When comparing Pocket Casts vs BeyondPod, the Slant community recommends Pocket Casts for most people. In the question“What are the best podcast apps for Android?” Pocket Casts is ranked 1st while BeyondPod is ranked 5th. The most important reason people chose Pocket Casts is:
You can set a 'start from' position for a podcast to skip a set number of seconds from the beginning of an episode. Great for when you don't want to listen to an intro you've heard a couple of dozen times before. Additionally, you can also change the playback speed, to slow down fast talkers or speed up slow talkers.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Remembers playback speed & starting position
You can set a 'start from' position for a podcast to skip a set number of seconds from the beginning of an episode. Great for when you don't want to listen to an intro you've heard a couple of dozen times before.
Additionally, you can also change the playback speed, to slow down fast talkers or speed up slow talkers.
Pro Quick access to Sleep Timer
The most pleasing User Experience (UX) to set a Sleep Timer.
Activating the sleep timer will stop the podcast after a set period of time or at the End of the Episode.
Pro Vibrant aesthetics
Pocket Casts has one of the most colorful, pleasant to use interfaces.
For example, the app takes the most prominent color from the album art and colorizes the rest of the playback interface based on that color. This allows the app to stay vibrant and slightly different for each podcast.
Or the way it displays featured podcasts in a colorful mosaic made from album art, makes the whole experience of using the app pleasant.
Pro Auto download specific podcasts
You can set Pocket Casts to automatically download the latest episode of a podcast, whenever a new episode is released.
Pro Excellent, easy to use discovery system
Clicking the plus button in the top-right corner will bring you to featured podcasts. From there you can access multiple ways of finding new things to listen to such as: top charts (that can be separated in audio and video), search (that allows searching both by name and feed URL), a list of podcast networks and different podcast categories.
They also have a great selection of podcasts to choose from. The team behind Pocket Casts work hard to maintain a reliable and high quality catalog so you can avoid out of date listings, problems with raw feeds, etc.
Pro Sync with iPhone, iPad, Android
If you use Pocket Casts on more than one device, you can synchronize settings, playback positions, etc., across all your devices.
Pro Sonos integration
It is possible to connect Pocket Casts with Sonos, and play podcasts.
Pro Global and per-podcast playback settings
Enables you to set a "global" playback speed to use for all podcasts which can be over-ridden by a podcast specific playback speed.
Pro Automated playlist creation
Pocket Casts has a feature called Episode Filter, that allows automatically creating playlists based on setting such as playing states (unplayed, playing, played), status (downloaded, downloading, not downloaded), episode type (audio, video) and of course podcasts themselves.
You can also customize the appearance of the playlist with a color and an icon to help it stand out easier.
Pro Can set custom skip-forward and back timing
You can set custom "skip forward" and "skip backward" timings for easily skipping past parts of podcasts you don't like.
Pro Smart Playlists
BeyondPod has the ability to create playlists based on usage, making for an easy way to group content of similar tastes.
Pro Playback speeds
You can change the speed of playback. (Paid)
Pro Per podcast settings
You can set each podcast to have different settings: Download settings, authentication, sort order, playback speed, volume boost and more.
Pro Easy to add podcasts
It's very easy to search through published podcasts or add a podcast feed by URL.
Pro Organize by category
You can create categories and add podcasts to them. This makes it easy to tap and play a specific genre, to have smart lists prioritize certain categories and keep yourself organized.
Pro Clean look
The app uses material design without a lot of clutter.
Pro Quick to play
Every screen lists downloaded podcasts, making it easy to tap and play. The rest of the download episodes, or episodes in the category you are in, are automatically queued. Other podcast apps will show you a list of podcasts for which there may be episodes downloaded, if you tap into them.
Pro Filter episodes
You can filter any episode view: audio, video, downloaded, unfinished, not played and favorites.
Pro Chromecast support
Users can cast their podcasts to Chromecast compliant devices easily with the built in Chromecast function of BeyondPod. This makes a great tool for those that don't want to have to use another app or service on their other devices as the podcasts can just be streamed to them from the users phone, where all their synced podcasts reside.
Cons
Con Cannot create custom playlists
You can not add specific podcast episodes to create a custom playlist. While you can set up "filters" to create a playlist, if you're trying to follow a thread of specific podcast episodes, you can't set that up.
Con Skip episode often does not work with CarPlay
The Skip Episode feature, to automatically mark an episode as listened to and finshed, often does not work in CarPlay mode. Instead, you have to push the "skip forward" button a lot. Good luck having a long enough stoplight for that!
Con Does not work with paid podcasts
Con Slightly convoluted design
There is a left slide out menu, and right slide out play list, the play screen, and the default episode list screen. It's hard to exactly place yourself in the app because it's designed to easily let you jump from one place to another.
Con Buggy
Prone to long delays loading and starting playback, chromecast playback fails frequently and stays in the notification area even when stopped or dismissed.
Con Cannot play episodes with subscribing
To download a podcast or stream with regular controls you must be subscribed to the podcast. You can sample stream episode on the subscribe screen.
Con Features locked behind paywall
Users must purchase the full version to get Chromecast casting, changeable playback speeds as well as other features.