A podcast client, also known as a podcast player, is a software application that allows users to download, stream, and manage podcast episodes. These episodes are typically in the form of audio files, but can also include video.
Podcast clients are important because they provide a user-friendly way to access and organize a wide variety of podcast content, often allowing users to subscribe to their favorite shows, download episodes for offline listening, and keep track of their listening history.
Podcasting has gained significant popularity in recent years. It offers an accessible platform for individuals and organizations to share their stories, ideas, or expertise with a global audience.
The rise in podcasting has also been driven by its convenience and versatility - listeners can tune into their favorite shows while commuting, working out, cooking, or during any other daily activities. As a result, the demand for podcast clients, which facilitate this access to content, has also increased.
In this post, we offer you the best open-source and free Podcast clients and players for Linux desktops.
1- Podcasts
Podcasts is a free, open-source player for Gnome Linux desktops, allowing users to play, update, and manage podcasts. It supports various audio formats, remembers your last stopping point, and allows subscriptions via RSS/Atom, iTunes, and Soundcloud links. Importing subscriptions from other apps using OPML files is also possible.
Features
- Lightweight
- Compatible with Gnome
- Built-in player
- Supports playing speed
- Play next option
- Search function
- Review the new podcasts
- Organize podcasts in groups
- Add OPML files
- Supports RSS and Atom feeds.
- Supports Soundcloud links and playlists.
Download
The Podcasts developers
2- Kasts
Kasts is a podcast application with features such as episode management through a play queue, syncing playback positions with other clients, variable playback speed, podcast search, and full system integration, including inhibiting system suspend while listening.
Download
The KDE Community
3- Poddycast
Poddycast is a simple yet powerful podcast player and client written using JavaScript and Electron. It runs on Linux, WIndows and macOS.
Features
- Uses the iTunes API to search for Podcasts
- Find all episodes in the New Episodes menu item
- See all your Favorite Podcasts in one place
- Browse through the History of podcasts you've already listened to
- See some Statistics
- Manage Playlists for custom playback
- Progress indicator for each episode
- OPML Import & Export
- Dark mode
- Speedy playback
- Keyboard shortcuts for audio player actions
- Proxy mode for company environments
- Internatialization
MrChuckomo4- castero
castero is a TUI podcast client for the terminal. It is written in Python and it is easy to use. The source-code is released under the MIT license.
xgi5- Kodkast
Kodkast is a minimal yet powerful podcast player. It is built on 100% Python using PyQt5 and VLC's Python bindings.
rickykresslein6- Rhythmbox
Rhythmbox is a music management application designed for the GNOME desktop. It supports local and networked music, podcasts, radio streams, portable devices, and internet music services.
It is a Libre free software based on GTK+ and GStreamer, and can be extended through Python or C plugins.
Download
You can download the app from your Distro repos, Flathub, or build it from source.
The Rhythmbox developers
7- CPod
CPod is a simple and aesthetically pleasing podcast app built with Electron. It allows users to listen to their favorite podcasts, discover new ones, subscribe directly from the app, add episodes to playlists, filter episodes by duration and release date, and export/import podcasts via .opml.
However, it is important to note that it is not actively developed or maintained.
As it is built using JavaScript and Electron, it also can run on Windows and macOS.
Download
8- gPodder
gPodder, an open-source podcast client since 2005, allows you to manage podcast subscriptions, discover new content, and download episodes.
The latest version, 3.11.4, is available on multiple platforms, including Windows, macOS, Linux/BSD, Sailfish OS, and Ubuntu PPA.
Download
9- MusicPod
MusicPod is a player for Ubuntu Desktop that supports music, podcasts, and internet radio.
It offers features such as searching for local audio files, playing internet radio stations, and pinning favorite content. Users can also mark favorite songs with a heart button. Internet access is necessary for podcast and radio functionalities.
Features
- Play local audio files
- Filter local files
- Set root directory
- Create and manage playlists
- Play internet radio streams
- Browse for radio stations
- Play podcasts
- Search for podcasts
- Load podcast charts
- Filter podcasts by country
- Filter podcasts by genre
- Save playlists
- Save liked songs
- Save settings on disk
- Notify when a new episode of your subscribed podcasts is available
- Video Podcasts support
- Play TV Stations found on radiobrowser
- Streaming provider agnostic sharing links
- Option to download podcasts
- Reduced memory allocation
Platforms
- Linux: Ubuntu, Fedora, Linux Mint, Arch Linux, Manjaro, Debian.
