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Best Podcast Players for Your Website

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Embeddable podcast players may seem like a relic of the pre-smartphone era. But Sounds Profitable’s Podcast Landscape study reported that 20% of podcast listeners found the podcast they listen to via “a mention on a website.” What if a mention on a website could turn into someone pressing play? That’s where podcast players come in.

What is a Podcast Player?

In its most basic form, it’s a play button for a particular podcast episode. But podcast players can have many other features built into them, as we’ll see from this roundup.

Every podcaster has access to podcast players via their hosting account. Published episodes will have a few “share” options, one of which will be a player embed code. Third-party or “standalone” podcast players are available, too, if you don’t like the default (native) one your hosting provider gives you. We’ll take a look at those later on in this roundup, too.

Best Native Podcast Players

Let’s start with a look at what you can get by default from each of the podcast hosting platforms. There are a few factors to consider when choosing a podcast hosting provider. As you’ll see from our roundup, pricing and storage limits are high on that list. The look and features of a host’s native player may not be reason alone to opt for a particular service or not, but if you run a high-traffic website then this will still be important to you.


Quick heads up: we use affiliate links to some services mentioned here, which means we’d earn a small commission should you choose to buy through them. This is never at any extra cost to you, and affiliates help support all of the free content we put out!

Captivate

For years now, Captivate has been one of the more reliable and innovative media hosting services we’ve tried. Their player is fully responsive on any device, and the buttons underneath the play bar offer value for your audience and growth for you.

Captivate Podcast Player Features

  • Speed and skip controls
  • Follow/subscribe options
  • Social sharing
  • A page of custom links
  • Call to Action button.

Plus, if you sign up for their affiliate program (like we did), the ‘Captivate’ link in the window is an affiliate link.

Captivate’s podcast player offers a straightforward way to share your show, expand on the episode with your show notes, and include affiliate marketing. Not much to complain about here.

Buzzsprout

Buzzsprout’s player is like their hosting. It’s great looking, feature-rich, and a lovely user experience. The single-episode player has two styles: Wave (which shows the waveform) and Minimal, which shows the episode’s show notes. Which is more expansive than “minimal,” but Buzzsprout didn’t ask me.

If you enable monetization for your podcast, your player can include a donation link, too.

Buzzsprout Podcast Player Features

  • Playback speed and skip controls
  • Chapter list
  • Button to show the show notes
  • Social sharing
  • Donation button (Can connect to Patreon, PayPal, Buy Me a Coffee, and more)

Buzzsprout’s podcast player doesn’t show all of these options until users glide their mouse over the player to make the symbols appear. Users have to click on the options to find out what the symbols mean. This might be why most people don’t know how feature-rich this player is. It’s a good one.

Transistor

Transistor is another versatile and affordable media hosting option. Podcast player options include multi-episode, single-episode, and most recent episode. This is great for when your show is mentioned in someone else’s roundup or on their website. Your content stays fresh, even if they never update the article.

Transistor Podcast Player Features

  • Playback speed and skip controls
  • Follow/subscribe options
  • Social sharing
  • Share button with customisable start time
  • The “More Info” button takes you to the show notes. 

Libsyn

Libsyn is one of the longest-running players in the podcast game. Their commitment to podcasting education and audio quality makes them stand out. But, their embedded player was bare-bones for so long, it was almost retro. When Libsyn Five came along, they updated their embedded player to keep pace with their media hosting peers.

Libsyn Podcast Player Features

  • Playback speed and skip controls
  • Follow/subscribe options
  • Social sharing
  • Customizable start time and colors
  • You can assign a stats tracking code, so you’ll know what kind of traffic the player generates. 

Blubrry

Blubrry’s new Blubrry Web Player offers closed captioning for their hosting customers. The transcript opens in a window below the player, with a box you can un-check if you don’t want auto-scroll.

If you host with Blubrry, or are thinking of joining them, then you might want to skip down to the PowerPress section. Blubrry owns PowerPress, and if you have a self-hosted WordPress website, you can use PowerPress as your embedded audio player. 

Blubrry Podcast Player Features

  • Playback speed and skip controls
  • Follow/subscribe options
  • Social sharing
  • Closed Captions (transcription)

RedCircle

Powered by RedCircle

RedCircle aims to facilitate the podcast-advertiser relationship. They make it easy for podcasters to run shows with ads. They also make it easy for businesses to advertise on podcasts. This explains why the player doesn’t have a “skip” button. However, listeners can still drag the playhead along if they don’t want to sit through an ad.

RedCircle Podcast Player Features

  • Playback speed
  • Follow/subscribe options
  • Social sharing
  • View Episode takes you to show notes
  • Pro users can customize the colors of the podcast player. 

Podbean

Podbean is a veteran hosting company with the added bonus of having a free tier and a bunch of options for advertising and monetization. Their podcast player offers customizable sizes and colours, along with the usual stuff you’ll know to expect by now.

Podbean Podcast Player Features

  • Playback speed
  • Follow/subscribe options
  • Social sharing
  • Customize the size and colors of the player.

What are The Two Kinds of Podcast Players?

