# SubStreamer — user reviews > 203 indexed App Store user reviews of SubStreamer by Gaven Henry, rated 4.00/5 from 131 ratings. - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/substreamer/id1012991665/reviews - App overview in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/substreamer/id1012991665.md - Rating breakdown: 5★ 64 · 4★ 34 · 3★ 15 · 2★ 10 · 1★ 8 ## What do users think of SubStreamer? Overall sentiment: positive **Pros** - 🎨 Beautiful and modern UI design - ⚡ Clean, intuitive interface - 🎵 Excellent Navidrome server compatibility - 📱 Works seamlessly with self-hosted music servers - 🔄 Reliable background playback functionality - 💾 Offline download and caching features - 🎯 Feature-rich playlist generator - 🆓 Free with no ads or tracking - 🏠 Internal/external IP configuration for home/away - 🎧 Subsonic/Airsonic/Libresonic support - 📊 Home screen with recents and suggestions - 🔐 Works with authentication systems like Authelia SSO **Cons** - 🐛 Frequent playback failures and stalling - 🐛 Random crashes during playback - 🐛 Scrobbling not working reliably - 🐛 Large file playback issues (10MB+) - 🐛 AirPlay/Apple TV streaming broken - 🐛 Rewind/fast forward causes crashes - 🐛 Background playback stops at track end - 🐛 UI freezes on cellular connections - 🐛 Slow app startup and load times - ⚠️ Overwhelming UI with too many features - ⚠️ Limited language support - ⚠️ No CarPlay support (frequently requested) - ⚠️ Missing all-songs library view - ⚠️ Inconsistent offline mode organization **Commonly reported bugs** - Songs fail to play without double-pressing play button - Playback stops with 4 seconds remaining in track - Skipping back crashes the app - Large files (10MB+) require pause-then-play to start - Scrobbling fails despite server support - AirPlay to Apple TV doesn't work - Time display incorrect for songs over 1 hour - Metadata loads too frequently, causing lag - App freezes when pulling down menu on player screen - Radio tab causes app freeze - Occasional non-responsive behavior - Crashes when switching between songs on cellular - Image optimization never completes on large libraries - Duplicate songs appear in multi-disc albums - Offline folder structure doesn't match server - Bluetooth playback sometimes plays two songs simultaneously - SSL support issues in older versions - Slow metadata loading from server **Most requested features** - CarPlay support for in-car use - Traditional Chinese language support - Simplified Chinese language support - All-songs library view (not just albums/artists) - Lyrics API integration - Replay gain support - Smart playlists for yearly recaps - Batch download for offline music - Display codec and bitrate information - Better shuffle/random playback options - Improved pull-down gesture for minimizing player - Unified offline music view with filters - Song sorting options in playlists - Album art display in more views - Radio station support visibility fix - Genre sorting capability - Lock screen playback controls - Queue clearing functionality ## Newest reviews (19 of 203) ### 2/5 — Always crash while playing *2026-08-31, version 8.0.91* What a pity that the latest version app always crash while playing. And the choosing original version (no transcoding while playing at Wi-Fi) didn’t work at all. Still transcode to mp3 version. ### 4/5 — Awesome app *2026-08-11, version 8.0.91* I absolutely love this app besides two things. Gapless playing does not work and local network access will not work. If these two issues can be fixed this is definitely my top subsonic player app! ### 4/5 — Loving it!! Has a ton of potential to be 10/10 *2026-07-23, version 8.0.89* This is such a neat app! I set up my Navidrome instance on my home server very recently and I was looking for a good app for offline listening when I’m out I’m currently stuck between Amperfy and this, so I’m trialing out both for the time being, both are great! At the moment though, I appreciate this app for features like More from this artist, or Play similar songs, it’s very good for my huge library of songs, and getting a constant stream of music without much manual intervention (like a radio) However, I will say that I would very much prefer if shuffling my queue, or “playing more songs from this artist” didnt interrupt the current song, I don’t know if there’s a world where I want to have my current song interrupted like that, especially since Amperfy doesnt do that. I’m fine with it replacing the other songs in queue, but interrupting the current song takes me out a bit. However, I appreciate that when I first got this app it was updated very like 4 hours ago, so I trust that this app can only get better from here! I don’t want to downplay the other great features, im