Castro vs Fountain
Castro
castro.fm
Fountain
fountain.fmSide by side
| Figure | Castro | Fountain |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $2.08/mo | $1/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | — |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | — | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | — |
| iOS | Yes | Yes |
| Android | — | Yes |
| API | — | Yes |
| Plans published | 6 | 9 |
| Spec score · Podcast apps | 9.1 (#2) | 8.5 (#16) |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Offline downloads | Yes | Yes |
| Private feed support | Yes | Yes |
| Supported platforms | iOS, iPadOS, macOS, Apple Watch | iOS, Android, web |
| Episode transcripts | Yes | Yes |
Plans
Castro
- Castro Plus Monthly$3.99 a month
- Castro Plus Quarterly$9.99 a month
- Castro Plus Annual$24.99 a year
- Castro Plus Family Annual$39.99 a year
- Castro Plus Family$39.99 a year
- Free CastroFree
Fountain
- Fountain Premium$2.99 a month
- Lite$25 a month
- ProPrice not published
- PlusPrice not published
- Lite (artists)$1 a month
- Premium (listeners)$2.99 a month
- Lite (podcasters)$25 a month
- Pro (podcasters)$50 a month
- Enterprise (podcasters)Priced on request
In their own words
Castro
Castro is a podcast player for Apple devices, centered on a queue for adding, reordering, and automatically playing episodes. Queued episodes download over Wi-Fi, and users can listen offline, read episode transcripts, and sync across devices. Playback speeds are adjustable from 0.8x to 3x; Trim Silence can shorten total listening time by 10–20% without changing audio quality. Other listening tools include private feeds, podcast chapters, episode sharing, and per-podcast settings for auto-queue, audio filters, playback speed, and intro skipping. Users can import their own audio by adding files to iCloud Drive. Castro has a CarPlay app, while Apple Watch users can control playback and browse the queue. The listed platforms are iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and Apple Watch. The free plan is available, and Castro Plus adds advanced playback, sideloading, Night Mode, custom icons, and more. Listed subscriptions include $3.99 per month, $9.99 per month billed quarterly, $24.99 per year, and family subscriptions at $39.99 per year. Castro directs questions to [email protected].
Fountain
Fountain is a podcast platform for listening and for publishing, analyzing, growing and earning from shows. Its listener app is free on iOS and Android, with offline downloads, transcripts, summaries, chapters, CarPlay and Android Auto; the service also supports web access, video podcasts and private feeds. Podcasters can connect an existing feed without changing hosts, then use archive search, branded clips, social-post drafting and analytics. Livestreams require Fountain hosting. Episodes are transcribed and indexed for searches by guests, topics, quotes or sponsors, or for questions to an agent. Fountain offers MCP connections for Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor and other MCP clients, plus a plain API. It distributes shows to Apple Podcasts, Spotify and YouTube Music and says new shows are listed automatically on Podcast Index. Analytics cover downloads by episode, app, country and device, along with post performance. Plans include Fountain Premium at $2.99 a month, Lite (podcasters) at $25 a month and Pro (podcasters) at $50 a month; other listed plan prices are not provided.