iBroadcast vs SubStreamer
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
iBroadcast
Upload your personal music collection to a secure, cloud-based library. Access and play your entire music library from any device, anywhere, without fees or ads. Enjoy your music collection without limitations.
- Upload personal music collection
- Secure cloud storage
- Stream music from anywhere
- Access on any device
- No fees or ads
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Welcome to your Music! Upload your personal music collection to your iBroadcast library and play your music from anywhere - absolutely free. Once uploaded, your library is kept safe, secure and made readily available to you wherever you are on any device or computer you have. There are no fees to use iBroadcast and no ads. Free yourself and your music with iBroadcast. For more information and to create a free account, visit our website at www.iBroadcast.com. Terms of Use: https://ibroadcast.com/terms
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 rating: iBroadcast at 4.7 against SubStreamer's 4.0. iBroadcast also leads on review sentiment (81% vs 72%) and device support (4 vs 2). SubStreamer's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 2). On price, ratings volume, update cadence and ads 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. iBroadcast sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $3.99 per month. SubStreamer asks for nothing beyond the download.
iBroadcast holds the better App Store score, 4.7 against 4.0. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 316 and 141 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 81% of iBroadcast's written reviews are positive against 72% of SubStreamer's.
iBroadcast ships an update every 10 days, SubStreamer every 2 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 12, 2026 and October 10, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | iBroadcast | SubStreamer |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.7 (316 ratings) — better | 4.0 (141 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 81.3% of reviews — better | 72.2% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 316 — better | 141 |
| Update frequency | Every 10 days — better | Every 2 weeks |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, Apple Watch — better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 17.6 | 16.4 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 22 MB | 55 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | +4 |
| Developer | iBroadcast | Gaven Henry |
Customer experience
iBroadcast
SubStreamer
User reviews
iBroadcast
From 316 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- ☁️ Unlimited cloud storage for personal music library
- 🎵 Support for high-quality audio formats (FLAC, lossless)
- 💰 Free service with no ads or subscriptions required
- 🔄 Seamless syncing across multiple devices
- 📱 Works across iOS, Android, Mac, and web browsers
Room to improve
- 🐛 Occasional playback freezes and crashes
- 🔌 Syncing issues between devices
- ⚠️ Confusing jukebox/queue system in newer versions
- 📊 Poor performance with very large libraries (70k+ songs)
- 🔍 Search function struggles with massive collections
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
iBroadcast
Reported bugs
16 issues- App crashes when switching songs
- Login freezes and authentication failures
- Downloaded playlists fail to complete playback
- Tracks disappear from library without explanation
- Syncing doesn't update new uploads automatically
Show 11 moreShow fewer
- Playback stops after each song requiring app restart
- Shared account causes volume/song changes across users
- Persistent 'free up space' notifications despite stream-only mode
- App freezes with large music collections
- Search function completely fails above 80k songs
- Upload process hangs or fails intermittently
- MediaSync desktop uploader installation issues
- App stuck on 'installing' after update
- Facebook login not working on iPad
- Landscape mode queue reordering non-functional
- Repeated songs in shuffle with short intervals
Requested features
18 requests- Native Mac desktop app (currently browser-only)
- Apple TV remote control support for library navigation
- Volume control separate from system volume
- Album cover thumbnails in playlist view
- Pin/favorite playlists for quick access
Show 13 moreShow fewer
- Lyrics display and karaoke support
- Artist radio and genre station features
- Sonos integration and support
- Chromecast compatibility
- Advanced queue management (shuffle by album at queue end)
- Repeat single song functionality that persists
- Ability to upload music directly from iPhone
- Better music metadata editing interface
- Album artist vs. track artist distinction
- Multi-disc album grouping
- Lifetime premium option instead of subscription
- OneDrive support for uploads
- SVG icons for better display on high-res phones
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
In-app purchases
iBroadcast
- Monthly Premium Membership$3.991 Month
- Annual Premium Membership$44.991 Year
SubStreamer
No in-app purchases