To the casual web surfer, there may not appear to be much of a difference in podcast players. For podcasters, though, there’s a distinction that affects what you can do with the player itself. There are standalone WordPress plugins and native podcast players.

We’ve just taken a look at native podcast players. These come by default with your media hosting account. Your host generates a chunk of code that you copy and paste. You can embed this in a blog post, and voilá: podcast player. Embedding a native podcast player works on Squarespace, Wix, and many other website builders. They offer more flexibility than a WordPress plugin, but not as many features.

Standalone WordPress plugins work on a self-hosted WordPress site. These little nuggets of software offer more options than native players. Our guide to creating a self-hosted WordPress podcast website can help get you set up, if you’re in the market for your own space on the web. Remember, though, you don’t need to own a website to have an online presence for your show. But it can help.

Standalone Podcast Player Plugins

Again, these plugins have features beyond simply listening to your show. Some fit into the browser so the user can navigate through your site while listening. Others have transcripts or customizable buttons for different kinds of user engagement.

Fusebox (Formerly Smart Podcast Player)

The Fusebox Podcast Player & Transcript Tool is meant for podcasters who want to make their show accessible and drive traffic to a specific location. Sure, audiences can enjoy your podcast in their favorite listening app. But with the Fusebox podcast player, your podcast episodes can match up with other online content, providing more value for each. The Sticky Player lets users listen to the podcast player while navigating between pages, too.

Fusebox also now includes podcast hosting, making it a strong competitor to the native options listed in the previous section!

Fusebox’s full podcast player has:

  • A customizable call-to-action button
  • Email capture
  • Speed Control
  • Custom Colors
  • Custom Episode Sorting
  • Featured Episodes
  • Light & Dark modes
  • Mobile-friendly adjustment

Fusebox’s single-episode player has:

  • playback speed adjustment
  • volume control
  • customizable call to action button
  • links to find your podcast in different apps.

Fusebox’s Transcript plugin displays the text of your episode in a fixed window with scroll capability on the page. Not only can this boost your SEO, it doesn’t distract from other information on the page.

And, now, Squarespace, Wix, Shopify, and many other sites can fit together with Fusebox plugins.

fusebox podcast player

Fusebox’s podcast players can improve your SEO, help listeners get to your episodes right away, and give them direct links to engage more deeply with your ideas, products and services. If your business depends on your podcast finding new listeners on a regular basis, this should help.

Simple Podcast Press

Simple Podcast Press is a plugin created by Hani Mourra, a long-time supporter of the podcast community. Simple Podcast Press is all about growth, providing a bunch of tools to increase subscriptions and engagement.

It also extends a little outside the ‘player’ experience, adding a range of unique features that ramp up the user experience on your shownotes themselves.

Simple Podcast Press podcast player
  • Lead magnet style email signup form to increase conversions
  • Subscribe and share links right up front
  • Play speed, skip and volume controls built-in
  • Link to various hosting platforms & automate shownotes publishing
  • Shows podcast reviews inside your WordPress dashboard
  • Create clickable episode timestamps which skip to that point in the episode
  • Collapsible transcripts: include the transcript without cluttering your shownotes page
  • Include your own custom ‘call to action’ buttons right inside the player

And finally, the extra features are the icing on the cake, from clickable timestamps to the ability to create tweeable quotes from your show. If you use Simple Podcast Press to its fullest, the potential is huge.

Simple Podcast Press is as fully featured as it gets when it comes to increasing the growth of your audience, and moving them through your funnel.

The email signup form is really useful, allowing you to add in a headline and description. This allows for including a ‘content upgrade’ or another kind of bonus, which can be great for educational shows.

The buttons inside the player are super-customisable, so no matter what your aim is, you can put it right up front. Subscribe links, email signup, ‘leave a review’ or ‘sign up for my Patreon’. No matter what your Call to Action, you can include it.

PowerPress

Blubrry’s contribution to the standalone podcast player plugin game is PowerPress. What makes this WordPress plugin different is that your podcast episode files are hosted by Blubrry, but your RSS feed is under your URL. You manage your podcast from your WordPress dashboard instead of logging into Blubrry. This is great if you want to manage your website and your podcast in one online spot, rather than logging into different services. You can read more about how to install and use PowerPress on our Podcast Websites guide here.

Features include audio and video players, jump to a given time stamp, podcast import and migration, subscribe tools, and, PowerPress works in eight different languages.

Though you pay for Blubrry hosting, this plugin doesn’t cost anything. All in all, it’s a simple and effective podcast player.

Choosing a Podcast Player: What Are Your Needs?

Like almost every question in podcasting, the answer to “What podcast player should I choose?” is “It depends.” 

If you’re not pushing email lists or a sales funnel, then use the native player from your media hosting service. There’s nothing to download or set up. The code loads quickly. You don’t have to pay for anything else.

If you’re running a business, you need a player with more features. Simple Podcast Press helps you lead your audience to different locations in your site. The Fusebox player is great for panache.

Need Help Choosing or Setting Up a Podcast Player? 

We can always help you narrow down the choices and make your podcast player help your show grow more effectively. In The Podcast Host Academy, we have courses that can help you understand the details of podcasting, so the big picture makes more sense. We also run weekly Q&A sessions there, so you’ll never get stuck on anything again.

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