The 10 best WordPress podcast plugins compared

With over 380 million podcast listeners worldwide, podcasting has been gaining traction in recent years. Thanks to robust content management systems like WordPress, hosting your own podcast player has never been easier. With a WordPress podcast plugin, you can take control of your podcast's presentation and ensure that it fits perfectly with your brand image.

Hosting a podcast on a WordPress website can offer significant advantages in terms of how you present your content to listeners.  Although WordPress doesn't have built-in features for showcasing podcasts, using a WordPress podcast plugin can bridge the gap. As well as make it easy to host and manage your podcast.

By using WordPress plugins for podcast integration, you can enhance your listeners' user experience by offering them various options. This includes the ability to play or download episodes, set playback speed, and view show notes.

Additionally, hosting your podcast on your WordPress site through a plugin can save you the trouble of managing multiple hosting platforms. This means that you can easily integrate your podcast with your website, and track its performance using WordPress's built-in analytics.

In this post, we’ll take a closer look at some of the best podcasting plugins for WordPress and see how you can set up a searchable and filterable podcast interface on your site in a few simple steps.

Why should you host your podcast on WordPress?

Before we jump into our roundup of some of the top podcasting plugins available for WordPress sites, let’s take a step back to understand why hosting podcasts on your site is better than using a third-party platform.

Benefits of a WordPress podcast player

These are some of the main benefits of hosting your podcast episodes on WordPress:

Good for SEO

With properly structured podcasts published on your WordPress site, you’ll be able to increase your site's authority in search engine results. This enhances the SEO of your site and makes your site more accessible to search engine robots.

Control over design and display

If you’re aiming to create a podcast site in WordPress, you will have full control over the design and display of your landing pages, podcast episode pages, and pricing pages. Using the default WordPress customizer, you modify the look and feel of your pages according to your brand’s aesthetic.

Control over content and pages - contact us, about us, and other pages

In addition to having full control over the design of your podcast website, you'll also have the ability to add custom content to important pages of your WordPress podcasting website.

Easy access to listeners' metrics and data

With a podcasting plugin, you can overview and access all analytics and track important metrics. This also means you can make improvements to your podcast website based on the data you collect. In addition to the podcast data, you also get access to your own website's metrics. You can use this to compare, analyze, and make pivotal changes to your website's and podcast's content accordingly.

More opportunities for monetization such as sponsors and advertisers

By hosting podcast episodes on your WordPress site, you create more opportunities for your brand to monetize content and create new income streams. One way to do this is by publishing sponsored content on your WordPress podcasting website. Similarly, you can run paid ads on your podcasting website and create a new income stream using your site traffic.

Easy to extend the website with plugins

The best part about using WordPress for hosting podcasts is that you can fully extend the functionality of your website using plugins. For instance, you can include an opt-in email popup when users visit your landing page using an email marketing plugin. This is a simple way to build your email list passively.

What are the most important features of good WordPress podcast plugins?

There are several features that make best WordPress podcasting plugins, including:

1. Audio player: A good podcast plugin should have a built-in audio player that allows visitors to listen to your podcast directly on your website.
2. Subscription options: A good podcast plugin should provide easy subscription options for listeners, such as RSS feeds, email notifications, or subscriptions to podcast directories.
3. Analytics: A good podcast plugin should provide analytics to help you understand how many people are listening to your podcast, where they are listening from, and how long they are listening.
4. SEO optimization: A good podcast plugin should provide options to optimize your podcast for search engines, such as adding metadata, including transcripts, and generating an XML sitemap.
5. Customization options: A good podcast plugin should provide customization options for your podcast player, including the ability to change colors, fonts, and sizes to match your website's design.
6. Compatibility with third-party services: A good podcast plugin should be compatible with third-party services, such as iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, and Souncloud to help you reach a wider audience.
7. Easy management: A good podcast plugin should be easy to manage, allowing you to upload new episodes, update metadata, and manage subscriptions without technical difficulties.

By considering these features when choosing best WordPress podcasting plugins, you can ensure that you choose a plugin that will help you create a high-quality podcasting experience for your listeners

Best podcasting plugins for WordPress

Here, we’ll go over some of the best podcast playlist plugins available for WordPress and discuss the key features each one offers.

#1. Posts Table Pro

Posts Table Pro is a WordPress plugin that’s designed to let you create sortable and filterable tables to list any type of content on your site. You can use it to create a podcast library on your site.

