Online radio with over 20K stations!
Odio is a free and clean source software, designed for streaming radio stations using an internet connection. The cross-platform software gives users access to over 20,000 radio stations from around the world. Although free, Odio is not open source and is a little heavy as compared to other radio players. However, it has a modern-looking UI, that shares a stark resemblance to Spotify. Irrespective of the design, the electron-based program is here to stay as it supports numerous stations from over 206 countries, offers tag and language-based search, and a library to save your favorite stations. The internet radio player comes with a user-friendly experience and is available for download on Mac, Linux, and Windows devices.
A modern-looking radio streaming service!
With Odio, you can find and tune in to local radio stations from over 206 countries!
Listening to online radio is very convenient. Most players bring together numerous radio stations together so you can listen to thousands of songs playing across the globe. Odio is pretty similar to other radio stations in that aspect. However, it offers a lot more than the others primarily owing to its package size which is almost ten times higher than other similar software.
It provides users access to multiple radio stations from over 206 countries and segregates them by three options - Featured, Top Clicks, and Highest Voted, making discovery a lot easier. The macOS app is completely free for all users, with no locked features or in-app purchases.
Familiar and feature-laden interface
Odio is unique because of its intuitive design. While it does resemble Spotify and the Windows 10 user interface, it doesn’t share much resemblance with other radio stations. The desktop app comes with a search bar where users can search for stations by their name or tag. The app window has two panels, along with a central Home tab. The latter suggests radio stations by genres, niches, highest voted, featured, and more.
While the right-hand side panel of Odio shows the station being played, the panel on the left starts with ‘My Stations,’ which contains stations recently viewed or added to favorites. Right below this library, users get a ‘Stations By’ tab for exploring stations by Countries, Languages, and community-contributed Tags.
Apart from the navigation button that leads to the app’s Home, this panel allows users to switch between light and dark themes, and also send in the details of any bugs they come across. All of these features make Odio quite heavy for an online radio, but also a great alternative for anyone wishing to discover music from around the globe.
No delay between playbacks
A good thing about Odio is that there is no delay between clicking on the play button and the beginning of a stream. The radio player hardly spends a second connecting to a stream when skipping through different stations. With Odio, you can listen to stations just like you would listen to music on a traditional player.
Once you find a station that you like, you can click on its profile to learn about the station’s primary streaming language, bitrate, and the codec that it uses. Apart from this, you can add your favorite stations to a personal library for easy access. Recently viewed stations can be explored pretty easily, ensuring you always stay organized within the desktop app. There is however one drawback to the app - it doesn’t allow users to record songs off the station.
Where can you run this program?
Odio has been developed independently by Mendi Eri, a full-stack engineer, who is currently working on upgrades for the next version. The app is still in beta stage but runs well on Mac, Windows, and Linux devices. The online radio is proprietary software, developed keeping in mind its functionality as a cross-platform radio player. The new version of Odio’s macOS App may contain a ‘Quick Play’ option along with social integrations and other bug fixes.
Is there a better alternative?
Odio ranks pretty high in the category of online radio players for Mac, however, it’s functionalities make it quite heavy. If you’re looking for a lightweight and simple radio player with similar features, you can opt for Radium. This internet radio streaming service offers access to a lot of radio stations, a powerful search box, and high sound quality. However, Radium doesn’t filter stations by themes, genres, and countries which makes it less attractive than the Odio desktop app for macOS users.
Our take
Odio is just another electron-based program developed for multiple platforms. However, for a radio streaming service, it comes packed with features. While it doesn’t allow users to record audio stream, it does offer access to over 20,000 stations with filters that make music discovery extremely simple and easy. It has a familiar and minimalist design, which allows for smooth navigation, and there’s hardly any delay between playbacks - for a heavy internet radio player, these are pretty good functionalities.
Should you download it?
Yes! Odio’s desktop app for macOS is responsive and allows for maximum music discovery. For all audiophiles around the world, this is a must-have music service.
