Roon vs 4STREAM
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.
4STREAM
Stream music from online services and local storage to compatible audio devices. Control playback across multiple rooms, group devices, and manage audio sources wirelessly from your smartphone or tablet.
- Stream from online music services
- Play music from local storage
- Multi-room audio sync
- Independent room playback
- Wireless device control
- Group and ungroup devices
- Volume and playback management
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The 4STREAM application can play music from the most popular online music services and local storage from smartphones, tablets or home NAS to one or multiple preamplifiers or amplifiers that are designed and produced by ourselves. The Main App Functions and Features - The 4STREAM application can control our devices, and play the same music to all rooms in sync or play different different music to different rooms within the distance that your home router can cover. -Users can wirelessly control the all the 4STREAM WiFi enabled products including the speakers, audio preamplifiers and amplifiers in the same home network . -With 4STREAM application, on the smart phones and tablets, users can manage their online audio sources like music, radio stations and preset programs. They can also group and ungroup any devices that this application supports, control the volume, change the music and so on.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: Roon at 3.6 against 4STREAM's 2.7. Roon also leads on update cadence (every 3 weeks vs every 4 months) and ratings volume (556 vs 56). 4STREAM's advantage is review sentiment (47% vs 33%) and iOS requirement (10.0 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 2.7. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Roon has 556 ratings behind it against 56, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews complicate that: 33% of Roon's written reviews are positive against 47% of 4STREAM'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, 4STREAM every 4 months. The most recent releases landed on October 13, 2026 and October 7, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Roon | 4STREAM |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 3.6 (556 ratings) — better | 2.7 (56 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 32.6% of reviews | 47.1% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 556 — better | 56 |
| Update frequency | Every 3 weeks — better | Every 4 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 15.0 | 10.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 616 MB | 150 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Roon Labs | 小英 向 |
Customer experience
Roon
4STREAM
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
4STREAM
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Roon
No in-app purchases
4STREAM
No in-app purchases








