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Favorite podcast app?
I just got an email stating that Stitcher, the podcast app that I use, "decided to discontinue operation of the Stitcher app and website effective August 29, 2023."
Any good recommendations for another podcast app? ETA: I listen on my Android phone.
Overcast for iOS. Indie app, highly customizable, privacy-friendly.
Love overcast. I’ve been using it for years and it’s amazing how much customization it has at the free tier.
Does it support password protected feeds?
Yes it does.
Cheers!
Overcast is excellent! The developer is on a podcast of his own (along with two great co-hosts) called the Accidental Tech Podcast. It’s mostly focused on the Apple ecosystem, so maybe a little niche, but topics vary and Marco occasionally shares some behind-the-scenes talk about Overcast development. It’s an informative and entertaining weekly show, and I highly recommend it for other nerds (of the very specific sort that I am).
I've loved Overcast for years, but has performance really gone downhill recently for anyone else? No other app on my iPhone is lagging like Overcast.
Are you running an ad blocker of any kind? It might interfere with the podcast streams, as they often load in ads and trackers.
Only for Safari.
Not for me, I haven't noticed any difference. How long has it been happening for you?
A couple months now. Maybe it's time for a reinstall...
I thought maybe more recently than I've updated, but I've definitely updated in the last couple of months. How many feeds are you subscribed to? I'm subscribed to ~50 with I'd say about half of those regularly updated.
i really like pocketcast. i paid for premium, but i don’t think i need it. all you get are folders and the website to listen from, which i wouldn’t ever do.
which os are you using?
I love Pocket Casts as well. And I agree, one thing I appreciate is that the premium features are truly just "nice to haves," and the free version includes every feature it needs to be a good app.
I agree, Pocket Casts is great.
Also became open source recently — I know not everyone cares about that, but it's always something I look for
Uh, interesting.
Last time Pocket Cast was in my news feed was because of a mild backlash following its acquisition by NPR. But now it seems it has been bought by Automattic (the company behind Wordpress).
Anyway, I've been a user for some years now (5+ I reckon) and cannot find any reason to switch to another app.
Pocket Casts is my current client of choice, but I do check out the open source alternatives every now and then as I feel a bit more wary of Automattic owning it than I did when NPR did. AntennaPod has been the closest open source competitor, but the way it handles media downloads doesn't work well with my preference to listen to certain types of podcasts from the start.
Why is that ? They don't seems as fishy as other companies. Wordpress is still open-source and GPL after all those years (20 it seems).
I guess NPR I'm inclined to give a high level of trust due to being a non-profit org with public service goals, while as a for profit company, even one that has mostly behaved responsibly to date, Automattic doesn't get the same level of assumed good will.
(This is not to say non-profit software vendors are immune from bad decisions, Mozilla has proved that many times, but the user interest alignment rate has a better track record)
Important note for anyone that's been using the premium version for a while, the price recently increased from $1 or $1.50 a month to $4 a month. Maybe they sent out a notification or something, but noticed somebody quoting the old price so figured I'd draw some attention to it in case people weren't aware.
that's just crazy... especially for what it does and what you get.
It appears existing users are grandfathered in at $15/yr or $1.50/mo
Ahhh, that's much better than what I thought they were doing. Still strange to see such a sudden and steep price increase, but at least nobody currently subscribing will get a nasty surprise.
Wow thanks for that, my yearly sub isn't due until November, but I won't be continuing to pay for Plus+ at that price.
I also have premium and I find it quite useful the desktop app syncs my queue and progress. Most podcast apps are mobile only, so for that small thing I find premium worth it.
I bought premium after my phone died and I had to set up my podcasts again on a new phone. I have about 30+ shows, and many of them I pick and choose episodes. It was such a pain in the ass. Premium is totally worth it for the sync features.
I also use PocketCasts but anyone considering it should be aware of a couple of limitations which may not affect them:
So I do use PocketCasts but the above two edge cases do affect me and for those I use Downcast.
Just wanted to pop in here and show Pocket Casts some love as well. I feel it’s criminally underrated and that Overcast gets too much attention. PC is just so beautifully designed that I wish more people would use it. It’s genuinely a pleasure to navigate around that app and the day some megacorp buys it and enshittifies the app will be a sad day. But until that day, I can’t recommend it enough!
