gPodder

gPodder is the elder statesman of open-source podcast clients: first released by Thomas Perl in 2005, still actively developed 20+ years later, and running on Linux, macOS, and Windows from the same Python codebase.

Origins

Thomas Perl started gPodder in 2005 as a podcast client for Linux, initially a GTK+ Python app for GNOME's desktop environment. It was among the first "podcatchers" the open-source community produced, and it grew into a cross-platform project as the podcast format itself grew up. Twenty years later, gPodder is still shipping regular releases, run by a community of contributors around Thomas's original codebase. It is genuinely one of the oldest continuously-maintained podcast apps of any kind.

What it does

gPodder subscribes to any open RSS feed and also handles YouTube channel feeds, FeedBurner, and SoundCloud, treating them all as episode sources equally. It's a downloader-first client: episodes get pulled to disk and played from local files, with a strong CLI mode that turns the whole thing into something you can script into a broader media workflow (auto-download new episodes overnight, filter by title regex, batch-export to a portable player). Nothing about the app is locked to a GUI.

The subscription list is a plain OPML file. Playback position, subscriptions, and history sync between installations through gpodder.net (Thomas's open, community-run sync service that AntennaPod, Kasts, and other open podcast clients also speak). If you don't want to trust the community server, you can self-host the sync service with gpodder-nextcloud.

Where you get it

Linux (in most distribution repositories and via Flatpak), macOS (Homebrew or DMG), and Windows (installer or Chocolatey). GPL-licensed. Runs on any machine that runs Python 3.

Current stance

Actively developed by a small community of contributors, part of the open-source desktop-Linux fabric for two decades, and the pick for people who want a proper cross-platform desktop client rather than a mobile app. If you also want a mobile app that syncs with gPodder's server, AntennaPod (Android) and Kasts (Plasma Mobile) both support the same sync protocol. If you want a Python-hackable client where you can literally read the code that plays your podcasts, this has been the answer since 2005.