Key features

The plugin automatically creates tables for your posts, products, or any custom post type, such as podcasts. Site visitors can quickly find the content or products they need by entering keywords or by using the sortable columns and filters.

With Posts Table Pro, you don’t have to worry about your site’s performance. The plugin lets you enable AJAX lazy loading, which is useful when you want to list lots of content. This makes it the ideal solution for business owners that are looking to list multimedia content in a sortable table-style layout.

While Posts Table Pro is not a dedicated podcasting plugin for WordPress, it works seamlessly with the Seriously Simple Podcasting plugin. This way, you can host your podcast episodes using Seriously Simple Podcasting and display them on your WordPress site in sortable and searchable tables with filters using Posts Table Pro.

The Seriously Simple Podcasting plugin works great for adding podcasts to your WordPress site and lets you display each one on a separate page. However, it doesn’t offer easy navigation for your site visitors.

This is where Posts Table Pro comes in. It lets you list multiple podcast episodes on a single page in a table-style layout. You can display a search box and offer column sorting options and filters to ensure easy navigation for site visitors. As a result, users can browse the podcast episodes without having to leave the page and use the advanced mode search and sorting options to find the podcast episode they’re interested in.

How to set up a podcast player in WordPress

The best part about Posts Table Pro is that it’s very intuitive to set up and use on your WordPress site. Here’s what you need to do:

1. Get the Posts Table Pro and Easy Post Types and Fields plugins by Barn2 and install them on your WordPress site. You will also need the Seriously Simple Podcasting plugin to host your podcast episodes on your WordPress site.
2. Once all plugins are installed and activated on your WordPress, navigate to Podcasting → Add New Episode from the WordPress admin panel and click on the Add New Episode button.

   

3. Give your podcast episode a title and upload the audio or video podcast file from the Podcast Episode Details section. Once you’re done, make sure to click on the Publish button to continue. Similarly, you can create multiple podcast episodes to list in a sortable table layout, so it’s easier for users to find the episode they’re interested in.
4. Once you’re done hosting your podcast episodes on your WordPress site, use the Easy Post Types and Fields plugin to create a podcast post type. You can name it something like Podcast Episodes.

The Easy Post Types and Fields plugin also lets you create custom fields and custom taxonomies for your podcasts. You can use these to deliver a better user experience on the front end.

1. Go to Post Tables → Add New and create a table using the Table Generator.
2. On the 'Table Columns' page, use the drag-and-drop column builder to create columns for the date, title, and excerpt.
3. For the Title column, click the pencil icon and change it to 'Name' as this column will display the name of the episode.
4. For the Excerpt column, change the name to 'Listen Now'. See the full list of available columns here.
5. Publish the page and view it on the front end. It should look something like this:

#2. Seriously Simple Podcasting

Seriously Simple Podcasting is one of the best podcasting plugins for WordPress sites.

As the name suggests, Seriously Simple Podcasting makes it easy to set up and host podcast episodes on your WordPress site, even if you’re not very tech-savvy. It also lets you generate your podcast’s RSS feed so you can submit your podcasts to popular podcast listening platforms such as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts.

Seriously Simple Podcasting gives you full control over how you set up podcasts on your site. This includes giving your podcast a title, description, category, sub-category, cover art, explicit rating, as well as copyright information. The best part is that you can manage all aspects of your podcasts from the WordPress admin panel. You can even password-restrict specific RSS podcast feeds and only let premium or VIP members access exclusive podcast episodes.

Aside from creating and displaying multiple podcasts anywhere on your WordPress site, Seriously Simple Podcasting also lets you customize the media player. This way, you can change the look and feel of your podcast player according to your brand’s unique aesthetic. Customizations include:

Additionally, the robust WordPress podcast plugin comes with a free analytics add-on. This helps you monitor the performance of your WordPress podcast site. Using the Seriously Simple Stats add-on, you can track important data such as total listeners by date range, by listening sources, or per episode.

Seriously Simple Podcasting and Posts Table Pro

The only downside to the Seriously Simple Podcasting plugin is that it doesn’t let you list podcasts in a sortable table with filters. This can make navigation on your WordPress podcast site much easier and helps your listeners quickly find the podcast episode they’re interested in.

This is why we recommend using the Posts Table Pro plugin to display podcast episodes hosted by the Seriously Simple Podcasting plugin. This way, you can display podcasts on your WordPress site in a table-style layout that users can sort and filter.

