Tools to listen to podcasts together

PulsarCast is a privacy-focused podcast player that explicitly advertises keeping playback position synced across a user's devices, so it directly addresses playback-alignment concerns but for a single listener's devices rather than coordinated group listening.

Won’t cover: Its syncing is framed around continuing listening across the same person's devices, not real-time synchronized playback between separate listeners.

Spotify is a full-featured streaming app that hosts a large catalog of audio episodes and is commonly used for shared listening scenarios, making it a natural platform to try coordinating playback with someone else.

Won’t cover: Spotify is primarily built for individual playback and catalog discovery rather than guaranteed real-time synchronized playback between multiple listeners.

Overcast is a powerful podcast player focused on reliable playback and listening features, so it meets the core need to play the same episode but does not present itself as a group-synchronization tool.

Won’t cover: Overcast focuses on single-user listening features and does not advertise real-time synchronized group playback between different listeners.

Podbean is a full podcast player with robust discovery and playback capabilities, so it can play the same episodes simultaneously but isn't positioned as a co-listening synchronisation app.

Won’t cover: The app is designed for individual listening and discovery rather than orchestrating real-time, multi-user synchronized playback.