10 WordPress Audio Plugins to Make Your Site Talk & Sing
Whether you’re a music artist, a business owner or a creative individual, audio content can make your brand or website come to life. Going audio is also a savvy business decision – listening to online radio, podcasts, and audiobooks is at an all-time high.
However, adding audio content to your website may be easier said than done, especially if you want to share large files and libraries. You want to keep this content neat and organized to ensure great user experience. At the same time, you have to think about speed and performance that may be affected as audio content keeps stacking up on your website.
There are several ways to add an audio player to your WordPress site, but using plugins gives you the most flexibility when it comes to features and customizability. Having different needs, goals, and technical challenges in mind, we created this list of paid and free WordPress audio plugins. Take your pick!
Top Free WordPress Audio Plugins
PowerPress
PowerPress describes itself as a plugin “developed by podcasters for podcasters” and its dedication to this goal is truly formidable. PowerPress offers Simple and Advanced mode, but even ambitious podcasters will be able to find everything they need with PowerPress’ key features. They include full Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts support, integrated HTML5 media players, subscription tools and the ability to import your podcast from platforms like SoundCloud, LibSyn, PodBean, Squarespace, etc.
Some of the special treats you get with this great plugin are podcasting SEO and the options to create separate podcasts by category and media format. You can also add a Skip to Position in Player shortcode, allowing your visitors to skip to various parts of your audio file based on pop-up text or timecodes.
CP Media Player
CP Media Player is a multipurpose audio and video player that will enable you to publish files with MP4, OGG, WebM, MP3, and WAV extensions, as well as WebSRT subtitle files. It works with all the browsers that implement the HTML5 solution.
Its main features include the option to embed your audio player on any page of your website, the ability to create playlists and customize the player’s design. If you decide to go Premium, you get the option to sell audio files using PayPal as a gateway, as well as the integrations with various WordPress editors including Classic Editor, Gutenberg, and Elementor.
Compact WP Audio Player
Compact WordPress Audio Player plugin is sheer simplicity and functionality. This plugin allows you to embed an .mp3 or .ogg audio file on your WordPress post or page using a simple shortcode. It boasts compact design and compatibility with all the popular Internet browsers. This plugin comes with an extra option to autoplay your audio content as soon as the page loads
MP3 Music Player by Sonaar
If you need an mp3 player on your WordPress site, but want to have more customizing options and functionalities, check out MP3 Music Player by Sonaar. It will allow you to add an unlimited number of MP3 and M4A audio files, and create as many playlists and albums as you need.
You can embed these albums and playlists using shortcodes or the Elementor widget. This powerhouse possesses a great design with an extra option to add a waveform bar to your player. You can play with colors, Google fonts and call-to-action buttons linking to URLs that will allow users to buy or download your audio files. This plugin also supports mp3 and radio streaming.
Audio Album
If you’re looking for a player that neatly blends into the page and at the same time leaves you a lot of space to customize with images and text description, pay attention to Audio Album. To see this WordPress audio player in action, visit Dave Draper Creations for which the plugin was originally created. The plugin allows you to group mp3, ogg, src, wma, m4a, and wav audio files as a single album block. You can change its color and add multiple albums to your website page.
Using a couple of simple shortcodes, you can create buttons with pop-up windows containing lyrics and links.
WP YouTube Lyte
WP YouTube Lyte is a good choice for website owners who want to avoid uploading files to their website server and seek to preserve optimal loading speed. This plugin is a great shortcut to that goal, allowing you to insert responsive “Lite YouTube Embeds”. The embeds maintain the standard look of an embedded video, but they will start loading the full file only if the user clicks on a specific link.
You can also configure this plugin to cache YouTube thumbnails locally, enhancing performance because these “lyte” videos do not require requests to the YouTube servers. While this is not an actual audio player, it’s a great solution for users who want to incorporate audio and video content, but deal with limited space on the server.
Top Premium WordPress Audio Plugins
WavePlayer
WavePlayer is a full package HTML5 audio plugin for WordPress. You can use it on both music and podcast websites. Its customizable waveform-based design is sleek and modern, so you can easily customize it to suit your unique visual identity.
It comes with full integration with the media manager and visual creation of playlists, as well as WooCommerce integration that lets you list tracks and albums as batch products. This plugin also offers a great Loading Mode that enables you to select the most fitting loading option. For example, your website can automatically load the entire playlist, or load each file individually.
This WordPress audio plugin is a good choice for users who want a solid, simple, and well-styled WordPress audio player.
tPlayer
tPlayer is a premium HTML5-based solution for users who want to have it all: customizability, flexibility, and responsiveness. This audio and radio player works with any WordPress theme, major browser, and device. With this WordPress audio plugin, you get to create an unlimited number of playlists with as many audio files as you want. There are no boundaries to the choices you get with this powerful player.
This plugin works both with the files on your website server or content imported from external storage or audio and video platforms. It is compatible with WPBakery, Gutenberg, and DIVI builder.
Your audio files can be enriched with descriptions featuring artist, title, album cover, duration, as well as cool song statistics and social media share options. tPlayer allows you to exercise full control over the way your audio content is displayed. You can enable or disable autoplay, shuffle, social share, advertisements, and default volume mode.
There are 10 color themes you can choose from to fully customize the look.
ZoomSounds
If you’re in need of something more and stylish and personal, try ZoomSounds, a plugin that allows you to add self-hosted mp3, m4a, and wav files, as well as mp3 shoutcast radio stations to your website.
It is easy to set up – it requires a simple shortcode to work and has a shortcode generator for audio files and playlists. You can effortlessly upload batches of files from a folder and use SASS or CSS to additionally customize the audio player’s design. The design is an absolute forte of this plugin, boasting fully responsive, retina-ready layout optimized for touch devices.
ZoomSounds allows you to add a download option for your playlists and single audio files. You can make these downloads fully available for all visitors or limited to registered users. With one purchase, you get lifetime updates for this plugin.
Royal Audio Player
With Royal Audio Player, the title says it all – if you want a perfect user experience and endless choices, this is the go-to WordPress audio plugin. This is a fully responsive mp3, audio, video, and YouTube player that allows you to add files any way you want. It works on every device and browser. Moreover, you can create playlists that consist of a mix of self-hosted audio files and content imported from multiple external sources.
With this plugin, you get to create playlists from a folder or load them from HTML markup, XML file, Podcasts, Official.fm, Youtube and SoundCloud.
It is hard to list all the options you get with Royal Audio Player, but it is safe to say that you can fully customize every second of your website visitors’ audio experience. You can enable or disable optional deeplinking and uninterrupted audio playback with a pop-up window. The playlists can be enriched with all the advanced features you need – shuffle, loop, repeat, advertisement timestamps, etc.
You can control who gets to hear your music or podcasts by creating password-protected tracks. There’s an option to enable users to create custom playlists, search for specific files or sort them. They can download or buy files and albums.
Finally, Royal Audio Player allows HTTP Live Streaming, HLS, and m3u8 audio support on all browsers and devices.
Conclusion
When it comes to your goals and needs, we’ve taken any possible scenario into account – so you’ll likely find something that’s the right fit for your website. However, WordPress audio plugins are not the only way to add audio content to your website. You can save a lot of time on technical fine-tuning and customizing by simply installing a WordPress theme specifically designed for music or podcast websites.
We hope this article was helpful. If you liked it, feel free to check out some of these articles as well!
