List of Podcast Software for Podcasters and Clients

Jump directly to the section about podcaster software or podcast client software.

Podcast is a new media technology that takes advantage of the existing Internet standards to host and transfer files, including a mechanism to let consumers check for updates easily.

The hosting and transferring of a podcast file is done exactly like you publish any other web pages, archive files, and other downloadable files. As it doesn’t use any non-standard protocols, there is no proprietary software involved. This makes the publishing inexpensive. On the consumers’ end, the barrier to adopt this new technology is minimized.

Software programs are used to automate most of the process. On the podcaster’s end, software can help from recording, editing and mixing podcast media to publishing and generating podcast feed.

On the client’s end, software is the key to the whole automation of downloading and syncing time-shifted media to portable media players — or computer desktop, if you so choose.

Let’s take a look at each different software. This article doesn’t intend to provide a complete list of podcast software just like in any directory list. Far from that, instead of confusing new podcasters and end users who want to start consuming podcasts, I will only list popular software.

If you choose just one of them, chances are you are going to do very fine. So without further ado, let’s get into it.

Podcast software for podcasters

Software are available on almost any popular computer platforms. Some have very specific functions. Others are now integrated into all-in-one software just for podcasters so they don’t have to switch between programs.

Personally, integrated software that have all the functions in one program can save you money and are handy to have.

Using separate programs for different operations is not so much more difficult. Often it even is easier because usually professional software like audio recording and editing software have advanced features that are otherwise not available on the all-in-one software.

If you want to use such features, you have no choice but install a couple of different software.

For web publishers who have existing FTP software perhaps doesn’t have much need for a complete program, but one good podcast recording and editing software that includes mixing music and sound effects, for example.

All-in-one podcasting software

The ePodcast Series - Choose from one of the software series for your podcasting need: ePodcast Express, ePodcast Creator and ePodcast Producer.

Podcast recording, mixing and editing software

Audacity - Free open-source software for recording and editing sound files for Windows, Macintosh and Linux.
Adobe Audition - Professional audio recording, mixing and editing software from Adobe.
Sony Sound Forge - Another professional audio software from Sony Creative Software.

GarageBand - Mac-based audio software from Apple.

Podcast feed generation software

FeedForAll - Windows- and Mac-based software to create RSS feeds for news and podcasts.

Podcast publishing software (FTP program for podcaster)

FileZilla - A popular and open-source FTP client (and server).
SmartFTP - This is a free FTP client which includes advanced features like secure file transfer.

Podcast publishing software (server-side)

WordPress - A popular free and open-source blogging platform that will publish and generate podcast feed (iTunes compatible) for you — a plugin (PodPress) is required.
Drupal - A complete web content management system which includes podcast support among others.

Online services

Hipcast - Point and click podcast publishing service, including web audio support via Flash-based players.
Podango - This service lets podcasters host and manage their own shows or stations using the hosting, syndication audience measurement and Web site creation tools.

Podcast software for consumers (podcastchers)

A new word is coined to refer to the consumer’s end of podcast software: podcatcher (also known as podcatching client or podcatching software.) Podcasting used to refer to both the publishing and consuming end of the process, but obviously they are two different things.

What a podcast client does is mainly to check for new podcasts in a podcast RSS feed and download the files to the desktop. It can optionally sync the files to the portable media player. Those are the main functions of the software.

Additionally, each podcast client software can have different features. Some of them include download scheduling, automatic addition to your favorite media player playlist, automatic tagging for the new downloaded files, organization of media files in a library, disk space management (deleting older files), and so on.

As podcast feed is just an extension of the existing RSS (Really Simple Syndication) format, some popular feed readers have upgraded to support podcatching too.

Here are lists of some of the most popular podcatching software for different operating system platforms.

Podcatching software for Windows

HappyFish - Free podcast client that will automatically sync podcasts to iPods and other MP3 players.
FeedStation - By Newsgator, this application is also part of the FeedDemon desktop RSS news reader.
iTunes - The desktop media player of choice for many iPod users and millions of others.

Podcatching software for Mac

iTunes - This desktop media player is developed by Apple originally for Apple Mac computers and operating system.
Juice - This software is formerly known as iPodder. It is available in both Mac and Windows.