About Podtastic
Podtastic is an independent podcast app built for listeners, not advertising companies. It's made by a small team, led by founder Ben Bowler, and it's shaped by more than fifteen years of building audio and music software.
Why Podtastic exists
Most podcast apps are built around what's good for advertisers and platforms. Podtastic is built around what's good for the person listening: your data stays private, ad SDKs and tracking IDs stay out, and you stay in control of how you listen. Smart Skip, Smart Summaries and Smart Topics do the tedious work so you can spend your time on the parts worth hearing.
Who's behind it
Ben is a self-taught developer with a first-class Computer Science with AI degree from Goldsmiths, University of London. He's spent his career building consumer products, with a long thread running through audio and music:
- Chew.tv: a live-streaming platform for DJs and radio stations that grew to around 500,000 users and was acquired by BandLab in 2015.
- StreamOn: a multi-platform live-streaming broadcast tool, acquired by Wistia in 2021.
- Aux: a collaboration app for music producers, still going, with generative-AI tools added in 2024.
- SendMusic and other tools built for the music industry over the years.
That audio heritage, plus recent work integrating generative AI into consumer products, is what Podtastic is built on. The approach is deliberately indie: ship, listen to real listeners, and iterate.
How it's funded
Building and maintaining a multi-platform, open, distributed podcasting app costs a lot! Recently large media platforms with hundreds of millions in funding have entered the space with the goal of killing the RSS feed and making podcasting just one more entertainment form in their closed subscription apps. Your small monthly payment goes a small way to covering the costs, while sending a big message to these platforms that you want to keep podcasting open.
Read the Save Open Podcasting campaign
Get Podtastic
The independent podcast app built for listeners, not advertising companies. Try it free.
Questions? See Help & Support or read the blog.