Roon vs HiByMusic
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Roon
This app serves as a controller for a Roon Server, enabling users to browse and play their music library. It offers a rich metadata-driven interface for musical discovery, connecting to over 1,000 compatible audio devices for seamless playback.
- Music library browsing and playback
- Rich metadata for musical discovery
- Connects to 1,000+ audio devices
- Seamless in-home audio connection
- Access music library remotely via Roon ARC
- Bit-perfect playback and format support
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*** The Roon experience requires a Roon Server on your network. *** The Roon App is another controller for your Roon Server. You browse and play your music library on over 1,000 compatible audio devices, and provides a seamless in-home connection. You can install the free Roon App on as many devices as you like. What is Roon? The very best way to experience your music: Roon reshapes the way you browse and explore music. Powered by rich metadata, Roon's interface invites you on a new journey of musical discovery every time you log in. Your music library becomes the starting point on a vast map of performers, composers, influences, and genres. Follow the path emanating from the music you love to discover exciting new sounds and reconnect with long-forgotten favorites. You can delve even deeper through lyrics, artist photos, bios, reviews, and tour dates - then continue the journey with recommendations specifically tailored to your tastes and listening habits. Listen anywhere, on all your gear: Roon lets you play from your collection of music files and TIDAL, Qobuz, and KKBOX libraries on thousands of Roon Ready, Airplay, Chromecast, and USB devices from one app inside your home. Meanwhile, Roon ARC provides access, playback, and precision audio control for your entire Roon music library directly from your phone, wherever you are in the world. Flawless playback. Everywhere, every time: Roon is built to ensure your music sounds perfect every time you hit play, no matter where you are. Roon guarantees the best possible sound quality from every piece of audio gear - our MUSE sound engine delivers bit-perfect playback, exhaustive format support, and precision audio control for a fully customizable and flawless listening experience. From headphones to your home hi-fi, and everything in between.
HiByMusic
A free, high-fidelity audio player for audiophiles and music lovers. It supports a wide range of lossless and lossy formats, offering high-precision decoding and advanced audio features for a premium listening experience.
- Wide lossless/lossy audio format support
- CUE sheets and ISO image support
- High precision decoding (32-bit output, 64-bit float)
- External USB DAC support
- Gapless playback
- 10 band graphic EQ
- MSEB support
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HiByMusic Free lossless HiFi audio player. Easy to use, clean and clear. HiByMusic Player is a free lossless HiFi audio player designed for audiophiles and music fans, giving you a first-class music experience wherever you go. Features: 1. Wide lossless/lossy audio format support, including DSD(DSF,DFF), ISO(DSF,DFF,DST), WAV, FLAC, APE, AIFF, M4A, AAC, WMA, MP3, Ogg Vorbis; 2. CUE sheets and ISO images are also directly supported; 3. High precision decoding with 32 bits output, 64 bits floating point decoding and 128 bits internal precision, all for the best quality audio; 4. External USB DAC is supported, Output Native DSD with DoP, Direct output DxD and 384kHz@32bits audio streams easily; 5. Gapless playback; 6. 10 band graphic EQ; 7. MSEB support; Stay tuned, more professional function will be added continually! email: service@hiby.com website: www.hiby.com
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is update cadence: Roon at every 3 weeks against HiByMusic's every 3 months. Roon also leads on rating (3.6 vs 3.4) and ratings volume (556 vs 140). HiByMusic's advantage is review sentiment (42% vs 33%) and iOS requirement (12.0 vs 15.0). 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.
Roon holds the better App Store score, 3.6 against 3.4. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 556 and 140 respectively. Written reviews complicate that: 33% of Roon's written reviews are positive against 42% of HiByMusic's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.
Roon ships an update every 3 weeks, HiByMusic every 3 months. The most recent releases landed on October 13, 2026 and October 19, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Roon | HiByMusic |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 3.6 (556 ratings) — better | 3.4 (140 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 32.6% of reviews | 42.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 556 — better | 140 |
| Update frequency | Every 3 weeks — better | Every 3 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 15.0 | 12.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 616 MB | 48 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Roon Labs | Dongguan Hiby Music Technology Co., Ltd. |
Customer experience
Roon
HiByMusic
User reviews
Roon
From 556 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 🚀 Great when it works
- 🎨 Fantastic app
- 🎧 Best way to experience music
- 🤖 Powerful music management
- 🔍 Excellent music discovery
Room to improve
- 🐛 Crashes frequently
- 🔌 Unstable connection
- 🕰️ Slow performance
- 🤯 Confusing interface
- 🚫 Lack of accessibility
HiByMusic
From 140 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 🎵 Excellent hi-res audio support (DSD, FLAC, WAV, APE)
- 🆓 Free app without ads or hidden fees
- 🎨 Clean and intuitive user interface
- 🔗 HibyLink functionality for controlling compatible devices
- ⚙️ Effective equalizer and DSP effects
Room to improve
- 🐛 Frequent crashes and stability issues
- 📱 Poor iOS optimization compared to Android version
- 🔌 Unreliable Bluetooth and WiFi connectivity
- 🎯 Clunky and unintuitive user experience
- 🚫 CarPlay support removed in recent updates
Bugs and requests
Roon
Reported bugs
4 issues- App crashes on search
- Audio devices disappearing
- Volume issues after updates
- Inability to find Roon core
Requested features
5 requests- Dark mode option
- Offline music playback
- Better Tidal/Spotify integration
- Improved metadata editing
- Apple Watch support
HiByMusic
Reported bugs
21 issues- App crashes during music library scanning (around 3,000 files)
- HibyLink connection drops repeatedly
- Music playback stops when app is backgrounded
- Rewind button behavior inconsistent (goes to previous song instead of replaying)
- Album shuffle mixing with existing playlist songs
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- SMBv3 compatibility issues
- DLNA functionality crashes
- EQ and DSP effects not working on iOS
- DSD DoP not functioning on iPhone 15 Pro Max
- MQA track playback crashes
- Search function keyboard disappears after each letter
- Album art cropping and stretching issues
- Lyric loading failures
- Some MP3 and M4A files fail to play
- Bluetooth pairing inconsistency with Hiby devices
- Firmware update required every startup (2-3 minutes)
- Music file scanning not detecting all formats
- Volume control glitches when pressing quickly
- Plugin deactivation after app closure
- Folder sorting in reverse alphabetical order
- Track order randomization in folder view
Requested features
20 requests- Manual playlist reordering
- ID3 tag editing capability
- Folder-based music library scanning
- Album artist sorting (not just track artist)
- Album favorites/bookmarking
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- Gapless playback
- Crossfade between tracks
- Folder icon display in browser
- Font size adjustment
- Language settings
- Dark mode and theme customization
- Background playback support
- Search by filename
- HTTP/NAS access support
- Lyrics matching and custom lyric sources
- Portrait mode support for iPad
- Online lyrics and cover art fetching improvements
- Ascending/descending sort order options
- Playlist organization and song management
- VoiceOver accessibility improvements for iOS
In-app purchases
Roon
No in-app purchases
HiByMusic
No in-app purchases









