SqueezePad vs SubStreamer
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
SqueezePad
Control your Logitech Squeezebox with a fast and intuitive interface on your iPad. An optional upgrade allows you to stream music directly to your device, turning it into a standalone player. Enjoy gapless playback and synchronized audio for a seamless listening experience.
- Instant player selection
- Cached menus and album art
- Preloaded playlist
- Drag and drop playlist reordering
- Screensaver mode with large cover art
- Music streaming to iPad
- Gapless playback and synchronization
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SqueezePad is the preeminent controller for your Logitech Squeezebox. This smooth operating, fast and intuitive controller for your Squeezebox will provide you with complete remote control from your iPad. An upgrade allows music streaming directly to your iPad as well. An unbeatable price tag to get full control of your Squeezebox! Watch on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZxbumV0Wao http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIzgUOuZtmE ◆◆◆ SqueezePad is … FAST! ◆◆◆ - instant player selection: a simple touch on the player in the top left shows an instant popup menu. Experience how fast player switching can really be. - cached menus and album art: when you browse the artist or albums menu, their content (with images) is saved. On every subsequent visit the lists are instantly available until the next rescan automatically invalidates the cache. - preloaded playlist: a big chunk of your playlist is preloaded and available on the right hand side of the screen. No waiting times when you want to take a peek at the future songs. - instant alphabetical index and smooth scrolling: the alphabetical index updates the album and artist list already when you just drag your finger over it. - shortcuts to most used functions: on the bottom bar you have buttons for artist, albums, internet radio and favorites menu. Also common playlist function have their own buttons. ◆◆◆ SqueezePad is … SMOOTH! ◆◆◆ - awesome looks: obvious when you look at the screenshots - smooth transitions and animations: As to be expected from a real iPad App, SqueezePad supports menu transitions and smooth scrolling. - volume + progress popups: when changing volume or progress of a song, you get popups telling you the actual values. So stop guessing your desired values today! - drag+drop for playlist entries: playlist entries can be reordered with drag and drop. A quick swipe shows a delete button. - screensaver mode: Tap the big cover-art and SqueezePad switches to a screensaver mode working in portrait and landscape orientation. Now you get even bigger cover art on your iPad. This makes SqueezePad a great information screen for your next party. ◆◆◆ SqueezePad has … PLAYBACK! * ◆◆◆ - stream music to your iPad: now your iPad becomes a small player on its own, and is able to stream your local music or internet radio stations. You’ll find this feature as an in app purchase in the players menu. - many supported formats: SqueezePad has native suport for mp3, FLAC, aac, alac, wav, aiff, pcm. With the help of your Squeezebox Server you can also stream OGG-files to your iPad (it will convert them automatically to either WAV or MP3). If your Squeezebox Server runs on a Windows machine, even WMA-files are supported! - gapless playback and synchronization: SqueezePad will preload the next song in the playlist, so that it will start without any delay. Also the full synchronization protocol of the Squeezeboxes are implemented. - many supported Apps: Last.FM, Deezer or WiMP are supported out of the box. Spotify works with the help of triodes plugin installed in Squeezebox-Server Rhapsody, Napster and Pandora are not working due to licensing issues issues * Please be aware that Logitech blocks direct streaming access to MySqueezebox.com. Squeezebox-Server required to use the playback feature. ◆◆◆ SqueezePad's got … EXTRAS! ◆◆◆ So many extras - please visit my web-site to get a full descriptions: - integrated browser for fast information retrieval - playlist modification mode - configure manual server for advanced networks/remote streaming - set up your alarms - automatically wake your server with Wake On LAN - much much more ... ◆◆◆ Requirements ◆◆◆ Compatible with SqueezeBox-Server from v7.4 to v7.9, to be downloaded from http://www.mysqueezebox.com/download. Also supports direct connection to MySqueezebox.com if you don't own a local server.
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
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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.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: SubStreamer at Free against SqueezePad's $4.99. SubStreamer also leads on in-app purchases (none vs 1) and update cadence (every 2 weeks vs every 5 weeks). SqueezePad's advantage is rating (4.7 vs 4.0) and review sentiment (91% vs 72%). On ads and device support 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
SubStreamer is free to download; SqueezePad costs $4.99 up front. SqueezePad sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. SubStreamer asks for nothing beyond the download.
SqueezePad holds the better App Store score, 4.7 against 4.0. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: SubStreamer has 141 ratings behind it against 24, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 91% of SqueezePad's written reviews are positive against 72% of SubStreamer's.
SqueezePad ships an update every 5 weeks, SubStreamer every 2 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 2, 2026 and October 10, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | SqueezePad | SubStreamer |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $4.99 | Free — better |
| Rating | 4.7 (24 ratings) — better | 4.0 (141 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 91.3% of reviews — better | 72.2% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 24 | 141 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 5 weeks | Every 2 weeks — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free — better |
| Devices | iPad | iPhone, iPad — better |
| Requires iOS | 5.1.1 — better | 16.4 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 5 MB | 55 MB |
| Age rating | 17+ | +4 |
| Developer | Stefan Hansel Solutions UG (haftungsbeschraenkt) | Gaven Henry |
Customer experience
SqueezePad
SubStreamer
User reviews
SqueezePad
From 24 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 👍 Intuitive and user-friendly interface
- 🚀 Smooth and responsive performance
- 💡 Excellent integration with Squeezebox ecosystem
- 🔍 Useful information lookup features (e.g. Wikipedia)
- 🔧 Reliable and trouble-free operation
Room to improve
- 🔒 Landscape-mode only (no portrait support)
- 🐛 Occasional crashes or freezes
- 🔋 High battery consumption when used as a player
SubStreamer
From 141 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
Bugs and requests
SqueezePad
Reported bugs
2 issues- Connectivity issues with some users
- Playback problems with certain audio formats
Requested features
3 requests- Add portrait mode support
- Improve performance for very large music libraries
- Integrate more closely with Squeezebox server settings
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
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- 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
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- 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
In-app purchases
SqueezePad
- SqueezePad Playback$3.99
SubStreamer
No in-app purchases









