Roon
The ultimate music player
How much does Roon cost?
Prices are current as of 11 Sept 2026.
Roon has no in-app products on record in the United States.
10+ alternatives to Roon
| Roon |   Qobuz: Music & Editorial |   BluOS Controller |   WiiM Home |   Audirvāna Remote |   Focal & Naim |   FiiO Music - For Audiophiles |   Volumio |   mconnect Player Lite |   JPLAY |   Qobuz Club | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rating / 5 | 3.8 | 4.6 | 4.3 | 4.2 | 4.6 | 2.4 | 3.4 | 4.6 | 3.7 | 4.0 | 3.9 |
| Reviews | 2.3K | 91K | 27K | 6.5K | 5.9K | 2.6K | 1K | 549 | 501 | 451 | 376 |
| Released | 2015 | 2014 | 2012 | 2021 | 2015 | 2010 | 2017 | 2017 | 2012 | 2022 | 2024 |
| Monthly price | — | $16.99 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
The going rate for each plan in United States, in its own currency, shaded from the cheapest price on the row to the dearest.
Roon reviews
3.8 out of 5, based on 2,296 reviews.
What people like
- Organizes your music library simply
- Plays local files and streaming well
- Great for serious audiophiles
What they complain about
- Constantly disconnects from the server
- Crashes often on iOS devices
- Trackpad does not work with keyboard
If You Know, You Know
If you’re a serious music listener willing to make an investment with a proper system, Roon is your only option. It’s not intended for casual users. There’s a learning curve that when understood, it enables you to travel down deep rabbit holes of music exploration. Highly recommended.
Unreliable
Constantly disconnecting from core. Non stop. I can’t go 15 minutes without it losing connection. This has been the case for a long time. I am done. This software is trash.
Long way to go
A platform built for personal music collection but relies on qobuz/tidal to create mixes. Ok-ish UI experience.. can’t match streaming services.
Great when it loads
Constantly stuck waiting for roon to “enable” the device. Why does it need to be re-enabled all the time? And why does it take forever sometimes? App still doesn’t feel smooth.
Lots of potential but fussy/buggy
The phone app frequently can’t find audio devices to play the music. One minute it works and the next it doesn’t. And then it stays not working. I bought a screen remote control to control music on my Mac. Otherwise this is a great concept and a great system for RIPd collection.
simply the best
This is the best for music catalog storage and multi player platform. Have tried many others including Audirvana but despite the odd software glitch experienced by others (not myself) I’ve always found this to be excellent. Fast responsive even Roon arc, never any issues. Would highly recommend an improvement over native naim and qobuz apps and certainly better than tidal or apple, which isn’t difficult.
Roon is great but the iOS app is buggy
Review is the title
Please enable dark mode icon on iPad. And release iPad ARC.
Love the whole ecosystem otherwise. Lifetime license owner. I preach the Church of Roon to all who will listen.
So Bad
I can't believe how bad this app is! Maybe they could add a way to turn it off! That would be a good place to start!
Good but removing features
You used to be able to edit album metadata from the Roon remote app on iOS. I don’t have a Windows or Mac computer (Linux) so don’t have access to a full featured Roon remote to actually manage my Roon library. They refuse to develop a client for Linux or at least open API access for others to make one, and they remove features from the iOS client! I’m unable to edit album metadata for example SZA’s latest reissue which Roon just defaults to the original release even though the title and album art are different. Very annoying because I can’t do anything about it. Please add full library management back to iOS or develop a Linux client!
Finally Good
Recently the manager to push AN update that really works! There is nothing out there as of software what lives up to Roon. A real audiphile experience!
Has not worked since last update
Worked adequately, never great, until most recent update. Now keeps asking me if I am new to Roon and never finds my server. Useless!
Say goodbye to your battery charge
Functionally a great app, but please make it more efficient. If I forget to close (not just background) it my battery is empty in a day or two. There is no reason it uses 20x more power in background than other iOS apps.
Buggy
This review is for the IOS app only. Every time I open it, something unexpected is going your way happen; I.e. the artwork doesn’t display or the device I want to play on doesn’t display. It’s always something that causes me to do one or more of the following to clear things up - close the app and reopen, log out of Roon and back in, delete the app and reinstall it, restart the Roon server. It takes the joy out of the joy of listening to music.
Great sound, but fussy and difficult
Roon can drive you crazy. It’s a beautiful interface, and it seems like it even makes my worst MP3’s sound good. However, be prepared to spend lots of time troubleshooting. Every update usually requires me to restart my Mac so that all of the sources show up again. It’s far from a seamless experience. They are helpful in the help forums, but I don’t want to hang out in help forums.
