WordPress audio player and podcast plugins are great tools to use to add your latest podcast episodes or tracks to your website. Podcasting, indie music and other forms of audio content are nothing new, but they’re growing in popularity at a rapid pace.
Here are 19 WordPress audio player and podcast plugins.
1. Blubrry PowerPress
Blubrry PowerPress is one of the most popular podcasting plugins available for WordPress. It was “developed by podcasters for podcasters,” allowing you to import tracks from such directories as iTunes, Google Play and Stitcher.
It comes in simple and advanced modes to suit lite and power users alike, and it even uses an HTML5 player that supports embedded videos from directories such as YouTube.
Price: Free
2. Compact WP Audio Player
Compact WP Audio Player is another popular WordPress audio player plugin, but this one is much simpler. It supports such file formats as MP3 and OGG, and a features highly simplistic design. In fact, the plugin was given its name due to its “compact” size, which the developers chose to ensure the player does not take up too much space on your web page.
Price: Free
3. SoundCloud is Gold
SoundCloud is Gold is a great plugin for folks who rely on SoundCloud as their directory for audio tracks. The plugin adds a small SoundCloud icon in the WordPress post editor, which enables you to select and insert SoundCloud tracks in your posts with a few simple clicks.
Price: Free
4. Smart Podcast Player
The Smart Podcast Player is a premium podcast player created by online business guru Pat Flynn. The plugin can use your feed from services like iTunes and SoundCloud as well as MP3 files you upload to WordPress. It displays this feed as a playlist and gives you the ability to add show notes within the player.
Price: $97/Year or $12/Month
5. Seriously Simple Podcasting
Seriously Simple Podcasting lives up to its name by offering a simple way to add podcasts to your posts. This plugin, however, supports audio and video podcasts. It enables you to embed tracks from such directories as iTunes, Google Play and Stitcher.
Price: Free
6. mb.miniAudioPlayer
mb.miniAudioPlayer is another simple WordPress audio player that turns your MP3 files into podcast episodes. The overall design of the player is simple, and custom looks can be made with Skin Maker, which can be accessed via a link inside the settings for this plugin.
Price: Free
7. Simple Audio Player
Simple Audio Player was developed to continue the work of the WordPress Audio Player plugin, which has since been abandoned. The original plugin had bugs and flaws that impacted the user’s site speed. These are bugs the developers of this plugin intended to eliminate through the development process.
Price: Free
8. Fullwidth Audio Player
Fullwidth Audio Player is a premium WordPress audio player plugin. This plugin lets you use MP3 files or SoundCloud tracks. It uses two main styles—a compact style that sticks to the top or bottom of a webpage as the user scrolls down the page as well as a fullwidth style, pictured above, the user can bring up by clicking the fullwidth button.
Price: $19
9. Audio Album
Audio Album uses WordPress’ native audio capabilities to make a beautiful, WordPress audio player plugin. It does this by taking MP3 audio tracks and organizing them as a single block, pictured above. The style of the player can be customized with a few simple clicks.
Price: Free
10. Buzzsprout Podcasting
Buzzsprout Podcasting is the WordPress-companion plugin for the Buzzsprout podcasting service. This is an audio-hosting service similar to SoundCloud that caters exclusively to podcasters. The plugin enables you to connect your Buzzsprout account to your WordPress site so you can embed the latest podcast episodes you release inside of a blog post or page.
Price: Free
11. ZoomSounds
ZoomSounds is a premium WordPress audio player plugin that enables you to add a responsive HTML5 audio player to your site. It uses WordPress’ built-in audio capabilities to turn the MP3 files you upload to your site into a fully-functioning audio player, though you can also import audio from SoundCloud and YouTube. The plugin comes in three skins, enabling you to customize its style.
Price: $15
12. Responsive HTML5 Audio Player PRO
Responsive HTML5 Audio Player PRO is a premium WordPress audio player plugin that comes with powerful features and multiple style options. The plugin supports MP3 and OGG files. It also comes with playlist functionality, playlist search functionality as well as buttons for sharing, downloading and buying purposes.
Price: $17
13. Disk Audio Player
Disk Audio Player is a premium WordPress audio player plugin that uses WordPress’ built-in audio capabilities to create an audio player that plays MP3 files. The audio player is responsive, customizable with unlimited color options and modular with abilities to add adjustable scrollbars and similar functions.
It also allows you to add external links for downloading, buying and informational purposes.
Price: $15
14. tPlayer
tPlayer is a premium audio player plugin for WordPress. It gives you a variety of different options to choose from in terms of audio sources, whether that means uploading MP3 files to your server or streaming from services like SHOUTcast and Icecast.
Additional features include the ability to add information for each track, social share options and different playback options, such as playlist and shuffle.
Price: $20
15. Gear Player
Gear Player is a premium audio player plugin that uses a sleek, modern UI design. It uses a canvas equalizer and a circular trackbar, and it comes with several customization options and a randomized color feature. It also has support for SoundCloud. The player also uses an intuitive interface and SVG animations.
Price: $13
16. WavePlayer
WavePlayer is a “fully-customizable, responsive HTML5 audio plugin for WordPress.” Its interface is dependant on the waveform created by the audio track that’s playing. The plugin uses the audio features already built into WordPress, enabling you to upload and use your own audio files.
Price: $16
17. Kast
Kast is a premium WordPress audio player plugin for SHOUTcast users. It uses a minimalist, sleek and modern design, and enables you to stream the radio shows you host with SHOUTcast on your WordPress site.
Price: $26
Final Thoughts
Each and every one of these WordPress audio player plugins has one basic function—to play audio on your site. However, each plugin performs that function in a different way. Which plugin you decide to go with depends on the way you publish your audio files.
Most podcasters prefer to publish on services like SoundCloud, iTunes, Stitcher, SHOUTcast and Buzzsprout while others prefer the freedom of uploading audio files to their own servers.
Audio files tend to be quite large, so it might be in your best interest to publish your podcast using one of those services and using one of the plugins listed above to embed your feed from that service on your site. This is especially true if you host your site on a shared hosting server as this type of server tends to have limited resources.
You also need to consider style. Some methods, such as using SoundCloud or MP3 files, have several different plugins you can pick from. It’s best go with a plugin whose style complements the rest of your site in this case.
In other words, focus on the main method you choose to publish your audio files or podcast. This comes down to whether you upload audio files on your site or whether you publish them through an audio service.
Take a look at the plugins that support that method after that, and choose the one you feel best suits your brand.
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