SubStreamer vs flo
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.
flo
Stream your music library from a Navidrome server with this client. Enjoy offline playback, gapless audio, and support for various formats. Browse your collection, shuffle, repeat, and more, all while saving battery and bandwidth.
- Offline playback
- Gapless playback
- Supports multiple audio formats
- Browse music collection
- Shuffle and repeat
- Album cover art
- Lock-screen integration
Read full descriptionHide full description
While it is still in early development, it provides all the essential features for streaming music from your Navidrome Music Server. It also supports offline playback to save battery and bandwidth especially if you travel a lot like me! WHY FLO FOR NAVIDROME CLIENT? • Plays most audio formats (FLAC, AAC, ALAC, MP3, MP4 and more) without transcoding • Gapless playback • Mini player • Track seeking • Streams over 3G/4G/5G/WiFi • Bluetooth Audio/AirPlay support • Remembers your playlist from the last session • Browse music collection • Shuffle and repeat • Album cover art • Lock-screen integration I will add more essential and 'nice-to-have' features as it progresses, as I use this app almost every day: every time I plug in AirPods! LOVE FLO? • Star us on GitHub: https://github.com/kepelet/flo • Follow us on GitHub: https://github.com/kepelet Requirements: • Note that for SSL support you must have a valid certificate. Invalid certificates will cause connection errors. • Important: flo is compatible with standalone Navidrome servers only. • Get Navidrome Music Server at: https://www.navidrome.org/
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: SubStreamer at none against flo's 3. SubStreamer also leads on rating (4.0 vs 3.7) and update cadence (every 2 weeks vs every 5 weeks). flo's advantage is device support (4 vs 2). On price, ads, monetization model and iOS requirement 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. flo sells 3 one-off in-app purchases. SubStreamer asks for nothing beyond the download.
SubStreamer holds the better App Store score, 4.0 against 3.7. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: SubStreamer has 131 ratings behind it against 26, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 72% of SubStreamer's written reviews are positive against 64% of flo's.
SubStreamer ships an update every 2 weeks, flo every 5 weeks. The most recent releases landed on September 22, 2026 and September 16, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | SubStreamer | flo |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.0 (131 ratings) — better | 3.7 (26 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 72.4% of reviews — better | 63.8% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 131 — better | 26 |
| Update frequency | Every 2 weeks — better | Every 5 weeks |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No — better | Yes |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch — better |
| Requires iOS | 16.4 | 16.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 54 MB | 22 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Gaven Henry | Fariz Rizaldy |
Customer experience
SubStreamer
flo
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
flo
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
SubStreamer
No in-app purchases
flo
- Coffee$1.99
- Lunch$4.99
- Dinner$9.99








