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Welcome 👋
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Castopod is a free & open-source hosting platform made for podcasters who want engage and interact with their audience.
Castopod is easy to install and was built on top of CodeIgniter4, a powerful PHP framework with a very small footprint.
::: info Status
Castopod is currently in beta but already quite stable and used by podcasters around the world!
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Features
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🌱 Free & open-source (AGPL v3 License) -
🔐 Focused on data sovereignty: your content, audience, and analytics belong to you, and you only -
🪄 Podcasting 2.0 features: GUID, locked, transcripts, funding, chapters, location, persons, soundbites, … -
💬 Built-in social network:-
🚀 Castopod is part of the Fediverse, a decentralized social network -
❤️ Create posts, share, favourite, and comment on episodes
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📈 Built-in analytics:-
⚖️ GDPR / CCPA / LGPD compliant -
🪙 Standard IABv2 audience measurement -
🏡 On-premises analytics, no third party involved
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📢 Built-in marketing tools:-
✅ SEO ready (open-graph meta-tags, JSON-LD, …) -
📱 PWA: install as a standalone app -
🎨 Customizable theme colors -
🎬 Generate ready-to-share Video clips from episodes -
🔉 Generate soundbites -
▶️ Embeddable player, embed your episodes on any website
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💸 Monetization:-
🔗 Funding links -
📲 listen-to-click ads -
🤝 value4value / WebMonetization
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📡 Publish your episodes everywhere with RSS:-
📱 On all indexes and apps: Podcast Index, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Deezer, Podcast Addict, Podfriend, … -
⚡ Broadcast your episodes instantly with WebSub
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📥 Podcast import: move your existing podcast into Castopod -
📤 Move your podcast out of Castopod -
🔀 Multi-tenant: host as many podcasts as you want -
👥 Multi-user: add contributors and set roles -
🌎 i18n support: translated in English, French, Polish, German, Brazilian Portuguese & Spanish… with more to come!
Motivation
The podcasting ecosystem is decentralized by nature: you can create your podcast as an RSS file, publish it on the web and have it shared everywhere online.
It is in fact one of the only media to have stayed this way for a long time.
As usages are evolving, more and more people are getting into podcasts: whether it is creators finding new ways to share their ideas, or listeners in the search for better content.
With podcasting becoming more widely used, some companies are trying to shift it towards a more controlled and centralized medium.
Castopod was created in an effort to provide an open and sustainable alternative to hosting your podcasts, promoting decentralization to ensure that podcasters creativity can express itself.
This project is pushed by the open-source community, and specifically by the Fediverse and Podcasting 2.0 movements.
Comparison with other solutions
We believe that a solution is not necessarily right for everyone, it highly depends on your needs. So, here are comparisons with other tools to help you to gauge whether Castopod is the right fit for you.