The premium one also comes with Apple Watch features, which is one of the main reasons I pay for it (it's also like $10/year, so basically nothing). I think offline audio playback for AW?
It also lets you upload files, which is convenient. Some podcasts only come out on youtube, and you can then rip it and upload it.
pretty handy about uploading. If you have a VPS, you might want to look in to using yt-dlp with Sponsorblock + cron to spit out m4as into a folder... then a php script or something to generate the RSS. I do this for the Sunny podcast now and it works well. I'd like a better php script, however. The one I'm using a modified version of this
Same. Been using pocket casts the last few years, and am very happy with it. Used doggcatcher for several years before it, which is feature rich, and worked great in earlier android versions, but became unruly and outdated. Took me a minute to figure out how to add feeds by url when I first moved over to pocket, but am overall happy with the experience
I will also jump on the pocket casts train. It's been my go to for so long I can't even remember what I used to use. I really like the ability to adjust playback effects, boost audio, trim silence, etc., and the auto trim xx seconds feature is great if you have a show that always starts or ends (or both) with the same ad plays, you can just set the player to automatically skip ahead or end early.
I love the folders so much haha! Sorting my shows by genre into folders is such a nice thing to have.
I know the second I empty these folders, I'll regret it. But I'm thinking of just having it sort by new episodes instead of pecking around.
I've also got too many podcasts in this thing. But yeah, so far as I am concerned, PocketCasts is king.
2023-12-13 edit: I ditched folders and like it more. Its sorted by activity, which is perfect.
I use an Android phone.
PocketCasts is even better on Android. IIRC it was originally developed for Android before being ported to iOS. It’s not the most feature rich but it is definitely one of the most polished apps on Android. I would seriously consider the free version, and possibly upgrade to premium if you like the feature set.
I've been using Podcast Addict on my Android device, which has worked pretty well.
That's the one I use too, seems to be the most customizable.
This is what I use too. It just works. Never had a single problem with it.
Worst app I've ever used is Spotifys podcast app. There's a few podcast I like that went exclusive with them and it sucks. Organizes them weird, plays out of order, hard to tell if there's actually a new episode or if it's just acting like the last episode just came out.
Podcast Addict used to be what I used every day, not a single bad thing to say about it, the developer does a great job. There used to be a single small thing I didn't like about it, the only thing, I left it in a review for the app, and he fixed it right after.
I say "used to" because I've been using Pocket Casts lately because I now work from home, so I prefer having the sync between my laptop and phone. I don't think Podcast Addict has OSX compatibility or sync or anything.
I've only ever used AntennaPod but it works and I've had zero issues with it.
Same, AntennaPod is free and open source, simple to use, supports all the feeds I want, and reliable enough that I've never felt the need to try anything else.
The only feature that I might kinda sorta be interested in would be syncing listens/progress to desktop, and I think it actually supports a version of that, but it's a little more hands on than I've cared to figure out so far.
You won me over with open source.
Yup, it's one of the ones recommended by PrivacyGuides. If you run others like PodcastAddict through your adblocker app, you'll see it's chock full of trackers.
I use AntennaPod as well, and it's been great.
Yup, I installed mine via Fdroid.
Gpodder is what it has for syncing with other devices.
I don't have experience with this myself because I very rarely listen to a podcast on desktop and don't use more than one phone (well, my work phone but that's not for entertainment)
Thanks - I'm trying it out now. So far so good. BTW it was pretty easy to upload my subscriptions.
Is there a benefit to using a dedicated podcast app? I just listen to all of mine on Spotify and have never had any issues or desires to move elsewhere.
There's a couple of podcast specific metadata that spotify doesn't support. Chapters, for instance, or cover art (which can also change with the chapters) is probably the biggest one.
Other than that, if it works, it works.
To add on to this the biggest reason I don’t use Spotify for podcasts is that they don’t support adding custom RSS feeds. I subscribe to a couple podcasts on Patreon that release extra episodes on a premium feed and I can’t add those to Spotify.
Better interface. I've listened to some podcasts on Spotify on mobile and the UI just is not designed for podcasts. It functions slower too.
PocketCasts is my personal choice and I've had it for many years, never done me wrong.
