[klelatti]

I use PocketCasts (on iOS) and I'm happy enough to pay for a subscription (extra benefits are marginal though).

It's less about features, I think, and more about the overall experience. It's probably quite personal too, but in no particular order:

- Smoother and more responsive UI

- Less cluttered and more dense UI eg visual overview of all my subscriptions

- Silence trimming

- Sharing from a given place in a podcast

I do use Spotify for music though so I'm not completely anti the Spotify experience. In fairness to the Spotify designers I do think that they have a more difficult job in integrating podcasts into an app that is mainly a music player.

[mey]

Another user of PocketCasts (Android and Windows).

In addition to the above, I make use of

- podcast specific auto download, retention, and playback settings

- clean Android Auto integration. When I switch from Pandora to PocketCasts, it's quite clear what is happening. It intelligently handles pausing/resuming playback while notifications are playing. Even rewinding a little if it's been a bit since you listened.

- Progress sync, so I can pickup where I was on different versions of the app. (Desktop/Web/Android)

- Fast refresh of feeds. Your phone asks their server for the status rather than calling each server individually. This was a bigger issue back in the day.

[chrisco255]

I use it on Android and also quite happy with it after years of use.