One-Sentence Reviews of the Entire Podcast Listening Landscape, Round 2
Time to add a few more dots to your podcast app folder
Note: This is the second round of quick one-sentence reviews of podcast listening apps. Click here to see the first round.
Podcast apps provide a unique experiment in design. Every app has the same pool of free podcasts, so for the most part (outside of some exclusive content) every app has the exact same foundation to work with.
This innovation shows itself in a few ways. There are many apps that are basic clones of each other and compete almost entirely on UI and features. Then there are the apps that serve a niche audience or really go bold and try something completely new.
It’s been over a year since I did my first round of app reviews, and I’ve been keeping notes of apps I missed last time and what has come out since. I hope this article gives you permission to again check out what else is out there and maybe experiment with some new podcast apps.
THE PRIMARY APPS
These are the apps that get the job done and compete to be your everyday podcast player.
Castbox [iOS, Android]: A truly well-constructed, multi-platform, and free app that has the best search features of any on this list, including the ability to search episode transcripts from within the app.
Deezer [iOS, Android]: A music streaming app that’s very similar to Spotify in its approach to podcasts, with a nice curated directory and some exclusives, including Trailblazers.
Downcast [iOS]: Popular with power users because of rich playback features, strong playlist customization, and its presence across Apple platforms (with timestamp syncing), including MacOS, Apple Watch, and Apple Carplay. ($2.99)
Google Podcasts [Android]: Google is finally going all in with a standalone podcast player for Android; the early reviews are mixed, but my prediction is that it will be a better native app then Apple Podcasts within two years.
Player FM [Android]: A solid entry for Android podcast listeners who want a free (and ad-free) experience with all the features you would expect, plus some nice discovery help with 500+ niche topics to explore.
Pastime [iOS]: A simple but slick app that allows users to search for podcast episodes and has curated suggestions in categories like comedy, news/politics, music, and history.
Podcast Addict [Android]: A well-loved, well-crafted, and popular app that is the gold standard for many Android users.
Podible [iOS]: Has a podcast genome project (like Pandora) to interconnect similar podcasts, and uses this to great effect in recommending related podcasts AND episodes.
Procast [iOS]: Made with the novice in mind but packs some really compelling features for the pros out there, like a well-executed tool for snipping and saving audio in a special feed.
‘Sodes [iOS]: Keeps things simple for the casual listener, with a clean hit-and-play UI and the curious decision to not allow downloading. ($2.99)
The Podcast App [iOS, Android]: A beautiful, streamlined app with great search functions and a sly name from an SEO perspective (in-app ads).
NICHE
These won’t necessarily be your main podcasting apps because they focus on a narrow part of the audio landscape. However, some are so good that you might start switching regularly between a few apps.
News Radio
1 Radio News [Android, iOS coming soon]: If you are into radio news, this app collects all the major English speaking news sources across the world and makes it easy to catch them all on-demand or live.
Local
Satchel [iOS]: Doesn’t have a great UI and is pretty buggy, but it’s worth checking out solely for its local podcasts feature.
Comedy
Laughable [iOS, Android upcoming]: This is a well-designed, absolute must download for comedy fans that lets you follow all your favorite shows, and in a genius move, allows you to subscribe to comedians (or some non-comedian celebrities) and get alerted when they appear on any show.
Social
Chorus [iOS, Android]: A promising app with many social features (that would benefit from more users) including a feed of recommendations and comments from people you follow and chat rooms for each podcast you subscribe to.
Storiyoh [iOS, Android]: You can create public playlists and follow/be followed by friends or strangers, but, like Chorus, this app in beta would benefit from a network effect of more users.
For Kids
Pinna [iOS]: A kid-centric app designed by Panoply, that for an $8 monthly subscription will give you an ad-free and kid-safe audio environment for your children to explore curated podcasts, audiobooks, bedtime stories, and exclusives.
Leela Kids [iOS, Android]: An excellent podcasting app for kids with a great UI, where kid friendly shows are broken down by appropriate age ranges and by topic categories.
Kids Listen App [iOS]: An app for the 28 shows in the Kids Listen podcast network.
Visual
Entale [iOS]: Touted as the “visual podcast app”, Entale lives up to the name by providing popular shows (like Serial, Slow Burn, 99 Percent Invisible) in a beautiful visual feed with links, quotes, and extra information that is organized in an intuitive and shareable chapter format.
Podcast Magazine
Wilson [iOS]: This is really a podcast recommendation magazine that marries great design with a weekly dose of five curated podcasts around a theme (with all previous playlists accessible from the app).
Aussie Audio
ABC Listen [Android, iOS link doesn’t appear to work]: If you like the Australian Broadcast Corporation (and who doesn’t?), this is the place to get all your favorite ABC podcasts and radio stations in one spot.
You are the Podcaster
Bullhorn [iOS, Android]: An app with a focus on creators who want to grow their community, with features like recording and publishing podcasts right from the app and allowing listeners to dial in to a phone service to listen (which saves data).
Alexa, just play something, will ya?
Scout [iOS, Android, Alexa]: This doesn’t have all your favorite podcasts, but is instead designed to play from a limited but highly curated set of podcast stations (which adapt based on your listening habits) that is perfect for smart speaker listening.
NOTABLE UPDATES
These were featured in the first round of one-sentence reviews, but they’ve been updated with compelling features that are worth highlighting.
RadioPublic [iOS, Android]: Continues to be a leading innovator in the podcast app space, with a steady rollout of features great for podcasters and listeners like their paid listens program and the newly announced tipping program.
Spotify [iOS, Android]: Has greatly increased their focus and promotion of podcasts within the app, and they have recently opened up to all podcasts.
Overcast [iOS]: One of the most popular third-party iOS apps, Overcast shows no signs of slowing down innovation, and recently announced an in-app payment feature that lets listeners give directly to their favorite podcasters (a nice explainer here from Podnews).
ONLINE TOOLS
Not everything useful to podcast listening is a technical “podcatcher” app. Here are some great web-based tools to help you find and share podcasts.
Pod.link: Bookmark this site for an extremely streamlined podcast search bar that allows for easy link sharing or subscribing via any of the major apps.
Podsearch: This website and app provides a bunch of robust search functions to help find new shows (but only with a limited podcast library), and it’s important to note that this service links you to other apps where you can actually listen.
Wavve: Allows listeners and podcasters to easily share podcast clips in formats tailored to each social media platform.
THE LONG TAIL IS GETTING LONGER
I still don’t see any one app becoming the app to rule them all anytime soon. There is plenty of room left for innovation and experimentation, and the wild west of podcast apps is still very much wild. My predictions for the next year are that the launches of podcast apps won’t slow down (another round of reviews you say?), there will be a big focus on smart speakers without any runaway successes (for now), and we’ll see some major new apps with corporate financial backing.
The winners in this space are not foregone conclusions, and you might be surprised that the podcast app you use in a few years doesn’t exist yet.
The Bello Collective is a publication + newsletter about podcasts and the audio industry. Our goal is to bring together writers, journalists, and other voices who share a passion for the world of audio storytelling.
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