Hi all!
I’ve posted a couple times in the past about Pinepods. The ultimate self-hosted podcast server that syncs times between devices, archives, plays, and manages your podcasts.
I’ve just finished up the very first builds of the official Pinepods mobile apps for both Android and iOS and they are now in testing phases for both the Google Play Store and the App Store respectively. However, I’m at a small stop gap, and I need help from the selfhosted community. I need some people willing to sign up for the testing program and download the app in order to get them posted officially to the store fronts. You don’t even really have to use it (though I would really appreciate it if you gave it a try as Pinepods has really made strides in becoming the best it can be as one of the most feature rich Podcast platforms around) I just need people to join the programs and install the apps in order to get on the app stores. Oh and yes, before you ask, Android Auto and CarPlay support are coming in the next update. Not here yet, but very soon.
I’ve done quite a bit of work to make sign ups for the beta program as easy as possible, you can simply do it here. Simply choose your platform of choice and you’ll get an email with a link.
And as an aside, Pinepods 0.8.0 is days away from fully releasing and has had it’s api FULLY rebuilt in rust. The entire app is now 100% rust and is blazingly fast because of it. If you do want to test out Pinepods, I would highly recommend pulling down the :nightly docker tag rather than latest for the time being. It’s really close to bug free at this point.
I could say more about Pinepods itself but I’ll let the site speak for itself, it got an overhaul in preparation for 0.8.0 and can really sell it. I’ve even just rolled out an official TUI based client called Firewood. I’m really trying to make the best self-hosted Podcast platform that does it all.
GitHub: https://github.com/madeofpendletonwool/Pinepods
Official site: https://pinepods.online/
And the beta testing link once more: https://www.pinepods.online/internal-testing
Feel free to reach out via Github Issues, the feedback page on the site, or messages if you run into any problems!
Thanks for the update! Really appreciate all of the work that has gone into this.
A few quick questions:
- Will the Android app be available on F-Droid? It looks like it should/will be, but I don’t see it on F-Droid at the moment.
- Is it possible to download episodes from a Pinepods server to a local device via a Pinepods client so the episodes can be stored on something externally, like a USB drive or old MP3 player? If so, can all/multiple episodes on the server for a podcast be downloaded without having to manually select each episode? The only download options that I have seen are for the server to download the episodes from the podcast’s source.
I’d love to have it on F-Droid. Pinepods 100% checks all the boxes needed to be on F-Droid. They’ve stopped responding to me though: https://gitlab.com/fdroid/fdroiddata/-/merge_requests/24866 It’s been rather frustrating. It will be on the IzzyOnDroid alternate F-Droid repo though as soon as 0.8.0 is out. And I’ll continue to make an effort to get it on F-Droid ASAP. Nothing I can do if they aren’t responding though.
And yep, the android/ios clients support local downloads in addition to the server downloads. So do the desktop clients. You are correct that currently local downloads only support one episode at a time though. That is on the list to change. All in due time, it’s a brand new app. :)
Just wanted to let you know that I set it up i a free minute and both the website and the app look pretty great on first glance. Didn’t explore much yet and don’t have that much time for podcast listening right now, but I’ll keep and see. :)
One thing regarding this docker-compose example: I put the credentials in an .env file so I can check my composefile in git, and to not have the Postgres stuff twice. Would that make sense to have it in the docs as well or do you prefer to have a single file there?
I suppose yeah. It’s better practice to use an env file for sure. No doubt there. I’ll get it on the list to update.
Appreciate you trying it out though!
Sorry I haven’t looked into your project before but I currently use AntennaPod with Nextcloud Gpoddersync, could I plug PinePods into Nextcloud or does it only work with the Pinepods docker server?
Nvm, found it on the site:
Pinepods has it’s own gpodder server that’s a switch flip in settings to start using, it also supports external gpodder servers like opodsync or Podfetch, and it supports Nextcloud gpodder sync - your choice.
Awesome! Just tried out the iOS app, it looks really nice! It seems to have some quirks with local downloads, like not showing any download progress anywhere, and not being able to download some episodes despite being able to play them. But it looks like there is finally going to be an iOS podcast app that can sync through the gpodder API and that’s amazing. If it has a solid offline mode (syncing progress properly after going back online) it might replace AntennaPod on Android for me as well
Yep for sure. Download progress is a top priority feature coming. It is still somewhat beta since its so new so expect some bugs here and there for sure. As well as some missing features still. For the record it doesn’t technically sync via the gpodderapi. Because this is an official pinepods client this syncs directly via the pinepods api that the web version also uses. This is far faster than doing incremental gpodder api syncs. It still works with gpodder api to other apps because the server side handles that but this app itself uses the pinepods api.
There’s also theoretical progress syncing with offline going back to online currently but I haven’t dug into the intricacies of validating that works yet. Expect more on fleshing that out in the very short-term.
I really appreciate the thoughts on it though! It’s really helpful to have direction in other’s podcast workflows. I genuinely don’t utilize many of the features that have been implemented into Pinepods because I’m a pretty simple listener, so without feedback I wouldn’t know what else people want.
Why are you collecting email addresses and full names for test flight access? When I’ve done test flight in the past for other devs they have never asked for that. It’s just been a link that opens directly in the test flight app.
Because of the Google play variant. Which requires I add an email. I don’t collect the email at all unless you check the box for news, and for the Apple one the form just sends you an email with the link in it. You can totally skip the form and just use the link. Here: https://testflight.apple.com/join/8Aax2BcX
Thanks!! I’ll set things up today 😁
Much appreciated! If you have thoughts on improvements or experience bugs I’d love to hear about it!
Looks great, and I’m fully supportive of this.
However, I can’t understand the use case, and the part I can’t wrap my head around is why the server part is required… What differentiates pinepods from, say, antennapod from a functional standpoint?
Syncing from device to device. If you’d like to archive podcast episodes, say on like a NAS. Syncing of podcasts and episodes between apps and devices.
If you prefer to use one device for podcasts then Antennapods might be a good fit for you.
For me personally, not having to wait for podcast feeds to update on my local device alone is enough to sell Pinepods… Let alone the other benefits. Granted I’m biased.
Makes sense, thank you.
For me it’s syncing between devices, I listen on my PC and on my smartphone. I’ve been using PocketCasts for years but eventually ditched it and haven’t found something to properly replace it. GPodder is an option but when I tried some years ago it didn’t really work. I’ve been looking for something like PinePods for quite a while
I’ve been planning to spin Pinepods up for months anyways so maybe this is the opportunity. 0.8 sounds cool, so I’d just put nightly and go to a specific version later?
What happens to the name I put in the Full Name field?
Correct, just use nightly for the moment and as soon as 0.8.0 is out either switch to that tag or use latest.
Aaannnd literally nothing. You mentioning that made me realize I forgot to remove the name field from the form template I used. Just put garbage in there, and I’ll change it. I only need an email. And even then it’s primarily for the Google variant that I need an email. If you are ios you can skip it completely and just use the test flight link if you want. https://testflight.apple.com/join/8Aax2BcX
Done! Will probably get it from FDroid once the “release” is done but I don’t mind using Playstore to get it out.
Thanks! And let me tell you on that front. What a frustrating experience F-Droid has been: https://gitlab.com/fdroid/fdroiddata/-/merge_requests/24866 They’ve completely ghosted me. So far its looking more like it’ll be available in the F-Droid compatible IzzOnDroid repo. He’s been quite responsive and really helpful.
Oh my that sucks :/
