Airtime Pro is Sourcefabric's managed radio platform built on the Airtime open-source roots that LibreTime forked from. It targets community broadcasters with a familiar web scheduling UI. CloudRadio is a single $39/mo plan with unlimited listeners, 750 GB of storage, and HLS streaming. Here is an honest, current breakdown.
The closest apples-to-apples comparison is CloudRadio One ($39/mo) vs Airtime Pro Starter ($39.95/mo). Same price tier, very different shapes for listeners, storage, and bitrate.
| CloudRadio One · $39/mo | Airtime Pro Starter · $39.95/mo | |
|---|---|---|
| Concurrent listeners | Unlimited | 400 per stream |
| Bandwidth | Unlimited | 3 TB/mo |
| Stream quality | 256 kbps AAC (HLS) + Icecast MP3 | Up to 128 kbps |
| HLS adaptive streaming | 64 / 128 / 256 kbps AAC ladder | ✗ |
| Media storage | 750 GB (~150,000 tracks) | 5 GB |
| Streams | HLS + Icecast (single station) | 2 streams |
| Podcast episode hosting | ✗ | 2,000 downloads/mo |
| Air podcast feeds on schedule | ✓ (Syndication) | ✓ (subscribe and rebroadcast) |
| Station web page | Station page with QR code | Radio page with show schedule |
| Stream monitoring | Free checks every minute from four regions, with alerts (any stream) | Not listed (hourly listener statistics) |
Bottom line: At nearly the same price, CloudRadio gives you 150x the storage, 2x the bitrate, HLS, and no listener cap. Airtime Pro is stronger if you want podcast episode hosting bundled in, or if your team is already trained on the Airtime / LibreTime scheduling grid.
Airtime Pro tiers scale storage, listeners, bitrate, and bandwidth. Only the Premium plan removes the per-stream listener cap.
| Plan | Price | Listeners/stream | Bitrate | Storage | Bandwidth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hobbyist | $9.95/mo | 10 | 64 kbps | 2 GB | 1 TB |
| Starter | $39.95/mo | 400 | 128 kbps | 5 GB | 3 TB |
| Plus | $64.95/mo | 1,000 | 196 kbps | 30 GB | 10 TB |
| Premium | $99.95/mo | Unlimited | 196 kbps | 150 GB | 40 TB |
Prices checked October 2026. Annual billing saves 16.66%, about two months free, on Starter and up. 30% off annual plans for nonprofits and for full-time students and teachers. Free trial, no credit card. Check airtime.pro for the latest.
Airtime Pro Starter caps you at 400 simultaneous listeners per stream and 3 TB of bandwidth per month. Plus raises the cap to 1,000 listeners; only Premium at $99.95/mo removes the per-stream listener cap entirely.
CloudRadio does not cap concurrent listeners or bandwidth on the $39/mo plan. A station that goes from 100 to 5,000 listeners overnight stays on the same plan.
Airtime Pro Starter ships up to 128 kbps. Plus and Premium go up to 196 kbps. There is no built-in HLS adaptive ladder; output is standard Icecast or Shoutcast.
CloudRadio includes a 64 / 128 / 256 kbps AAC HLS ladder on the $39/mo plan, plus a legacy Icecast MP3 endpoint. Each listener automatically gets the best variant their connection can handle.
5 GB on Starter holds roughly 1,250 average MP3 tracks. Plus jumps to 30 GB, Premium to 150 GB. For a deep library, podcast archive, or a station with many recorded shows, even Premium's 150 GB fills quickly.
CloudRadio bundles 750 GB on the $39/mo plan, roughly 150,000 tracks plus headroom for jingles, voice tracks, ads, and recorded shows. Storage is rarely the constraint.
Airtime Pro's signature is its weekly scheduling grid, smart blocks, and DJ login system. Community radio teams that already use the open-source Airtime or LibreTime project can move to Airtime Pro with almost no retraining.
One thing to plan for: Airtime plays what is on its schedule, so a new station needs shows or linked smart blocks across the week. The UI makes this manageable with smart blocks, linked repeating shows and drag-and-drop, but it is an upfront time investment for new stations or anyone rebuilding a schedule from scratch.
CloudRadio uses a layered priority model rather than a fixed weekly grid. Each layer (library, rotation, schedule, live) is optional, and CloudRadio always plays the highest one currently active. This is simpler to operate but has a different mental model than Airtime's grid.
Not quite. LibreTime is the open-source community fork of the original Airtime project, which stations can self-host. Airtime Pro is Sourcefabric's managed hosting service built on the original Airtime codebase. The UIs are similar, but Airtime Pro is a paid managed service while LibreTime is free software you run yourself.
Yes. Export your audio files, then re-upload them to CloudRadio. The schedule itself does not transfer cleanly because CloudRadio uses a layered priority model rather than a weekly grid, but rebuilding a typical station rotation is a one-day job. The stream URL change is the part that needs the most planning, since listeners and directories will need updated links.
No. CloudRadio is a live radio hosting platform. If you need podcast episode hosting with an RSS feed, use a dedicated podcast host (Buzzsprout, RSS.com, Podbean, etc.). CloudRadio can air the newest episode of a podcast feed in your playlists and schedule (Syndication), but it does not publish a feed of your own shows. Airtime Pro's bundled podcast hosting is a genuine differentiator if on-demand episodes are central to your station.
Get in touch through the contact form. We are happy to talk through community and education use cases. The base $39/mo plan already removes the listener and storage caps that usually push community stations to upgrade.
$39/month, flat. Unlimited listeners, 750 GB storage, HLS streaming, and free stream monitoring for any Icecast, Shoutcast v2 or HLS stream.