Sync is a word every player uses, so it is worth being exact. In IPTV Deck, signing in on a second device carries over your playlists, favourites in the order you arranged them, your own groups, the watchlist, watch history and the position you stopped at in a film or an episode. Start something on the phone on the train, and the television offers to resume it at the right second.
Provider passwords travel encrypted end to end, so they are never readable in the cloud, and you can choose which categories of data leave the device at all.
Very large playlists
Catalogues from a big provider run into six figures, and that is where players usually slow to a crawl or run out of memory. IPTV Deck keeps the catalogue in a local database and never loads it into memory as a whole, so searching, filtering and opening a category stay responsive on a playlist past a hundred thousand channels, on cheap hardware as much as on a fast box.
The guide is built the same way: several XMLTV sources at once, automatic channel matching with manual overrides for the ones that come out wrong, and catch-up as far back as the provider allows.
Price
IPTV Deck is free for four days with everything unlocked, then 1.99 USD a month, 9.99 a year, or 24.99 once for lifetime access. One purchase covers your account rather than one device, so the phone, the television and the desktop are included.
TiviMate's own pricing is on their site and changes from time to time, so compare it there rather than trusting a number on a competitor's page.
Where TiviMate is the safer choice
If your entire setup is a single Android TV box and you are happy with it, switching buys you very little. TiviMate has had years of polish exactly there, an enormous user base, and every guide, video and forum thread you will find was written about it. When something goes wrong at eleven at night, that matters.
IPTV Deck is built by one person. That is why fixes tend to ship within days of being reported, and also why the answer to an obscure question comes from one mailbox instead of a community of thousands.
Neither of them gives you channels
IPTV Deck is a player and nothing else. It carries no channels, films or series, and it provides, hosts and sells none. You bring your own playlist, an M3U link or an Xtream Codes account from a provider you already have the right to use. Nothing in the app finds, sells or recommends providers.
Trying it without committing
The four days are the whole app, not a reduced version, and nothing is charged when they end. The quickest honest test is your own worst playlist: add the biggest one you have, open the guide, and see whether it behaves.