Comparison · Updated 12 July 2026
This page is written by the developer of NaviBeat, so read it with that in mind. Every claim about another app is taken from that app's own App Store listing, website, or public source code, is linked at the bottom, and was checked on . Where a feature is simply not mentioned in an app's public materials, the table says not stated rather than pretending that means "no". If you find something out of date, email me and I will fix it.
Side by side
These are the five Apple clients most people currently shortlist, so they are the ones compared here. They are not the whole field: there are many more excellent Navidrome apps in the official directory, and they deserve a look. Amperfy, flo and Shelv are all open source; Sonora and NaviBeat are not. Only NaviBeat is paid. Shelv is the closest competitor on reach: it is free and it gets to the Apple TV and the Mac. The Apple Watch is where the five-platform set breaks for everyone but NaviBeat.
| NaviBeat | Sonora | flo | Amperfy | Shelv | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reach: the same app on every device you own | |||||
| Apple platforms covered natively |
5 / 5 | 1 / 5 | 3 / 5 | 3 / 5 | 4 / 5 |
| iPhone | Native | Native | Native | Native | Native |
| iPad | NativeSidebar layout built for iPadOS | No native iPad appListing is badged "Only for iPhone" | NativeSince v2.3 | Native | Native |
| Mac | Native Mac appSwiftUI. Not Electron, not Catalyst. Mini Player pins on top. | iPhone app on Apple Silicon"Designed for iPhone. Not verified for macOS." | iPad app on Apple SiliconBadged "Designed for iPad" | Native Mac appCatalyst | Native Mac app |
| Apple TV | Native tvOS appFocus navigation, Siri Remote, 4K | None | None | None | Native tvOS app |
| Apple Watch | Standalone playbackMusic stored on the watch, downloaded direct from your server | None | Watch appIts own source drives playback through the iPhone; standalone on-watch playback not stated | None | None |
| CarPlay | YesVoice search in 11 languages, resolved against your own library | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| What sets them apart | |||||
| Multi-library | YesAll, one, or any subset. Server-side filtering. | Not stated | Not stated | Not statedHas multi-account, i.e. several servers, but no per-library filter | Not stated |
| Behind a proxy (Cloudflare Access, Authelia, mTLS) |
YesCustom HTTP headers, mTLS client certificates, Tailscale. No third-party relay. | Not statedTailscale and plain HTTP/HTTPS documented | NoIts App Store listing: installations behind an Identity-aware Proxy "are not supported at this time" | PartlyCustom HTTP headers for Cloudflare Access merged into its source in June 2026, not in a shipped release yet. No mTLS. | Not stated |
| Languages | 11 | 1 (English) | 4 | 1 (English) | 3 |
| Sync to a Rockbox iPod | YesNaviSyncRock, a $4.99 macOS unlock | No | No | No | No |
| Table stakes: everyone here does these well | |||||
| Offline downloads | YesPin a whole artist. Artwork and metadata cached, so the library browses offline. LRU cache with a size limit. | YesTrack, album, playlist. Background download manager, offline mode. | YesDownloads section plus transparent caching | Yes | Yes |
| Streaming quality per network |
YesWi-Fi and cellular set separately, 10 tiers. Auto sends the original on Wi-Fi, a light Opus transcode on cellular. | Not stated | Not statedPlays most formats without transcoding | YesSeparate Wi-Fi and cellular bitrate limits | YesSeparate Wi-Fi, cellular and download transcode profiles on iPhone, iPad and Mac |
| Equalizer | 10-band, with presets | 10-band | Not stated | 10-band, with presets | Not stated |
| Gapless | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes"for appropriate media file formats" | Yes |
| ReplayGain | Track, album or auto | YesLoudness normalisation reads ReplayGain tags | Not stated | YesReads replay gain from the server | Track or album |
| Scrobbling | Last.fm and ListenBrainzRouted through your own server, never direct | Last.fm and ListenBrainz | Last.fm and ListenBrainz | Via the server | Via the server |
| Servers | Navidrome, Airsonic-Advanced, Gonic, any OpenSubsonic server | Navidrome and Subsonic | Navidrome only"purposely designed for Navidrome servers" | Ampache and Subsonic / OpenSubsonic | Subsonic / OpenSubsonic |
| Analytics / trackers | NoneNo backend at all | Data Not Collected | Data Not Collected | None | Data Not Collected |
| The trade-off | |||||
| Price | $5.99 one-timeUniversal Purchase, all 5 platforms. No subscription. | Free | FreeMIT open source | FreeGPL-3.0 open source | Free |
| Open source | No | No | Yes, MIT | Yes, GPL-3.0 | Yes, GPL-3.0 |
"Not stated" means exactly that. It is not a claim that the feature is missing. It means the app's own public listing, site, and source do not mention it, so I am not going to assert either way. If you make one of these apps and I have understated you, tell me and I will correct this page.
