Best Radio Apps for Android in 2026

Published 25 September 2026

Android has the widest choice of radio apps of any platform — big ad-supported directories, tiny open-source players, and the option of skipping the app entirely. What they have in common is more than you might expect: most of them draw on the same public station directories, so the station you want is usually on all of them. What you are choosing is the player, the adverts and how much of your phone it wants.

What to look at

• Adverts in the player, not just on the station. A station's own commercials are part of the broadcast; pre-roll ads and banners are the app's choice.
• Permissions and account. A radio app needs the network and, for lock-screen controls, notifications. It does not need your contacts or your location to play a stream.
• Background playback and battery. Every app on this page keeps playing with the screen off; the difference is how much it does besides.
• Data. Bitrate decides that, not the app: internet radio data usage has the numbers.

The big directories

TuneIn

The largest catalogue and the strongest for live sport and talk. The free tier carries adverts around the player and pre-roll on some streams; the paid tier is a subscription. Good Android Auto support. If it is not quite right, see TuneIn alternatives.

myTuner Radio and Radio.net

Two large, tidy directories with Android apps, both ad-supported on the free tier. Radio.net is strongest in Europe; myTuner is reliable everywhere. myTuner and Radio.net alternatives compares them.

Radio Garden

The spinning globe of green dots — discovery as a toy, and a delightful one. Less suited to daily listening, with no serious favourites or sleep timer. Radio Garden alternatives covers what else does the same job.

iHeartRadio

Best for American live radio and podcasts, weaker elsewhere, ad-supported. iHeartRadio alternatives goes further.

The open-source pair

Android is the only phone platform where free, open-source radio apps are a real option, and both of the best-known ones are built on the community-run Radio Browser directory.

RadioDroid

A full-featured player — search, favourites, history, alarms, recording — from the developer behind Radio Browser itself. Free, no adverts, available from F-Droid as well as the Play Store.

Transistor

The minimalist: a small, clean player with a simple search of the Radio Browser directory, the ability to add a station from a playlist file (M3U or PLS) or a raw stream address, and nothing else. Published under the MIT licence and available on F-Droid. If you want a radio that does exactly one thing, this is it.

No app at all

Chrome on Android plays live radio in a web page, keeps playing with the screen locked, and shows the station on the lock screen. That makes a browser player a genuine alternative to installing anything: how to listen without an app walks through it. On Chrome you can also add the page to your home screen — on 72FM, choose Install app — and it opens full screen like any other app.

72FM, described plainly

This is our site, so here is the honest version. 72FM is a player over the open Radio Browser directory — around 30,000 stations from 200+ countries — organised by genre, country, language and mood, with themed collections and a view of what is on air right now around the world.

• No adverts and no tracking in the player, on every tier. Stations still broadcast their own commercials; nobody can remove those.
• No account to start. Open it and press play.
• One hour a day free, resetting at your local midnight. Premium lifts the limit — a single payment, not a subscription.
• Each station shows its bitrate, so you can see what a stream costs in data before you press play.

In the car

Android Auto shows only apps built for it, so a browser player will not appear on the car's screen. For driving, radio on Android Auto and CarPlay explains which apps do.

The short answer

• For everything, with ads: TuneIn.
• For free and open source, no ads: RadioDroid, or Transistor if you want it minimal.
• For discovery: Radio Garden.
• For nothing installed: a browser player such as 72FM, pinned to your home screen.

For the same comparison across every platform, see the best radio apps.