I moved my podcasts away from Spotify when they tried to change the podcast industry from open and available anywhere to being exclusively in their app. They bought some podcasts and pulled their availability, requiring people to install Spotify specifically.
If you have Spotify already (I do) then this doesn't affect you, but I didn't feel quite right about it and moved to AntennaPod
Being able to choose is good, similar to the argument on net neutrality. Should the app you install restrict what you can listen to, or should they just compete on being the best app?
I'm also a fan of open source software and avoid vendor lock-in when possible. For things like Spotify music or public transport you often don't have a choice, no matter how many garbage trackers it contains (see https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/de/reports/com.spotify.music/latest/ for Spotify), but for podcasts there is a choice and so I try to support that
I use Google Podcasts because it syncs up with the Google puck that's in my bedroom. I used Pocketcasts previously, and have no real complaints with them.
I use one that isn't mentioned often since it's relatively new and has a small userbase - Podurama!
Features I specifically like:
I didn't have much of a problem with Spotify honestly but I will list some reasons I left Spotify (For some reason I can't log into Spotify on desktop app so many of these points are for Spotify browser):
Reasons I left Spotify:
Podurama is still being developed so it def has bugs and the userbase is really quite small comparatively but I am happy with it personally and think it'll continue to be developed better and better.
AntennaPod. Open source, feature rich and user friendly. I love this app
Podbean. It’s got a bigger archive for some podcasts I listen to that goes back years. Whereas the same podcast on other apps will just maybe have 1-2 years worth of episodes. I don’t know if that’s because the podcasts I listen to are hosted on Podbean and they don’t choose to give a complete archive elsewhere or not, but it works for me. I like it.
Castro is good too.
I like RSS Radio for iPhone. It has one feature that I do not see regularly, which is the ability to subscribe to a podcast URL that is on your local network. The reason I like this is I use other tools to download podcasts onto my own server which I then serve up using DirCaster. This allows me to pull shows from my own server at home very quickly.
The other additional benefit is I can run audio processing on the podcast files to do things like level out the soft and loud parts, which makes them much easier to listen to in noisy environments like cars. This is especially important for podcasts which have a poorer production values and don't typically clean up their audio before posting.
I think Pocket Casts is pretty great, but I'm also grandfathered in for permanent premium, which colors my take. The ability to sync progress between desktop and mobile is what drew me in, and that still works well.
I love PocketCasts: https://apps.apple.com/app/id414834813
Apparently I’ve listened to 110 days worth of audio shows using it (there’s stats in the app!)
It syncs across all your devices, as well so you’re never without up-to-date downloads.
Download them when they come out and listen on the default music player.
How do you track when they come out? Do you manually check websites? I can't imagine keeping up a podcast library without RSS, even now that I only regularly listen to maybe 6 shows.
I do check the RSS sometimes, but mostly just remember the day they come out.
Podverse. I'll make a case for podcasting 2.0 apps. They have added features that 'older' apps do not: chapters, clips, guest credits, an open index of all podcasts, transcripts, Value-for-value donations. Fountain is another that pays you for listening for now.
Snipd - it allows you to snip a section of a podcast and AI summarizes the key takeaways. It also syncs these with various apps via export. For me, I have it sync with Obsidian and so any pieces of a podcast I want to “highlight” I can, and come back to it in my “Second Brain.” The AI function also summarizes “chapters” of the podcast and has a transcript that you can use to jump around.
I've used Podcast Republic for a really long time. It seems to have a lot going on for options, but I have never explored this myself. I have read previously on Reddit about folks making requests for features and the dev delivers.
Regardless, I've used it for as long as I have an Android phone and have had very few issues with it (honestly, the only thing I can think of is if you're streaming a podcast vs downloading & then playing a podcast, it may randomly repeat 30 seconds of a part of the podcast you have already listened to).
Here's a link for anyone wanting to try it out.
I was using Pocketcast but switched to Spotify. Sounds lame but it has Last Podcast on the Left, Stuff You Should Know, and Freakonomics so why the hell leave the app I'm currently paying for.
I was interested in trying Spotify but there is no way to import a list of podcasts into it (opml or whatever). I feel like Spotify is trying to do a lock-in and doesn't want to make it easy to move between podcast players.
This was one of my reasons for not using Spotify for podcasts.
VLC