Anchor began its life in a way not dissimilar to Clubhouse: an audio sharing tool frequented by Silicon Valley investors and growth hackers. In 2018 it pivoted to providing free podcast hosting, and has remained a popular choice for beginners and those wanting to save money.
Anchor has a well-considered mobile app that makes content production easy, however it’s geared more towards a style of podcasting that doesn’t really offer value or sustainability: a sort of call-in talk show with added music, thanks to Spotify. This offering adds confusion into the market, as it leads people to think that commercial music can be used in podcasts, and that the “podcasts” produced through the Anchor app can be heard on any app (which they can’t).
Anchor is simply a low-friction way to upload content that can be serialised via RSS. Onboarding is simple, and every podcast gets a cute single webpage. In that way, it’s a solid choice for those who use a podcast as a highlights package of a live Zoom call, Crowdcast show, or who are repurposing audio from a YouTube channel, since its lack of features or useful analytics essentially make it a hard-drive with an RSS attachment.
Spotify bought the product in early 2019, and it’s now IAB compliant, so although the metrics are fairly high-level, the numbers themselves should be accurate. It’s important to them since Anchor relies on DAI to make money.
Pinecast began life in 2015, and its original code was made available to read and fork on Github. It was created by Matt Basta, a software engineer who would go on to work at Stripe Connect, which gave Pinecast an advantage in making it easy for podcasters to collect donations from listeners.
The service offers a flexible and highly-customisable podcast website, options to solicit feedback from listeners, exportable metrics including Spotify data, and easy submission to popular directories.
Anchor has the best price for this plan. You can upload more episodes with Anchor too. They also offer more storage at this tier. They also offer IAB-certified stats, whereas Pinecast doesn't. However, Pinecast offers the ability to host more podcasts. Anchor doesn't allow custom websites on this plan. You can't hook up a custom domain to your website as you can with Anchor.
Anchor | Pinecast | |
---|---|---|
Price | $0.00 per month | $10.00 per month |
Number of podcasts | 1 | Unlimited |
Episodes | 0 per month | Unlimited |
Downloads | Unlimited | Unlimited |
Storage | Unlimited | 48 mb |
Podcast website included | ||
Use your own domain | ||
IAB certified metrics | ||
Republish to YouTube | ||
Podcast network support |
Pinecast offers the ability to host more podcasts. Anchor doesn't allow custom websites on this plan. You can't hook up a custom domain to your website as you can with Anchor. However, Anchor has the best price for this plan. They also offer more storage at this tier. They also offer IAB-certified stats, whereas Pinecast doesn't.
Anchor | Pinecast | |
---|---|---|
Price | $0.00 per month | $25.00 per month |
Number of podcasts | 1 | Unlimited |
Episodes | Unlimited | Unlimited |
Downloads | Unlimited | Unlimited |
Storage | Unlimited | 256 mb |
Podcast website included | ||
Use your own domain | ||
IAB certified metrics | ||
Republish to YouTube | ||
Podcast network support |
Pinecast offers the ability to host more podcasts. Anchor doesn't allow custom websites on this plan. You can't hook up a custom domain to your website as you can with Anchor. You can create a podcast network on Pinecast. However, Anchor has the best price for this plan. They also offer more storage at this tier. They also offer IAB-certified stats, whereas Pinecast doesn't.
Anchor | Pinecast | |
---|---|---|
Price | $0.00 per month | $35.00 per month |
Number of podcasts | 1 | Unlimited |
Episodes | Unlimited | Unlimited |
Downloads | Unlimited | Unlimited |
Storage | Unlimited | 256 mb |
Podcast website included | ||
Use your own domain | ||
IAB certified metrics | ||
Republish to YouTube | ||
Podcast network support |
Anchor's user interface is a bit nicer than Pinecast.
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