WordPress audio player.

If audio files make up the bulk of the content on your WordPress website, then your site can benefit from using a WordPress audio player plugin. Whether you’re looking to display popouts, allow downloads, sell tracks, or do something else, one of these WordPress audio player plugins will get the job done. 🎵

6+ Best WordPress audio player plugins compared

1. MP3 Audio Player by Sonaar Music

Let’s start with MP3 Audio Player by Sonaar Music, a plugin built specifically for musicians, beatmakers, and podcasters. It’s a feature-rich tool that’s flexible and easy to use and currently has over 20,000 active installations.

MP3 Audio Player allows you to add unlimited playlists, albums, and podcasts to your website. In addition, it integrates seamlessly with WooCommerce, making it an ideal choice if you’re planning to sell your beats or music. 

MP3 Audio player settings - WordPress audio player plugins

A standout feature of the MP3 Audio player is how customizable it is. You can tailor the titles, fonts, playlists, waveform colors, and various other elements to match the aesthetics of your website and overall brand.

Key features 🎧

  • WooCommerce store support
  • Compatible with Gutenberg Block Editor
  • Unlimited audio albums and playlists
  • Drag and drop editor that allows you to order and organize your tracks
  • Advanced analytics and insights
  • Social media integration for easy sharing

If you’re looking for even more functionality, the Pro version can be a great choice. You’ll be able to enjoy features such as audio previews (e.g., 30-second clips) from full tracks, track shuffling, detailed track descriptions, and the option to add audio watermarks.

Price 💰

While the free version comes packed with a lof of great features, the pro plan (which starts from $49) can unlock many more features and customization capabilities for your diverse needs.

2. AudioIgniter

Next on our list of WordPress audio player plugins is AudioIgniter, a tool that’ll help you create playlists in under five minutes, or even stream your own radio show.

Simple to install and use, it adds a ‘Playlists‘ menu item to your dashboard. Starting from there, you can go on to click Add Playlist and build as many playlists as you want, and choose to enable or disable auto-looping.

Audioigniter - settings.

In the editor, you can fill in fields for name of song, artist and add as many tracks as you want. Once you’re happy with the list, save it, copy the shortcode, and paste it on any post or page.

Here’s how it appears on the frontend. Visitors can adjust the volume on the player.

Audioigniter - frontnd.

Key features 🎧

  • Integrates with WooCommerce to sell music digitally
  • A Buy Now custom field to sell tracks conveniently
  • Each playlist can have its own settings
  • Move multiple tracks into playlist using bulk upload feature (Pro)
  • Customize the color of the player and edit with Visual Composer support (Pro)
  • Widget available, and player position can be fixed (Pro)

With the Pro plugin, you can do more on the interface like rearrange tracks, specify lyrics per track, categorize them, and set individual tracks on repeat mode. Not just the interface, you’ll be able to change options on the playlist too wherever you embed it. It’s tested with more than 150 themes, so you can be fairly certain about compatibility.

Price 💰

The free version may be sufficient if all that you need is to create a simple playlist or even multiple playlists displaying some fields. But for more features, you can purchase a Pro license for $34.30.

3. Compact WP Audio Player

Compact WP Audio Player is one plugin that doesn’t take up space on your screens. It simply adds a Play button on the frontend of a post, making it one of the coolest WordPress audio player plugins. The button changes to Pause while the song plays.

WordPress audio player plugins : Compact WP.

You’ll be able to modify settings to allow autoplay, looping, and volume control. The plugin is responsive and files play on all devices.

Compact WP - Settings

Key features 🎧

  • Create podcasts or add songs by embedding an .mp3 or .ogg file in your page or post
  • Audio file plays as soon as page loads on account of autoplay
  • Doesn’t occupy space on your screens
  • Offers a preview for sale of audio files
  • HTML5 compatible, so works with iOS devices too

There’s really not much to support long playlists, so you may want to skip this plugin if you want to create albums. On the other hand, if you like the idea of multiple Play buttons, you can list multiple tracks on your post or page, with each track having its own compact audio player button.

Example of Compact PLayer WordPress audio plugin.

The plugin makes it easy to offer pre-sales previews. A premade template is included, and a shortcode tweak allows seek bar addition and volume control. You’ll be able to change the color of the button via the theme’s CSS. Besides, when added to header or footer, it’ll play only on your homepage.

Price 💰

Free.

4. PowerPress Podcasting Plugin

One of the most popular WordPress audio player plugins, PowerPress enjoys 60,000+ active installations and can be freely downloaded from the WordPress repository.

