SoundfishComparison
Soundfish vs SoundCloud
SoundCloud is a streaming platform for discovery and distribution. Soundfish is an album page you own, with a waveform player, comments pinned to moments, and revisions under one link. They do different jobs; Soundfish is not a SoundCloud replacement.
The two jobs
SoundCloud is a platform for publishing, discovery, and distribution. An upload appears on your profile, enters the feed and search, and on paid plans can be sent onward to Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, TikTok, and other streaming services.
Soundfish is an album page. You upload tracks, and listeners open a link with a waveform player, comments pinned to moments in the audio, hearts, and play counts. It has no follower graph, no recommendation feed, and no distribution to other services.
If the goal is reach, SoundCloud does that job. If the goal is a page for one album or EP that you control, that is the Soundfish job. The two can sit side by side.
Plans and upload limits
SoundCloud’s paid tiers are documented on its plan page and the Artist plan announcement:
- Basic is free and allows two hours of uploads.
- Artist costs $3.25 a month billed yearly ($39): three hours of uploads, distribution and monetization for two tracks a month, three track replacements a month, and one mastering credit a month.
- Artist Pro costs $8.25 a month billed yearly ($99): unlimited uploads, distribution, and replacements.
Soundfish’s limits
Soundfish costs $0. Publishing one album of up to 10 tracks needs a free Hraness account. Each track is an MP3, WAV, or FLAC file up to 200 MiB and 20 minutes; one account stores up to 2 GiB. The full list is on the pricing page and in the audio guide.
The free plan fits one album or EP. A larger catalogue will not fit on it.
Replacing audio and keeping history
On SoundCloud, Artist and Artist Pro subscribers can replace a track’s audio file without losing the track’s stats or comments; the Artist plan allows three replacements a month and Artist Pro is unlimited. Only the latest file stays online.
On Soundfish, each track keeps up to 25 dated revisions at the same link. Listeners hear the current revision, the owner can promote an earlier one back, and comments keep a label for the revision they were written on. A revised take does not fork the page or the play count.
Getting your audio back out
SoundCloud’s help center describes two ways back to a file you uploaded: a download control under the waveform when the track’s Permissions allow downloads, which serves the original upload, and a download original files control on the track editing page that it lists for Artist Pro plans.
On Soundfish the uploaded file is the stored file. Checking “Allow listeners to download the original audio files” on an album’s manage page puts a download control on each track that serves it as uploaded; that control is for listeners, not a separate originals vault.
Where SoundCloud is the better choice
- Reach: SoundCloud’s audience, feed, and search are built for discovery, and paid plans distribute to more than 50 other platforms.
- Catalogue size: Artist Pro allows unlimited uploads, where Soundfish’s free plan holds one album.
- Monetization and promotion: paid plans monetize tracks on SoundCloud and promote them; Soundfish has no paid layer at all.
Where Soundfish fits
- An album, EP, or draft that deserves one page and one link rather than a feed entry.
- Works in progress you want timestamped feedback on, kept unlisted so only people with the link can open them.
- Revisions that collect under the same URL instead of re-uploads or replacements that discard the old file.
- A page other software can read: every album page has a Markdown twin, and the player embeds on any site.
Sources
- Introducing the SoundCloud Artist planSoundCloudChecked
- SoundCloud plan pricing and feature tableSoundCloudChecked
- Downloading tracksSoundCloud Help CenterChecked
- Mastering FAQsSoundCloud Help CenterChecked
- Replace a track's audio fileSoundCloud Help CenterChecked
See also
Give your album a page of its own
Listening needs no account; publishing needs a free Hraness account.