- macOS
- Windows
Download
ubuntu-flutter-community
Frederik Feichtmeier
10- Poca (CLI)
Poca is a fast, multithreaded and highly customizable command line (CLI) podcast client, written in Python 3.
Features
- Maximum amount. Specify how many episodes the subscription should get before deleting old episodes to make room for new ones.
- Override ID3/MP4/Vorbis metadata. If you want Savage Love to have Dan Savage in the artist field (rather than The Stranger), poca will automatically update the metadata upon download of each new episode. Or set genre to be overwritten by Podcast as a default.
- Filter a feed. Only want news reports in the morning or on Wednesdays? Use criteria such as filename and title, or the hour, weekday or date of publishing to filter what you want from a feed.
- Rename files automatically. Not all feeds have sensibly named media files. Specify a renaming template like date_title to know what you're dealing with or to get alphabetical ordering to match chronology.
- From the top. A latecomer to Serial or other audiobook style podcasts? Specify
from_the_topto get oldest episodes first, rather than the latest. To move on to later episodes simply delete old ones and poca will fill up with the next in line. - Keeping track. Poca logs downloads and removals to a local file so you easily see what's changed. Or configure it with an SMTP server and get notified when a feed stops working.
- Manage your shows by editing an easy-to-understand xml file. Or use the accompanying tool to add, delete, sort them, or get info about their publishing frequency, average episode length and more.
brokkr11- Poddr
Poddr is a free open-source podcast client built with Electron and Angular, using iTunes RSS feeds and Search API for information gathering.
Features
- Super easy to use
- Seamless Podcast downloads
- Add and manage your feeds easily
- Organize your feeds
- Built-in Search
- Worlds largest library: Uses iTunes API for information gathering
- Desktop integration: Integrates with most desktop environments, mediakeys and system integrations work out of the box
- Elegant and customizable UI: Dark and simple UI, allows user to set their own accent color and theme
- Offline playback: Allows downloading and offline playing of episodes
Platforms
- Linux
- Windows
- macOS
Downloads
Sn8z12- Vocal
Vocal is a minimal yet feature-rich podcast client ideal for discovering new podcasts, managing a growing library, and enjoying automatically updated audio and video shows. It is released as an open-source project under the GPL-3.0 License.
Features
- Audio and video podcast support
- Built-in iTunes podcast store browsing and search
- Episode streaming and downloading
- Custom skip intervals
- Full system integration
- Automatic downloads
- Smart library management
- Playback position saving
- Library importing and exporting
- Internet Archive integration
Download
- Flatpak
flatpak install --from https://flathub.org/repo/appstream/com.github.needleandthread.vocal.flatpakref
13- Exaile
Exaile is an amazing open-source free music player, podcast client, and internet radio app. It is modular which means you can easily extend it with plugins, as it also gets regular fixes and updates.
Features
- Simple interface
- Powerful music management capabilities
- Automatic fetching of album art
- Lyrics fetching
- Streaming internet radio
- Tabbed playlists
- Smart playlists with extensive filtering/search capabilities
- Extensible via plugins
- Advanced track tagging
- Last.fm scrobbling
- Support for portable media players
- Podcasts support
- Support for internet radio such as Icecast and Soma.FM
- ReplayGain
- Output via a secondary output device (great for DJs!)
Platforms
- Linux
- Windows
Download
Exaile is available in many distro official repos, as Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, Arch Linux, Manjaro, and more.
14- Clementine Music Player
Clementine is a multiplatform desktop music player and a podcast client, inspired by Amarok 1.4, that emphasizes a fast and easy-to-use interface for music search and playback.
Features
- Search and play your local music library
- Listen to internet radio from Spotify, Grooveshark, SomaFM, Magnatune, Jamendo, SKY.fm, Digitally Imported, JAZZRADIO.com, Soundcloud, Icecast and Subsonic servers
- Search and play songs you've uploaded to Box, Dropbox, Google Drive, and OneDrive
- Create smart playlists and dynamic playlists
- Tabbed playlists, import and export M3U, XSPF, PLS and ASX
- CUE sheet support
- Play audio CDs
- Visualisations from projectM
- Lyrics and artist biographies and photos
- Transcode music into MP3, Ogg Vorbis, Ogg Speex, FLAC or AAC
- Edit tags on MP3 and OGG files, organise your music
- Fetch missing tags from MusicBrainz
- Discover and download Podcasts
- Download missing album cover art from Last.fm and Amazon
- Cross-platform - works on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux
- Native desktop notifications on Linux (libnotify) and Mac OS X (Growl)
- Remote control using an Android device, a Wii Remote, MPRIS or the command-line
- Copy music to your iPod, iPhone, MTP or mass-storage USB player
- Queue manager
David Sansome, John Maguire & Arnaud Bienner
15- Tape Drive
Tape Drive is a self-hosted podcast client focused on long-term storage and organization of episodes, including metadata. Future plans include a web player and turning it into a web-based podcatcher.