Best hifi at home app
If you have a great digital front end for your at-home hi-fi, this is the best way to organize and manage your library between the streamers and whatever FLACs you might have in your local storage. This service is so profoundly valuable to me, and so many other hifi nerds.
Don’t waste your time and money on this garbage
Don’t repeat my mistake. I have spent thousands of dollars on software and hardware, and hundreds of hours on network configurations, trying to get Roon to work. I’m not a newbie. I manage the network of an office of 100 employees. I’m no expert, but I consider my technological literacy and skills way above an average Internet user. And I can’t even get Roon to work half of the time. Think thrice before you step into this hell of frustrations!
Great app. Please reply to the Vision Accessibility post/issue
I think the app is great, but I have mostly good/correctable vision. However, there is a post from August 12, meaning at least about 11 months ago, there was a request to test the app for accessibility and correct the bugs related to vision accessibility. As a software engineer for about 50 years, and still cranking out code, I would say that it would be more than reasonable to ask that this issue be given a severity 2 (1 high), something to fix in the next QTR or two. For the non decision makers on the team, the app is great.
Buggy. Great when it works but sometimes it doesn’t
It happens often enough that it won’t play music or it loses some of my playlists etc. This is an ongoing problem that still isn’t fixed
Great when it works
I’m running the app on an iPad from 2021 which has little else on it. The functionality of the app is superb but with a premium price tag I expect a lot more in the way of reliability. This is not a reliable app! At random the app will close unexpectedly, it will also freeze from time to time. I love the ability to group endpoints although even this comes and goes in each version. Plug-ins like the parametric eq and headphone eq are really effective and work well. Also the way it connects with my server content, Tidal and radio stations is good. I have become concerned with random database corruptions that have only occurred in recent versions. All things aside it has the potential to be a great app but is let down by its reliability. I welcome more development into bug fixes than new features for future releases.
Works fine
It works perfect without any issues
Glitches
How is it possible for a premium product for audiophile users to be so glitchy? Constantly dropping out, I have tried for so long and used every troubleshooting page I can find, so unbelievably frustrating.
Great app but some things need work
The app is great, but needs a little work. One very annoying thing is that Roon Remote doesn’t work with the Apple Magic Keyboard… I have the iPad Pro M2 and the Magic Keyboard, and while i can scroll and type, I can’t click on anything with the trackpad. Using touch works fine, but when using the Magic Keyboard having the trackpad work is important. Please fix!
Works but buggy
I use Roon with both remote streaming device and local audio from an ipad or iphone. Local audio devices disappear from the app when not actively playing — force killing and repenting is necessary to get it to work again. More recently, the app is unreliable with displaying the currently playing album. Opening the app often displays ‘This album was not found’.
Great Sound and Functionality
But 1* for support and usability. Good luck if you have annossienitbtakesbdays and weeks to fix. It’s a shame roon radio a real must for music lovers and sounds great with Aqua Accoustics.
Can be fussy but worth the effort
This app can be fussy to set up but I believe that’s also on the manufacturers. Once it’s set up, though, it works so very well. It organizes my files in a very simple way; it gives me a remote way to access those files; and it allows me to pull from a lot of resources into one place.
Iphone app
The iphone app is in bad shape
Roon is great, app on iPad needs a little work
Generally, I have very few gripes about this app. It’s stable, straight forward and, on my iPhone 12 (with iOS 15), works perfectly. It works exactly the same on my iPad, BUT, devs, PLEASE add magic keyboard/trackpad support!
Mac OSx connectivity a problem
Last several months have had big problems with Roon Core on MacMini connecting with Lumin U2 Mini on same network. Often have to turn off private relay and/or reset and reboot local network settings for app. Today my IOS app won’t connect to the MacMini core. Coincidence that today I was charged my annual $150….ugh. Not happy with all of the work required to make it function.
Two flaws:
1. The Dark Mode icon is not working in iPadOS. 2. Not accessible for non-visual users who need keyboard navigation.
Roon Rocks
Roon simply rocks, brings a physical music approach to the digital streaming world. Works perfectly for me.
Used to work fine….
Does not work, all I get is “You are already sign-in” and can not access my account, very frustrating.
Latest update now no longer runs on 14.6 b2.
It’s a beta so YMMV. Hopefully fixed soon. In the meantime using my Pixel4 :)
Ugh ! I have to …
Delete and reinstall the app every time I come home. This is a new thing and so annoying.
Roon iOS Crashes a Lot
For some reason the iOS app has been hanging often. Roon is playing but I lose control and have to quit and restart the iOSapp constantly. Gets annoying after a while — especially when Roon doesn’t acknowledge it’s happening to a lot of people. Complaints are all over the Roon community but the standard response is that it’s the user’s network — which is not tye case here. Just fix the app already!