excited to see what’s next, thank you! ### 3/5 — Falta PT-Br *2026-07-15* O app parece bom, mas falta suporte ao idioma PT-BR e também suporte a lyrics, pra acompanhar a letra da música, pra ele ficar 100% ### 5/5 — Super aplikacja *2026-07-04, version 8.0.73* Wszystko co potrzebujesz jest tu dostępne, po za Radio ### 5/5 — Really well designed ui *2026-06-28, version 8.0.73* This is probably the best designed ui for streaming your music media, I really how the layout is only thing would make it perfect is adding the option to move the order of the queue. ### 5/5 — Amazing *2026-06-26, version 8.0.73* For an app thats free and allows to utilise self-hosted media solutions it's simply incredible. Amazing user interface, fuctionality and reliability. I cannot state how great it truly is! Serious props to the dev ### 5/5 — Die beste Musik App! *2026-06-24, version 8.0.73* Zuverlässig und es funktioniert alles! Vielen Dank für deine Mühen! ### 5/5 — Finally! A navidrome streamer that kicks a** *2026-06-24, version 8.0.73* Ok this is what I have been looking for. Two things stood out immediately: sleek design & IT JUST WORKS. No issues! I’ve had headaches with other self-hosted streaming apps… but this popped my library up instantly and out of the box it my genres sorted, similar artists, lyrics… you name it, it took my bad id3 tags and said “no worries, i got you”. If i could kiss this app i would. ### 5/5 — Приложение становится только лучше *2026-06-23, version 8.0.73* С обновлением исправили создание волны по эпохам и это просто прекрасно. Не понятно почему треки, которые отмечены как «нравится», попадают в navidrome не в избранное. Это странно. ### 5/5 — Great player *2026-06-23, version 8.0.73* After recently setting up my Navidrome server, I wanted something clean with more options than just using the browser. Really glad I found this one. It works beautifully. Thank you to the dev. I owe you a cup of coffee ### 5/5 — Amazing app! *2026-06-15* Works quite well without losing on look and feel, which I dare to say looks better than Spotify **Developer response:** Thanks for the 5 stars! Really glad Substreamer is working well for you — and we love hearing that the design is working for you, it's always a balancing act between simplicity and functionality. We've got some exciting updates in the works. Come hang with us at https://reddit.com/r/substreamer for release news! 🎉 ### 5/5 — Best player for Navidrome out there *2026-06-14, version 8.0.56* I tried maybe couple of dozen of players and they either make dubious UI choices or simply too buggy. This one is just perfect. Clean ui, without trying to be too smart, all the buttons you need right here and no visual glitches. ### 4/5 — Très bonne app *2026-06-10, version 8.0.56* Très bonne application la seul choses à revoir est qu’elle crash quand les sous titre son activé et que le tel est éteint ### 5/5 — Great App *2026-06-08, version 8.0.56* Logged in to my navidrome server and it works seamlessly. Very impressed! Bravo team. ### 4/5 — Great app just missing CarPlay *2026-06-05, version 8.0.56* This is by far the best app for Navidrome. The design is great, Tuned In is awesome, and Favorites is great. The only thing missing is CarPlay support. I have hour weekday drives, so that’s when I listen to most of my music. ### 5/5 — Crazy that this is free *2026-06-02, version 8.0.56* The absolute best navidrome streaming client I’ve found. ### 5/5 — Спасибо *2026-06-01, version 8.0.56* В связке с nextcloud работает. Спасибо. ### 5/5 — Very nice *2026-05-31, version 8.0.56* I am quite happy with this app. ## Most critical reviews (10 lowest-rated) ### 1/5 — Annoying ASF *2026-08-01, version 8.0.91* Can’t be used locally. Everytime I try to connect to my local server via http. It secretly changes it to https and won’t find it so it’s useless… pos ### 1/5 — Update nicht mehr nutzbar für mich, Sleep-Timer weg *2026-04-02, version 8.0.43* Ich habe die App fast täglich genutzt auch, um Hörbücher zum Einschlafen zu hören. In der neusten Version wurde das Menü aufgeräumt und der Sleep-Timer ist weg… ist jetzt unbrauchbar für mich! ### 1/5 — Removed support *2026-03-26, version 8.0.38* New version dropped support for older airsonic servers. My Airsonic server is no longer supported. Such a waste cos this was the best looking client. ### 1/5 — Works but dead *2025-06-03, version 6.0.43* So one Star ### 1/5 — Not currently compatible with AirPlay *2025-03-29, version 6.0.43* Media playback stops if you try to AirPlay unfortunately ### 1/5 — Sad *2025-02-16, version 6.0.43* It just crashes ### 1/5 — Not working *2023-05-26, version 6.0.43* I have iPhone 5s it shows splash screen than it stop working and shows a white screen. Please fix this bug soon