SomaFM's official app, giving you access to over 40 year-round channels of listener-supported, commercial-free, underground/alternative radio, with all music hand-picked by our award-winning DJs and music directors.
Lifehacker.com calls SomaFM one of the "Five Best Internet Radio Services" and says "completely user and listener-supported, which means no ads or commercials during your broadcasts, and the channels and programs aired at SomaFM are rarely heard anywhere else."
Features include:
- No registration required; no additional purchases required but in-app donations welcome.
- Full CarPlay Integration
- High & low bandwidth streams: 128k AAC (high); 32k AAC-HE for great quality audio with very low data usage
- View channels by Popularity, Genre or your favorites
- Bookmark, Share song info and search Apple Music
- Siri Shortcuts Support
- Play on Apple TV & AirPlay, Chromecast devices
- Integration with many car stereos without CarPlay units via Dock Connector or Bluetooth
- Remote control: Pause and restart playing as well as skip between favorite channels from your headphone remote, lock screen controls.
Never listened to SomaFM before? Here's our lineup, which are all commercial-free:
Groove Salad: A nicely chilled plate of ambient/downtempo beats and grooves.
Secret Agent: The soundtrack for your stylish, mysterious, dangerous life. For Spies and P.I.s too! Cinematic downtempo, stylish lounge and more.
Drone Zone: Served best chilled, safe with most medications. Atmospheric textures with minimal beats.
Fluid: Drown in the electronic sound of instrumental hiphop, future soul and liquid trap.
Indie Pop Rocks!: New and classic favorite indie pop tracks. Crafted by Elise Nordling.
Left Coast 70s: Mellow album rock from the Seventies. Yacht not required.
cliqhop idm: Blips'n'beeps backed mostly w/beats. Intelligent Dance Music.
Beat Blender: A late night blend of deep-house and downtempo chill.
Bossa Beyond: Silky-smooth, laid-back Brazilian-style rhythms of Bossa Nova, Samba and beyond.
Dub Step Beyond: Dubstep, Dub and Deep Bass. The place for Bass Music!
The Trip: Progressive house / trance. Tip top tunes.
Illinois Street Lounge: Classic bachelor pad, playful exotica and vintage music of tomorrow.
Space Station Soma: Tune in, turn on, space out. Spaced-out ambient and mid-tempo electronica.
Doomed: Dark industrial/ambient music for tortured souls.
Boot Liquor: Americana Roots music for Cowhands, Cowpokes and Cowtippers.
Lush: Sensuous and mellow vocals, mostly female, with an electronic influence.
Digitalis: Digitally affected analog rock to calm the agitated heart.
Suburbs of Goa: Desi-influenced Asian world beats and beyond.
ThistleRadio: Exploring music from Celtic roots and branches. Crafted by Fiona Ritchie.
Underground 80s: Early 80s UK Synthpop and a bit of New Wave, with rarities you forgot you remembered.
Sonic Universe: Transcending the world of jazz with eclectic, avant-garde takes on tradition. NuJazz/Avant Garde/Euro-jazz.
PopTron: Electropop and indie dance rock with sparkle and pop. Less guitars, more synths.
Metal Detector: From black to doom, prog to sludge, thrash to post, stoner to crossover, punk to industrial.
Mission Control: Ambient and experimental music mixed with the historical sounds of the space program.
SomaFM SF 10-33: Live San Francisco Fire and Police radio with an electronic music soundtrack.
Tiki Time: Classic Tiki music and Vintage island rhythms to sip cocktails by.
The In-Sound: 60s/70s Hipster Euro Pop where psychedelic melodies meets groovy vibes.
Vaporwaves: All Vaporwave. All the time.
Synphaera Radio: Music from an independent record label focused on modern electronic ambient and space music.
n5MD Radio: Emotional Experiments in Music: Ambient, modern composition, post-rock, & experimental electronic music.
SF in SF: Author readings and discussions from the science fiction, fantasy, horror, and genre literary fields.
