SubStreamer vs BlackCandy
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
SubStreamer
Access and stream your personal music library from a Subsonic-compatible server on your mobile device. Enjoy offline playback, personalized mixes, and detailed listening analytics without ads or subscriptions.
- Stream and download music library
- Offline listening with background processing
- Personalized smart mixes
- Listening analytics and scrobbling
- Playlist and library management
- Background playback with lock screen controls
- Open source
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Your music. Your server. Everywhere you go. Substreamer turns your Subsonic-compatible server into a personal streaming service. Browse, play, and download your entire music library on iPhone and iPad — free, with no ads, no subscriptions, and no data collection. Verified with Navidrome, Subsonic, Gonic, Nextcloud Music, and Ampache. Also compatible with Airsonic-Advanced, Funkwhale, Supysonic, and other Subsonic API servers. STREAM & DOWNLOAD Stream in full quality or choose a bitrate that suits your connection. Download albums and playlists for offline listening with background queue processing and automatic recovery. Substreamer switches to offline mode automatically when your server is unreachable. TUNED IN — SMART MIXES Personalised playlists powered by your listening history. Time-of-day mixes, deep cuts from similar artists, decade time machines, genre blends, favorites radio, and a custom mix builder — all generated from your own library, not an algorithm trained on someone else's taste. LISTENING ANALYTICS See your play history, top artists, albums, and songs, most active listening hours, activity heatmaps, and listening streaks. Scrobbles queue locally when you're offline and sync automatically when you reconnect. Exclude specific albums or artists so one-off plays don't skew your stats. LIBRARY MANAGEMENT Browse by album, artist, or playlist. List and grid views with alphabetical quick-scroll for large libraries. 5-star ratings and favorites sync with your server. Create and manage playlists, reorder tracks, or save your current queue as a new playlist. PLAYBACK Background playback with full lock screen and notification controls. Adjustable playback speed, shuffle, and repeat. Share albums or playlists with configurable links. BEAUTIFUL & PRIVATE Light, dark, and system themes with custom accent colors. Album art color extraction for immersive detail views. No tracking, no analytics, no account required — your music stays between you and your server. OPEN SOURCE Substreamer is open source under the GPL-3.0 license. Browse the code, report issues, or contribute at github.com/ghenry22/substreamer.
BlackCandy
This application serves as a personal music center, requiring a pre-configured Black Candy server to function. It provides access to your music library through a dedicated iOS interface. More information on server setup is available via the developer's GitHub page.
- Personal music center
- Requires Black Candy server
- iOS interface
- Music library access
- GitHub for setup info
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The official Black Candy iOS app. To use this app, you must have a Black Candy server set up. For more information, please visit https://github.com/blackcandy-org/blackcandy
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: BlackCandy at 5.0 against SubStreamer's 4.0. SubStreamer's advantage is update cadence (every 2 weeks vs every 24 months) and ratings volume (131 vs 1). On price, ads, in-app purchases and monetization model there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
BlackCandy holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.0. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: SubStreamer has 131 ratings behind it against 1, so its average is the more settled of the two.
SubStreamer ships an update every 2 weeks, BlackCandy every 24 months. The most recent releases landed on September 22, 2026 and July 5, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | SubStreamer | BlackCandy |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.0 (131 ratings) | 5.0 (1 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 72.4% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 131 — better | 1 |
| Update frequency | Every 2 weeks — better | Every 24 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better |
| Requires iOS | 16.4 — better | 16.6 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 54 MB | 15 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Gaven Henry | 文冬 赵 |
Bugs and requests
SubStreamer
Reported bugs
18 issues- 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
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- 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
Requested features
18 requests- 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
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- 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
BlackCandy
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
SubStreamer
No in-app purchases
BlackCandy
No in-app purchases
