Sooloos vs Roon
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Sooloos
This app transforms your iPhone or iPad into a wireless controller for your Meridian Sooloos digital media system. Manage, browse, and play high-quality audio across multiple zones in your home with intuitive controls and advanced music exploration features.
- Wireless music control
- Multi-zone playback
- Browse by artist, genre, date, tags
- Playlist creation and editing
- Quick music search
- Custom music collections (Focuses)
- Volume and mute controls
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Get the most out of your Meridian Sooloos system by using your iPhone™, iPad™ or iPod® Touch as a rich wireless controller. The Sooloos app lets you take full advantage of Meridian's award-winning Sooloos digital media system to store, manage, browse, and play the highest quality audio in multiple zones around your home. NOTE: This app requires a Sooloos digital media system running version 2.368 or later, however 2.535 or later is recommended. To learn more about Sooloos products, visit the Meridian web site at http://www.meridian-audio.com/ The Sooloos app from Meridian connects to your WiFi network, locates your Sooloos system and connects to it automatically... no configuration is necessary. Once connected, you can browse your music and control all aspects of playback in all your system's zones. Sooloos offers you many ways to explore your music collection: browse by artist, genre, release date, import date, or using tags you create yourself. Control how you listen to your playlists using shuffle, loop, and the unique Swim mode, which uses your preferences to select music for you. Quick search allows you to enter text using the on-screen keyboard, and displays album and track results as you type. Play different music in each room of your home, or link zones to play the same music in multiple rooms. Use transport and seek to control playback in each of your zones independently. Control the volume of the outputs of your Sooloos system, or even your Meridian processor or DSP loudspeakers directly. Create or load playlists, then edit and save them right from your iPhone™, iPad™ or iPod® Touch. Using the built in Focus feature, you can create custom tailored music collections -- like "Hard Rock from the 1970's", "Top-rated Post-Bop Jazz", or "Most-played albums featuring Yo-Yo Ma" -- and recall them at a touch from the Sooloos app. FEATURES on iPhone™ and iPod® Touch: - WiFi auto-discovery - Transport control - Volume and mute controls - View full-screen cover art for current track - Control multiple zone playback - Browse by artist, genre, release date, import date, tags - Shuffle, Loop, and Seek - Swim chooses music for you - Quick Search using on-screen keyboard - Create, Load, Edit, and Save playlists - Browse Focuses created on your Sooloos system - Switch sources in Meridian Integrated Zones, and power up/down the Zone. ADDITIONAL FEATURES on iPad™: - Graphical browser featuring album cover-art with the ability to focus on albums and view their metadata - Select and Edit mode allowing editing of tags, genres and the creation of album sets - Internet radio channel browser - Transfer play queues between zones - Manage streaming accounts - Display notification messages from the Sooloos Core.
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.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: Sooloos at 4.0 against Roon's 3.6. Sooloos also leads on review sentiment (61% vs 33%) and iOS requirement (9.0 vs 15.0). Roon's advantage is update cadence (every 3 weeks vs every 5 months) and ratings volume (556 vs 2). 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.
Sooloos holds the better App Store score, 4.0 against 3.6. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Roon has 556 ratings behind it against 2, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 61% of Sooloos's written reviews are positive against 33% of Roon's.
Sooloos ships an update every 5 months, Roon every 3 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 4, 2026 and October 13, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Sooloos | Roon |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.0 (2 ratings) — better | 3.6 (556 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 60.9% of reviews — better | 32.6% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 2 | 556 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 5 months | Every 3 weeks — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 9.0 — better | 15.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 8 MB | 616 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | MERIDIAN AUDIO LIMITED | Roon Labs |
Customer experience
Sooloos
Roon
Bugs and requests
Sooloos
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or 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
In-app purchases
Sooloos
No in-app purchases
Roon
No in-app purchases