#3. Presto Player

Presto Player is a video player for WordPress that provides powerful video and audio podcasting tools for any website. It can work for podcasts, video blogs, and any kind of website. It helps your media look better, play better and engage better, which is why it’s so popular!

Presto Player has been designed to be user-friendly and integrate into any WordPress website with minimal configuration. Setup is simple, hosting and configuring videos is easy and you can use Presto Player on posts and pages, create archives and use media any way you like.

Presto Player can work with media from multiple sources, self-hosted and hosted elsewhere like bunny.net or YouTube. You can capture leads by adding calls to action, adding messages to videos, and including email opt-ins.

Want to add memberships or premium content? That’s easy with Presto Player’s private content function. Mark a podcast as premium and only paying members will be able to access that particular content.

Presto Player provides:

#4. PowerPress Podcasting plugin

PowerPress Podcasting plugin offers a simple yet effective solution for managing and publishing podcast episodes on your WordPress site.

You can start publishing your podcast episodes in a few steps thanks to the quick setup guide. All you need to do is set basic settings for your podcast and start adding content to your podcast episode. Once you’re ready, you can share your podcast on popular listening platforms such as Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and Amazon Music.

PowerPress Podcasting plugin also features a responsive audio and video player. So, all site visitors, including mobile users, can access your podcast episodes on your WordPress site. The WordPress podcast plugin comes with a wide range of conversion optimization features that help you increase subscriptions on your WordPress site. You can quickly set up a subscribe page using a PowerPress Podcasting plugin shortcode. Or, you can use a sidebar widget that lets you set up a subscription box.

In addition to this, the plugin lets you create multiple podcasts, and RSS feeds on a single WordPress site. This means you can create multiple podcast episodes and sort them using podcast categories. As a result, this helps improve navigation on your WordPress podcast site and helps your listeners quickly find the podcast episode they’re interested in.

#5. Buzzsprout Podcasting

Buzzsprout Podcasting is a robust podcasting solution that comes pre-built with all the features you need to create and host your podcasts.

It makes it easy for business owners to get their podcast listed on some of the top podcast-listening platforms, such as:

This way, you don’t have to be restricted by your podcasting plugin and can share your podcasts to all platforms your listeners tune in from.

The WordPress Podcast plugin also features “Magic Mastering'' which is essentially an automatic way of optimizing your podcast video and audio files. This means you don’t have to worry about file types or the bitrate of your video files when uploading podcasts.

In addition to this, you also have access to a fully-responsive podcast player that’s very simple to display anywhere on your WordPress site using a shortcode. You have full control over how the podcast player looks, so you can match it to your brand’s aesthetics. Your listeners can have access to basic playback controls such as skip forward, skip backward, play, pause, and playback speed, as well as share buttons.

#6. Simple Podcast Press

Simple Podcast Press is a professional podcast player for WordPress that’s designed to help you optimize conversions on your WordPress podcast website.

The highlight feature of this plugin is the automatic creation and publishing of podcasts to your WordPress site. It will automatically create a unique page for showcasing each of your podcast episodes. All podcast pages feature a fully responsive podcast player. They also include the full description of your podcast episode as well as images from your feed. This lets you automate podcast creation and publishing on your WordPress site. It makes it easier for non-tech-savvy business owners to manage a full-fledged podcast website easily.

Simple Podcast Press is used by more than 1,000 podcasters around the globe due to its simplicity and usefulness. You have access to advanced features such as:

#7. Podlove Podcast Publisher

Podlove Podcast Publisher offers a modern solution for publishing podcasts on your WordPress site.

It makes it easy for business owners to create podcast feeds directly from the WordPress admin panel. The plugin supports multiple media formats for publishing podcast content and makes uploading podcasts to your WordPress site a breeze.

Once you install the Podlove Podcast Publisher plugin on your WordPress site, it will also automatically install the Podlove Web Player plugin. The highly responsive podcast web player supports most video formats, including MP4 H.264, WebM, and Theora, and audio formats such as MP4, AAC, MP3, Vorbis, and Opus. This makes it the perfect solution for businesses that want to use a single plugin to upload and showcase podcasts on a WordPress site. You don't have to worry about converting file formats or using the right audio or video codecs.

#8. FuseBox FM

FuseBox FM offers an affordable and highly intuitive solution for podcast hosting on your WordPress site.

The great thing about FuseBox FM is that it gives you access to all the important data on your WordPress podcast site. This way, you can overview analytics and gauge the performance of your podcast episodes from an intuitive dashboard.