It prioritizes privacy by removing tracking parameters and only showing tracking pixels or external images when explicitly requested by the user.
It's currently in development using Django, with no guarantees on functionality at this time.
Features
- Aesthetically pleasing presentation of podcasts, episodes, and their metadata
- Fully responsive web-UI with distinctively unexcited behavior (no fancy animations, clean look, etc.)
- Automatic episode downlodas for subscribed podcasts, including downloading the back catalog
- Storage according to a robust and human-readable naming scheme, including shownotes metadata
- Manually initiated episode downloads possible
- Ability to efficiently fetch multi-page feeds
- Easy to install using Docker
janw16- usocial
usocial is an open-source, self-hosted podcast client with network support, allowing users to create their own home podcast server easily. It also functions as a feed reader for personal servers and includes Lightning Network support.
ibzEscapepod
Escapepod is a standalone, self-hosted, podcast manager. It includes a modern frontend web interface, an internal player, and a flexible API for mobile applications to use.
It is written using Go language and using Vue JavaScript framework for the interface.
Features
- OPML Import
- Individual RSS Feed import
- Embedded Player using plyr
- UI is embedded in the binary
- Easy to install using Docker and Docker Compose
- Compatible with all modern browsers
- Responsive design
rphillips17- Audiobookshelf
Audiobookshelf is a self-hosted audiobook and podcast server that is fully open-source, supports all audio formats, and includes features such as podcast search and download, multi-user support with custom permissions, progress tracking and syncing across devices, and automatic library updates.
Hazem
advplyr18- pods
The pods app is an early-stage, cross-platform podcast app designed specifically for the Pinephone.
It fills the gap in mobile Linux podcast apps, offering basic podcast listening features such as adding podcasts via RSS feed link, searching and adding podcasts by name, updating new episodes on startup, streaming episodes, downloading and playing episodes, resuming from the last position, and skipping forward and backward.
dvdsk19- Podgrab
Podgrap is a free open-source self-hosted podcast manager/downloader/archiver tool to download podcast episodes as soon as they become live with an integrated player.
The app is released under the GPL-3.0 License.
Features
- Download/Archive complete podcast
- Auto-download new episodes
- Tag/Label podcasts into groups
- Download on demand
- Podcast Discovery - Search and Add podcasts using iTunes API
- Full-fledged podcast player - Play downloaded files or stream from original source. Play single episodes, full podcasts and podcast groups(tags)
- Add using direct RSS feed URL / OMPL import / Search
- Basic Authentication
- Existing episode file detection - Prevent re-downloading files if already present
- Easy OPML import/export
- Customizable episode names
- Dark Mode
- Self Hosted / Open Source
- Docker support
Install using Docker
- Setup without mounted volumes
docker run -d -p 8080:8080 --name=podgrab akhilrex/podgrab- Binding volumes
docker run -d -p 8080:8080 --name=podgrab -v "/host/path/to/assets:/assets" -v "/host/path/to/config:/config" akhilrex/podgrabInstall using Docker Compose
docker-compose.yml
version: "2.1"
services:
podgrab:
image: akhilrex/podgrab
container_name: podgrab
environment:
- CHECK_FREQUENCY=240
# - PASSWORD=password ## Uncomment to enable basic authentication, username = podgrab
volumes:
- /path/to/config:/config
- /path/to/data:/assets
ports:
- 8080:8080
restart: unless-stoppedRun using your Docker Compose.
docker-compose up -d20- Podfetch
Podfetch is a self-hosted podcast manager written in Rust, with a React frontend. It allows for downloading and online listening of podcasts, and includes GPodder integration. It is simple, lightweight, fast, and efficient, supporting all expected features of a podcast player.
Features
- Downloading podcasts
- Listening to podcasts
- Searching for podcasts
- Managing your subscriptions
- Managing your podcast episodes
- Managing your podcast feed
- Host your own Gpodder compatible podcast feed
- Start listening on your phone and continue on your computer
SamTV1234521- podcast-dl-gael
This is a simple simple script to download videos/podcasts from YouTube or RSS feeds.
GitHubForSnapGael LeGoff
Hazem