Player FM vs Podverse

Player FM helps users discover, download and play podcasts on the web, Android and iOS. Its library offers over 20 million free podcasts, with trending discovery and topic sections that include niche categories. Users can import subscriptions through OPML or add RSS feeds, including private or password-protected feeds. The service supports video podcasts, episode transcripts, offline downloads and cross-device subscription sync after sign-in. Subscriptions can automatically download recent episodes, and episodes saved to Play Later download for offline use. Premium adds features such as ad-free listening, custom themes, Space Saver compression, playlists, bookmarks and personal search; it also syncs playlists, bookmarks and play history. Premium is a recurring subscription, with its price shown in the app and features varying by platform. Many app subscriptions offer a free trial, whose duration depends on the offer at purchase. Core features remain available on the free plan. On Android, the app supports Android Auto, Android Wear, Chromecast, Samsung Gear S notifications and LG QuickCircle.

Podverse is an open-source podcast manager for the web, iOS, Android, and F-Droid. It supports audio and video podcasts, livestream playback, offline downloads, private feeds, and custom RSS feeds, with OPML import and export. Podcasting 2.0 features include chapters, cross-app comments, and episode transcripts, while Value-for-Value listening supports Boostagrams. Apple CarPlay is available in Free and Premium. Free costs nothing and includes podcast subscriptions, video and livestream playback, CarPlay, Podcasting 2.0 features, and screen-reader accessibility. Premium costs $18 a year after three months free and adds cross-device sync, notifications, clips, playlists, listener-profile subscriptions, and episode history. Podverse software is provided under the AGPLv3 license. The project states official support for iOS 14–16 and Android 11–13. Podcast audio and video load from podcasters’ public servers rather than being hosted by Podverse. Clips can be any length, but dynamic ads may make their timestamps inaccurate.