Being straight with you
A comparison table written by a developer that concludes "I win everything" is worthless. So here is the straight version: these are all good apps, and here is exactly who each one is for, including the cases where you should pick them over NaviBeat.
You listen only on an iPhone and you want it free. Sonora is a focused, fast-moving iPhone client with CarPlay, offline downloads and a "Roadtrip DJ" radio mode, and if the phone is the only place you ever listen, it does that job well. What you give up: there is no native iPad app (its listing is badged "Only for iPhone"), no Mac app, no Apple TV app and no Apple Watch app, no multi-library support is stated, and it is English only.
Open source matters to you. flo is MIT licensed with a public repository, so you can read every line, fork it, and build it yourself. That is a guarantee a closed-source app like NaviBeat simply cannot offer, and it is a completely legitimate reason to choose it. It is also free, has native iPhone and iPad apps, CarPlay, scrobbling, alternate app icons and colour themes, and it runs on iOS 16, so it reaches older hardware than NaviBeat's iOS 18 floor. What you give up: no native Mac or Apple TV app, no equalizer, and by its own App Store listing it does not support servers behind an Identity-aware Proxy.
You are on Ampache, or you want a mature GPL open source client with a native Mac build alongside the iPhone and iPad apps. Amperfy has been around far longer than NaviBeat and has a real community behind it. What you give up: no Apple TV app, no Apple Watch app, and no Rockbox sync.
You want Apple TV and Mac, for free, and you want open source. Shelv is the closest thing to NaviBeat's reach: a free, GPL-3.0 client with native iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple TV apps, plus CarPlay, gapless and offline downloads, and you can read every line of it. If your listening is TV plus desktop and you do not want to pay, it is a genuinely strong choice and I will not pretend otherwise. What you give up: there is no Apple Watch app (its own Xcode project has no watchOS target at all), so you cannot leave the phone behind on a run. There is also no Rockbox sync, no equalizer, and no per-library musicFolder filtering, though it does let you switch between multiple servers.
If you are new to self-hosting and you only have an iPhone, install a free client and see whether you even enjoy the workflow before you spend anything. NaviBeat earns its $5.99 when you have several Apple devices, a server behind a proxy, a large or multi-library setup, or you care about the audio path. If none of that is you, the free apps are the right call and I would rather you kept the money.
And go look at the rest
Receipts
Every competitor claim above comes from one of these, checked on .
SUPPORTS_MACCATALYST = YES in its own project file.Questions
For most iPhone listeners, NaviBeat. It covers the four things that decide daily use on a phone: true offline listening with full offline browsing, CarPlay with voice search in 11 languages resolved against your own library, streaming quality set separately for Wi-Fi and cellular across 10 tiers, and a real audio path with a 10-band equalizer, ReplayGain and gapless playback. It is $5.99 once, and that same purchase covers iPad, Mac, Apple TV and Apple Watch. If you want free, Sonora and flo are both good, and flo is open source.
NaviBeat. Among the Navidrome and Subsonic clients listed in the Navidrome apps directory and on the App Store as of July 2026, it is the only one with native apps on all five Apple platforms, iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple TV and Apple Watch, plus CarPlay, for one $5.99 Universal Purchase. Shelv comes closest: it is free and reaches the Apple TV and the Mac, but it has no Apple Watch app. The clients that do have a watch app, such as flo, Narjo and Drac’s Jukebox, have no Apple TV app.
Yes. Both Sonora and flo are free on the App Store as of July 2026, and flo is open source under the MIT licence. NaviBeat is paid: $5.99 one time, no subscription, and no in-app purchases in the base app.
Four of them, as of July 2026: NaviBeat, Shelv (free), melia and SubSwift (both Apple TV only). Sonora, flo, Amperfy and play:Sub have no tvOS app at all. NaviBeat is the only one of the four that is also part of a suite covering iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple Watch, so it is the only way to run the same client on the TV and on everything else you own. If you only care about the TV and want it free, Shelv is a genuinely good choice.
It depends entirely on how you listen. If your listening happens on one iPhone and nowhere else, a free client will serve you and you should use one. NaviBeat earns its $5.99 the moment you have more than one Apple device: it is the only client that follows you onto the Apple TV, the Mac and the Watch as the same app, with one purchase and no subscription. It also earns it if your server sits behind Cloudflare Access, Authelia or mTLS, if you run multiple libraries, or if you care about the audio path (10-band EQ, ReplayGain, gapless).