I’ve enjoyed SOMA-FM for two decades! I’d have had various streams playing in my home for hours, sometimes days(!) at a time. Seemed like there was a station for almost any gathering, or any mood. Friends I’ve told about SOMA-FM are all grateful for the tip. (Lots of friends also proudly wear Soma-FM t-shirts. Cool, until three of us arrive at a party wearing the same shirt. Haha) As much as I’ve loved the website and stations, I began heavily using streaming apps, and those got all my attention in the past decade. I’ve come to highly value ease-of-use music apps which are conveniently on my iPhone. Web-based services didn’t get my love any longer. Sadly, SOMA-FM got back-burnered. But, wut?!! SOMA-FM now has an app for iOS?!! Game-changer! I’m so happy to discover this app! The user interface and performance functionality is professional-grade, as though they’ve got a massive tram of developers supporting it. All my old favorite stations are there, plus a boatload of new stations! The ease-of-use is particularly impressive. Beautiful user experience with lightning-fast execution of tasks. And again, I am stoked about the new stations! Thank you, SOMA-FM! I look forward to the third decade of enjoyment of your wonderfully-, lovingly-curated stations.
Why can’t we listen to the best streams?
Martinkelley
Update: Since I wrote the first review four years ago the default rate in the app has gone up to 128k. This makes me happy and I use it much more! Old: I love the SomaFM network. Love! I have a monthly donations set up and stations like Poptron, Secret Agent, and Suburbs of Goa power my commute. But why is the bandwidth on the official app so low? I have it set to “Always High” but most of the stations play at 64k AAC. I have the same station playing on a generic radio app and it’s 128 AAC. So the stream is there. Even with cheap earbuds the quality difference is enough to skip the app. It seems a shame. This would be one of my most-used apps if it simply played at a higher bitrate.
keep it up, SomaFM!
markargent
i've been listening to SomaFM since "Groove Salad Classic" was just "Groove Salad". it's one of the last handful of survivors of the early web that still fulfills its stated mission, and the SomaFM app Just Works. that said, while i know it's dangerous to say "it seems like it would be trivial to add Feature X", it seems like it would be trivial to add the capability to reorder stations in the Favorite tab with hold-and-drag, instead of having to remove and re-add Favorite status. another, more aspirational feature i'd like to see would be the ability to add third-party audio streams — not podcasts, but other stations. anyway. keep it up, SomaFM!
My life blood
Khunya
I don’t know how I’d survive without Soma. I’ve been listening since the early 2000’s and I’ve put it on every single day since then. It’s given me so much exposure to music that I otherwise likely wouldn’t have found otherwise (special shout out to Illinois Street Lounge, Groove Salad/GS Classic, and Secret Agent). It’s second nature for me to turn it on while driving, working, cooking, cleaning, reading, you name it. Far and away the best radio ever and I hope it stays around for my entire lifetime because as I mentioned before I don’t know how I’d live without it. Massive thanks to Rusty and the rest of the Soma team, keep it up!
We've completely updated our app to be fully iOS 26 (and 27) optimized, while remaining compatible on iOS 18. This involved a major rewrite of the app to modern iOS development standards. We've updated the stream playing engine to be more resilient, user interface to be more responsive to screen sizes.
Requires iOS 18.6 or later.
Version 2.0
The developer, SomaFM, indicated that the app’s privacy practices may include handling of data as described below. For more information, see the developer’s privacy policy .
Data Not Linked to You
The following data may be collected but it is not linked to your identity:
Usage Data
Privacy practices may vary, for example, based on the features you use or your age. Learn More
Accessibility
The developer has not yet indicated which accessibility features this app supports. Learn More
Information
Seller
SomaFM.com, LLC
Size
28.2 MB
Category
Music
Compatibility
Requires iOS 18.6 or later.
iPhone Requires iOS 18.6 or later.
iPad Requires iPadOS 18.6 or later.
Mac Requires macOS 15.6 or later and a Mac with Apple M1 chip or later.