It’s great for podcasting, allowing you to submit episodes to Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, TuneIn and Google podcasts. If you’re hosting your media files on BluBrry Podcasting, you’ll be able to submit to Spotify as well.

What’s helpful is you can choose to go the whole distance with the Advanced mode or keep it simple with the default simple mode, and activate additional features as you become familiar with its ways. The simple mode will hold your hand as you create your first podcast with basic settings.

: PowerPress - settings.

Once you’re done configuring the settings, you’ll see a neat player added to the frontend.

Example of the PowerPress WordPress Audio player plugin interface.

Key features 🎧

  • Track your podcasts with basic stats for free (or with all details for $5 per month)
  • Integrates your media player and embeds it in your posts and pages
  • Create subscribe pages and optimize for podcast SEO
  • Supports multi podcast, podcast categories, post type, and post taxonomy
  • Place player below or above content, or exactly where you want by using player shortcode
  • Options to add YouTube embeds, allow downloads, or play in new window

Other advanced features include managing user roles, post type/taxonomy/premium podcasting. It supports Multisite, as well as migration of podcasts from other podcasting plugins, or from other services/platforms such as LibSyn, PodBeam, SoundCloud, or Squarespace.

Price 💰

Free.

5. Audio Dock

If you’re looking to create any suitable mood for visitors as they browse your site, Audio Dock won’t disappoint. To get the player to appear on your screen, you’ll first have to create a track in the Audio Dock settings area via Admin > Settings > Audio Dock.

You’ll be able to add as many tracks as you want, adjust colors for bar and tracks, and enable autoplay.

Audio Dock plugin - Settings.

Once you’re done, you’ll find a neat sticky player added to the bottom of your screen on the frontend.

Example of the Audio Dock WordPress audio player.

Key features 🎧

  • Works with any WordPress theme
  • Add your own custom title for each track
  • Responsive, fits any screen size
  • Add any number of audio tracks
  • Custom bar and track color

With Audio Dock, all it takes is a few simple steps to get a neat player at the bottom of your screens.

Price 💰

Free.

6. Cue

The next plugin on our list of WordPress audio player plugins is Cue. Cue relies on the WordPress media editor to upload audio files to the library, from where you can select them to add them to a playlist.

It allows you to add as many tracks as you want and rearrange them using drag and drop. After adding a thumbnail, copy the shortcode and paste it into any page or post. Cue automatically fills up the title, track, and length of audio, though you can alter it manually, too.

Cue - Settings.

On the frontend, a user can control volume or skip tracks.

WordPress audio player plugins : Cue - frontend.

Key features 🎧

  • Cue is responsive
  • Create unlimited playlists and embed them anywhere, including in a widget
  • Connect to external sources like Amazon S3 or a content delivery network (CDN)
  • Customize player background image

The Pro plugin offers themes to change the appearance of the player, and offers purchase or download links for each track. Moreover, visitors can continue playing with the player in a popup and share playlists with friends. You’ll also have access to insight into how visitors interact with your track.

Price 💰

$49.

7. Bonus Option – Audio Block

Screenshot of the Audio Block information page from WordPress.org.

The last option on our list is an Audio Block, and of course, it’s a little different. Unlike the previous tools, this choice isn’t a plugin. Instead, you can find it right in the default WordPress Block Editor, and use it to embed audio files into your posts and pages.

To add an audio block, you can simply type “/audio” and hit enter in a new paragraph.

Adding an audio block to your page

The audio block will give you three options: Upload an audio file, pick one from your media library, or add one with a URL.

Once you’ve uploaded your audio file, you can customize settings such as playback controls, autoplay, loop, and volume directly within the block settings.

Choosing between the Audio Block in WordPress and a dedicated audio plugin often depends on your specific needs and preferences.

For example, if you prefer simplicity and ease of use, then this might be the right choice because you’ll be able to work within the default WordPress environment without having to install additional plugins. On the other hand, if you’re looking for more advanced features and settings, then third-party plugins might be the best choice.

Key features 🎧

  • Supports various audio file formats, including MP3, WAV, and OGG.
  • Simple embedding of audio files by uploading them directly to the WordPress media library or selecting existing files.
  • The block provides standard playback controls such as play, pause, volume adjustment, and the ability to seek within the audio file.
  • Responsive design that works well with different devices

Price 💰

Free

Get started with your WordPress audio player 🏁

That’s it folks, our list of the best WordPress audio player plugins.

Have you tried any? Any questions about which one is right for you? Ask away in the comments!

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