I love ROON
ROON works . If you like music and have music stored on a NAS or if you have TIDAL or QOBUZ, This is th software for you . I don’t get any crashes with to remote app and using a NUC as a core it works all the time. I’m not sure what the complainers are talking about .
No support
There is no way to contact technical support, just a link to a community support page. Submitting a ticket just creates a thread on this page. After a day of trying to get the product to work, I quit and cancelled the trial.
A lot to like in 1.8
Ignore the naysayers here. The new version 1.8 is attractive and functional. Like major software revisions, it had a few bugs and has attracted a small number of users who are resistant to change. Roon quickly squashed the major bugs and continues to refine this app. There is a lot to like about the new version compared to previous versions.
Love Roon, hate this app
This version just doesn’t keep contact with the Roon core. I have to reboot it if I let it stay in pause for even a few minutes. Very inconvenient and shows poor design.
Barely usable
I returned to using Roon after an absence of more than a year and was disappointed to find that the Roon Remote app is still practically unusable for those of us whom are visually impaired and rely on the accessibility ZOom feature on the iPad . To put it bluntly this app is impossible to use as it does not behave consistently with ZOom. The three and two finger gestures are almost without fail misinterpreted or not responded to at all. I use my iPad with Zoom around six to 8 hours a day without experiencing these issues other than with this app. The developers have known about these issues for well over a year, but have, it appears, made no effort to address them. It can;t be difficult to address them, as every other app seems to work just fine with Apples Zoom - it’s a function provided by the Apple SDK that is easily incorporated into an app. It’s somewhat shameful that Roon makes no effort to incorporate this simple accommodation into its app for those of us who need a little help with our vision issues.
My favourite app
If you’re into Hifi and want to play music from your pc onto your speakers around the house… This is THE way to do it, not cheap but it works perfectly. I have some flac files and also a Qobuz subscription so I can play any song I want on any Hifi in the home. And now I can listen to everything while I’m out too with Roon arc. Such a great way to interact with your music, read about the artists, get suggestions of new music etc
Seems useless
Followed the instructions as far as setting up the network parameters on a the Windows machine acting as the Roon Server per Roon’s directions. App cannot find it despite manually inputting the PC’s IP address in the app. No phone support available from Roon. Roon server software works fine on the PC acting as the server but this inability to control playback from my phone is a big letdown.
Roon Rocks
The best out there. Way to go but guaranteed more to come as every release surprises and delights.
IOS17 issues
The Roon app crashes after a few hours. The only way to recover is to reboot your phones especially bad with iPhone 15 Pro. Almost unusable
Bugs, bugs, bugs
The app was working for a while, but then the bugs re-emerged. It can control audio output from the core system. It cannot detect audio output from iOS devices. It cannot get sound out of my Cambridge streamer. The Roon library system is excellent. The Roon audio quality is excellent. The Roon app’s inability to control remote devices is just plain annoying. I can easily control my core audio system through my Mac mini. So the app is just another tiresome remote control unit. This is supposed to be a music-streaming app, but it cannot produce sound from most devices. A silent streamer? Come on people - fix this!
First Class
I don’t know what some of these reviewers are ranting about. Roon is excellent and I have encountered very few problems which I suggest are more to do with the broadband than Roon.
Can’t select audio devices after latest update
Ever since the latest update, my “audio zones” are all gone and I can’t select any of them, nor can I add any new audio zones. I can’t even select “default output” to play music through my iPhone speakers. So the app is basically dead.
Cool app but Crashing often
Hi this is great for controlling Roon from afar, but it’s crashing a lot on my iOS iPhone 6, latest update.. fix this for 5 stars ! It also doesn’t mirror the song being currently played when the core is running, but rather the last song played after last shut down.
I love Roon but this iOS app is really buggy
I recently replace my Android Pixel 5 with an iPhone and find the Roon app on this platform almost unusable. It becomes unresponsive every time my phone locks or I make it a background app for any length of time. I have uninstalled and reinstalled the app to no avail. It is really a shame as I love my Roon service and apps on my other platforms.
Great when it doesn’t crash
IOS
Roon FAQ
- Is Roon free?
- Yes. The app is free, in all 175 countries it sells in, and it sells nothing inside it.
- Does Roon have a free trial?
- No. None of its offers (US) come with a free trial.
- What are the best alternatives to Roon?
- Qobuz: Music & Editorial (4.6 from 91,449 reviews, premium from $5.99), BluOS Controller (4.3 from 26,646 reviews) and WiiM Home (4.2 from 6,538 reviews).
Roon download
Last updated 2 months ago.
Roon sells in 175 countries. It was released 11 years and 1 month ago, on 2 Sept 2015. It holds a 3.8 rating from 2,296 reviews.
How much does Roon make?
Third-party estimates for the last 30 days, worldwide — not the store's own figures, which Apple publishes for nobody.