as possible. ### 1/5 — Only works with off line downloads *2022-11-27, version 6.0.6* I can't recall the last time I used this app to successfully stream music. Paired with my navidrome server (running on an i7 6700k with 16gb ram) this app always fails to start teaming anything. Only workaround is to download the songs for off line playback. It's a shame because the android version of this app works fine on my older blackberry android phones but the ios version fails on an iPhone 13. ### 1/5 — Fix plz! Review will go from a 1 star to almost a 5 with these fixed *2019-03-14* The Substreamer app is a WONDERFUL app and it provides a fantastic service but some bugs make it impossibly frustrating to use! 1. This isn’t too huge of a problem because it’s not that bad I’ll still point it out this app takes entirely too long to load especially if after a few minutes or I open too many other apps or sometimes if I get a phone call the app will kick forcing me to reload the app a search for whatever it was. This can occur several times within my short 17 min commute to and from work. 2. I am not totally sure if the bug that’s at hand but when a content provider uploads say, an album when you access that album you’ll see double postings of each song. It’s only when you enable view offline that this problem is fixed. 3. Whatever is the root cause of the previous issue brings forth another bug. Sometimes when browsing the album I’ll select at track and the track just will not play, the app will know the song is selected and the monitor in my vehicle will even display the song. Occasionally if I choose the duplicate track the song will start but in far many instances I’m still with silence. **Developer response:** Hi please give the new version a try, you should not see these issues any more. ### 1/5 — Bug?! *2019-02-28, version 4.5.9* Retrieving data stalls at 45%.. ## Most praised reviews (10 highest-rated) ### 5/5 — Way better than jellyfin *2026-08-26, version 8.0.91* Just migrated from jellyfin! I love this app omg!! I love the downloading for offline listening! Also love the playback speed change feature! Don’t change a thing except fix bugs! ### 5/5 — Crushes every 10 minutes *2026-08-17, version 8.0.91* The app was perfectly working fine before I updated it but the current version crushes every 10 minutes ### 5/5 — iOS App Permissions *2026-08-14, version 8.0.91* Hey could you add a little button or a way to manually iOS app permissions for accessing Local Networks? I never got the prompt on this phone, and it’s not under Local Network settings. Loving the app otherwise! ### 5/5 — Excellent App *2026-07-31, version 8.0.91* I have found SubStreamer to be the app with the best combination of features, usability, and stability. I tried a lot of apps, including some that are still being developed, but this one was the only one that wor my rd consistently and could donate all the things. I wanted. Good wotk! ### 5/5 — Amazing *2026-07-29, version 8.0.91* This is the best app for navidrome / subsonic that I’ve used on iOS. It has great UX and is very functional. It’s awesome to be able to have this same experience on Android too with this app. I like that the recent full rewrite is using react native / expo - that makes the cross platform experience much easier and better! Thank you for this app! ### 5/5 — Nect button not working *2026-07-23* Hi! I found a bug in the app. When I play music from the Songs tab, the Next button doesn’t work. It won’t skip to the next track, even though the song is playing normally. Could you please look into this issue? Thanks for all your hard work on the app. ### 5/5 — Excellent *2026-07-15, version 8.0.73* Great app, wish I found it sooner. Only feature I’m missing is an equalizer. Love the automatic offline mode and Wikipedia snippets, keep up the good work! ### 5/5 — Free and Great *2026-07-14, version 8.0.73* It works well and is free! what’s not to love? ### 5/5 — Perfect for Navidrome *2026-07-11, version 8.0.73* Feee and open source. I think even this should be enough but this software is a perfect connection to any server. I tried a couple of another apps but this is the winner. ### 5/5 — Great experience! *2026-07-06, version 8.0.73* I just recently got into self-hosting my collection and I needed an app to replace the other streaming apps I was paying way too much for. The interface is intuitive. The only feature I wish it had was a way to automatically download favorite songs or just make a playlist since you can download playlists. Maybe that would be harder since playlists are created and saved on the server-side? Still, this app was the first one I tried and I have been loving it! --- *Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-09-03.*