SubStreamer vs ListenNow+
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
Read full descriptionHide full description
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.
ListenNow+
Stream music from Apple Music and access your personal media library via Subsonic or Navidrome. Enjoy features like crossfading, Siri integration, HomeKit lighting control, and lyrics display. Play music in your car with CarPlay and identify songs easily.
- Stream Apple Music library
- Connect to Subsonic/Navidrome servers
- Crossfading playback
- Siri integration
- HomeKit lighting control
- Singing lyrics display
- CarPlay support
Read full descriptionHide full description
Listen to a huge selection of songs from Apple Music. Also connect to your Subsonic media server to easily access and play content from your personal library. •Play Apple Music library and recommendations. *1 •Connect to Subsonic/Navidrome media server to easily access and play content from your personal media library. •Enjoy a continuous listening experience with crossfading. *2 •Ask Siri to play songs. •Enable lighting control to work with lights in HomeKit for audio-visual feedback. *3 •Immerse yourself in your favorite music with an excellent singing lyrics experience and a beautiful user interface. *4 •Add a widget to your home screen to easily view the lyrics of the currently playing song. •Play music in your car with CarPlay App. •Easily identify music with music recognition without manual search. •Free and ad-free; no privacy data is collected. *1. You need to subscribe to Apple Music to play music from Apple Music. Apple Music availability and features vary by country, plan, or device. For more information, please refer to https://support.apple.com/en-us/118205. *2. Not all media supports audio crossfading. *3. Not all media supports lighting control. *4. Not all media have lyrics, which need to be provided in your Subsonic server.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is update cadence: SubStreamer at every 2 weeks against ListenNow+'s every 3 months. ListenNow+'s advantage is review sentiment (83% vs 72%). On price, rating, ratings volume and ads 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.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.0 for SubStreamer against 4.0 for ListenNow+. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 131 and 53 respectively. Written reviews are what separate them: 72% of SubStreamer's written reviews are positive against 83% of ListenNow+'s.
SubStreamer ships an update every 2 weeks, ListenNow+ every 3 months. The most recent releases landed on September 22, 2026 and July 21, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | SubStreamer | ListenNow+ |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.0 (131 ratings) | 4.0 (53 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 72.4% of reviews | 82.5% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 131 — better | 53 |
| Update frequency | Every 2 weeks — better | Every 3 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad, Apple TV — better |
| Requires iOS | 16.4 — better | 17.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 54 MB | 74 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 12+ |
| Developer | Gaven Henry | Shanghai Yanghe Culture Media Co., Ltd. |
Customer experience
SubStreamer
ListenNow+
User reviews
SubStreamer
From 131 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 🎨 Beautiful and modern UI design
- ⚡ Clean, intuitive interface
- 🎵 Excellent Navidrome server compatibility
- 📱 Works seamlessly with self-hosted music servers
- 🔄 Reliable background playback functionality
Room to improve
- 🐛 Frequent playback failures and stalling
- 🐛 Random crashes during playback
- 🐛 Scrobbling not working reliably
- 🐛 Large file playback issues (10MB+)
- 🐛 AirPlay/Apple TV streaming broken
ListenNow+
From 53 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 🌟 Beautifully designed UI
- 🎶 Comprehensive music library
- 💰 Free and accessible
- 🔍 Detailed and thoughtful features
- 🤖 Smooth and responsive performance
Room to improve
- 🔒 Limited to Subsonic server support
- 🔍 Lack of Navidrome server integration
- 💔 Inability to favorite songs
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
Show 13 moreShow fewer
- 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
Show 13 moreShow fewer
- 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
ListenNow+
No bugs or feature requests surfaced in reviews.
In-app purchases
SubStreamer
No in-app purchases
ListenNow+
No in-app purchases