FuseBox FM also comes pre-built with a transcript editor that makes your life easier when publishing podcasts on your WordPress site. The tool lets you quickly add, edit, and format transcripts directly from the WordPress dashboard, making it much easier for you to prepare transcripts for your podcasts during the publishing process.

In addition to this, the feature-rich podcast player helps enhance the listening experience on your WordPress podcast site. You can display the podcast player anywhere on your website and let users listen to your podcast episodes while browsing your site freely.

#9. Libsyn Publisher hub

Libsyn Publisher hub is a great podcasting plugin for WordPress sites that makes it easy to create and publish podcasts directly to your own website, even if you’re not very tech-savvy.

You can quickly create and publish podcast episodes on your WordPress site using the intuitive drag-and-drop builder. As well as instantly showcase your content in responsive podcast players automatically. You also have access to advanced publishing options such as batch publishing podcasts or pre-scheduling episodes. This ensures they’re published on your WordPress site according to your publishing schedule.

In addition to this, the Libsyn Publisher hub offers extensive automation features that help you create future podcast episodes. You can use the same podcast description for all new podcast episodes you publish. You can also use the same settings as before for all future podcasts you publish using the plugin. This is great for quickly creating and publishing podcasts to your WordPress site. The best part is you don't have to worry about entering important field data or configuring settings each time. As a result, it helps speed up the podcast creation and publication process.

#10. AudioIgniter

AudioIgniter is a dedicated music or audio player for WordPress that’s designed to help you offer a responsive audio playback experience on your podcast site.

You can add multiple podcast episodes to “playlists'' and showcase them anywhere on your WordPress site. The plugin also saeamlessly integrates with over 150 WordPress themes.

In addition to this, AudioIgniter offers a fully responsive experience for your listeners. It ensures your WordPress podcast player will look exactly as planned across all devices, including mobile devices.

While it may not be one of the best WordPress podcasting plugins, it's definitely worth looking at.

#11. Liteweight Podcast

The Liteweight Podcast plugin makes it easy to create and run your own WordPress podcasting site.

Liteweight Podcast is known for its simplistic approach to hosting podcast episodes on a WordPress site. It works seamlessly with all the top browsers including IE7, IE8, IE9, Safari, Firefox, and Chrome. The plugin is also HTML5 compatible, making it possible for some users to access your podcasts using their mobile devices.

Tips for testing and evaluating different plugins

Testing and evaluating different plugins can help you make an informed decision and choose a plugin that meets your needs. Here are some tips for testing and evaluating different WordPress podcast plugins:

Common issues and how to troubleshoot them

Even when you use the best WordPress podcasting plugins, it's important to be prepared for potential issues that may arise. Here are some common issues with WordPress plugins  for podcasting integration and how to troubleshoot them:

1. Audio playback issues: The most common issue with podcast plugins is audio playback. If you face any issues with audio playback, check if the plugin is compatible with your version of WordPress. Also, make sure your audio files are in the correct format and are hosted on a reliable server. Additionally, try clearing your browser cache and cookies to resolve any playback issues.
2. RSS feed issues: The first thing to check is if your plugin is configured correctly. Ensure that your podcast plugin settings have the correct information, including the podcast title, description, and episode information. If you still face issues, try regenerating your podcast feed and validating it with a podcast validator tool.
3. Slow website performance: If your website is slow, it may be due to your podcast plugin. In this case, try optimizing your podcast audio files by compressing them. You can also try using a content delivery network (CDN) to host them.
4. Plugin conflicts: Sometimes, plugins conflict with each other and cause issues on your website. Try disabling all other plugins except for the podcast plugin to see if it resolves the issue. If it does, re-enable each plugin one by one to find the conflicting plugin.
5. Compatibility issues: Always make sure that your podcast plugin is compatible with the latest version of WordPress. If you face any compatibility issues, try updating your plugin or using a different plugin altogether.

Start your podcasting journey with WordPress!

Hosting podcasts on a WordPress site has many advantages. That's why you need one of the best WordPress podcasting plugins.

You get full control over the design and look of your podcasting website and can improve your site’s SEO. Moreover, you also have more options for monetization on your podcast website with WordPress. Finally, you can extend the functionality of your site whenever and however you’d like using plugins.

The Posts Table Pro plugin offers one of the best ways to showcase podcast episodes on your WordPress site. Along with a podcasting plugin, like Seriously Simple Podcasting, you can use Posts Table Pro to display podcast episodes better.

Ready to add a WordPress podcast player to your site? Get Posts Table Pro today!