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Add to SafariWhen comparing SoundCloud vs BeyondPod, the Slant community recommends SoundCloud for most people. In the question“What are the best software tools for listening to podcasts?” SoundCloud is ranked 4th while BeyondPod is ranked 7th. The most important reason people chose SoundCloud is:
Links to related music, based on what you're listening to, can be found in the sidebar.
Specs
Question Ranking
Pros
Pro Recommendations
Links to related music, based on what you're listening to, can be found in the sidebar.
Pro Subscribe to artists
You can subscribe to artists to be notified the instant they upload a new song or give an update.
Pro Explore tab has new music constantly
Explore tab on SoundCloud shows trending music that can be filtered based on genre/tag. There's a constant stream of new music.
Pro Follow people
You can follow people with similar tastes or that often find new music. When they favorite a song, SoundCloud will notify you about it.
Pro Free to use
You don't even have to log in or sign up for an account if you don't want to.
There are paid options for if you want to upload large quantities of audio (eg if you're a music label you'll need this), but it's free to download as much and as often as you like.
Pro Pre-releases
Some music labels, especially newer ones, release on SoundCloud before anywhere else.
Pro Creative Commons filter
SoundCloud allows for finding music that is licensed under Creative Commons.
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 Can't do an advanced search
You can't search, for example, for Creative Commons music with the tag #trap. It could be useful to search for music you like that is under Creative Commons.
Con Interface is full of bugs
The SoundCloud website has tons of problems, including issues with notifications, favorites, and uploading sounds.
Con Audio ads in some uploaded content
Some content on SoundCloud includes audio ads, particularly sponsored podcasts.
(Note that SoundCloud itself doesn't add these - all the audio you're hearing is exactly as it was uploaded.)
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.
