Free · Open source · Android 10+
Freqcast is a free, open-source Android radio player. Paste a station’s website and it finds the stream for you — then listen in the background, in the car or from a home-screen widget, with live rewind, sleep timers and alarms.
Try it: tap ▶ · open Discover · swipe a card left · press, hold and drag to reorder.
Some directory stations are plain http and can’t start from a web page.
The core idea
Drop in a station's homepage. That's the only input Freqcast needs.
It checks the Radio Browser directory first, then scans the page itself for a playable stream.
The stream is probed before it's written to your library, so dead links never make it in.
Grounded in real feedback
Recurring frustrations with internet radio apps, from public reviews and forum threads.
"Ads cut into the stream every 5–10 minutes — sometimes restarting playback entirely." source ↗
Zero ads. Always."Favorites can't be reordered — you're stuck with whatever order you added them in." source ↗
Drag to reorder, any time"Turned out the 'radio' app was quietly running dozens of third-party trackers." source ↗
Zero trackers. Open source."Adding a stream by hand either isn't supported, or the app crashes trying to reconnect." source ↗
Manual add + reconnects on its own"No Android Auto — a gap open-source radio apps have left unfilled for years." source ↗
Android Auto, from day oneEverything included
All free. Nothing metered, gated or upsold.
Search a global directory of stations by name, genre, country, language, or what's near you.
If the connection drops, Freqcast waits a moment and tries again — without hammering your battery.
Rewind live radio on compatible streams — missed something? Step back 15, 30 or 60 seconds.
Shows the current track title in real time — copy it with one tap.
Fade out and stop after a set time, or wake up to any station with multiple daily alarms.
A home-screen widget for one-tap play, and a browsable station list on the car head unit.
Play or stop a saved station through Gemini and other AI assistants, without opening the app (Android 16+).
Move your library in and out via JSON, OPML, M3U or PLS — switch devices without rebuilding it.
Two-pane layouts on tablets and foldables, and the interface is localized into English, Russian, Spanish and Simplified Chinese.
Inside the app
Always dark: warm amber on charcoal, easy to read day or night.
Why Freqcast
Freqcast keeps everything local and plays any station with a public HTTP/HTTPS or HLS stream. No account, no ads, no proprietary catalog.
Your station list lives in an on-device database. Nothing is synced to a server you don't control.
The full source is on GitHub. Modified or redistributed versions must stay open, too.
Every permission below maps to a feature you can see. Nothing is requested speculatively.
| Permission | What it's for |
|---|---|
| INTERNET ACCESS_NETWORK_STATE | Stream playback and connectivity checks. |
| FOREGROUND_SERVICE _MEDIA_PLAYBACK | Keeps audio playing in the background. |
| POST_NOTIFICATIONS | Shows the media playback notification (Android 13+). |
| WAKE_LOCK | Keeps the network alive while playing with the screen off. |
| RECEIVE_BOOT_COMPLETED SCHEDULE_EXACT_ALARM | Lets wake-up alarms survive a reboot and fire on time. |
| ACCESS_COARSE_LOCATION | Only for Discover's "near me" search — sent for that one search, never stored. |
Grab the latest signed APK from GitHub Releases — no Play Store account, no sign-in.
Build it yourself