Cleanfeed alternative: lossless audio straight from your DAW

Searching for a Cleanfeed alternative usually means one of two things. Either Cleanfeed's price has crept past what your work justifies, or you have realised that getting your DAW mix into it is more awkward than it should be. This compares it with AudioTeleporter. I make AudioTeleporter, and the comparison includes the long list of things Cleanfeed does better.

The short version: these tools are aimed at different jobs. Cleanfeed is a browser based studio for talking to people and recording them. AudioTeleporter is a plugin that sends the mix on your master bus to listeners, losslessly, and does nothing else.

The difference that matters most: getting audio out of your DAW

Cleanfeed has no DAW plugin. There is no VST3, AU or AAX version, and there is no native way to send your master bus into it. Cleanfeed works with audio devices, so to feed it from Pro Tools, Logic or Ableton you install a third party virtual audio driver. Cleanfeed's own FAQ points you at Loopback or BlackHole on macOS, or Virtual Audio Cable on Windows. Its guide for routing audio the other way asks you to install BlackHole 16ch, build an Aggregate Device in Audio MIDI Setup, set everything to 48 kHz and reboot.

That works, and plenty of professionals run exactly that rig. But it is a kernel level audio driver, an aggregate device and a reboot standing between you and sending a mix. It is also one more thing to re-check every time macOS updates.

AudioTeleporter is a plugin. You drop it on your master bus as the last insert, hit start, and it streams what the plugin sees. You need no virtual cables, aggregate devices or routing diagram. If you want to send a single stem rather than the full mix, put the instance on that bus instead.

Audio quality: Opus versus lossless

Cleanfeed is Opus, and its FAQ says so plainly. On Pro you get up to 256 kbps mono or 320 kbps stereo, with high performance modes that raise the bitrate and shave about ten milliseconds off latency. The default sample rate is 48 kHz. That is good quality, and for speech it is more than enough. But Opus is a lossy codec, and Cleanfeed does not advertise a lossless or uncompressed path anywhere. Even the recordings land as WAV files after the audio has already been through Opus.

The free Lite tier is more limited than the headline suggests: remote audio is mono only, you get one local source, and the higher bitrates and buffer control are Pro features.

AudioTeleporter's Pro tier streams lossless FLAC at your session's own sample rate, up to 192 kHz and 24-bit, so what your listener hears is bit for bit what left your master bus. If someone is signing off on a mix or a master, that removes any doubt about what a codec did to it. Free and Basic use Opus at 64 and 256 kbps, so the cheaper tiers are in the same territory as Cleanfeed on quality.

Price

Cleanfeed Lite is free and, unusually, permits commercial use. Cleanfeed Pro is $36 a month at the business rate, or €29. There is a subsidised rate of $23 or €17 for personal use, charities and education, with conditions attached. All of those rates are on their pricing page. Cinema, the film and television tier with video, starts at $2,500 a year for the first seat.

• AudioTeleporter Free: 1 listener, Opus 64 kbps, no card
• AudioTeleporter Basic: €3.99 a month, 5 listeners, Opus 256 kbps
• AudioTeleporter Pro: €5.99 a month, 20 listeners, lossless FLAC
• Yearly billing gives you two months free on either paid tier
• AudioTeleporter Perpetual: pay once and keep it. Basic €99.00, Pro €199.00 with 10 listeners or €299.00 with 20. No renewal, free updates

So lossless streaming to twenty people costs €5.99 a month, against €29 for Cleanfeed Pro which does not do lossless at all. That comparison is only fair for the narrow job of sending audio out, which is the point below.

How listeners join, on both sides

On this point Cleanfeed is just as good, and the two tools work the same way. Cleanfeed guests open a link in a browser, need no account and pay nothing. AudioTeleporter listeners open a link in a browser, need no account and pay nothing. Neither tool asks your client to install anything.

Two smaller differences. Cleanfeed's host studio effectively wants Chrome, Chromium or Edge on a desktop; Firefox and Safari are supported for guests on a best efforts basis, and you cannot host a session from an iPhone or iPad. With AudioTeleporter the hosting is done by the plugin in your DAW, so the browser question only ever applies to your listeners, and the listener side lets each person choose their own buffer between 50 milliseconds and a second.

Where Cleanfeed is clearly the better tool

If any of these matter to you, buy Cleanfeed and do not think twice.

• Two way conversation: Cleanfeed is full duplex, so you and your guests hear each other. AudioTeleporter is one direction only: your listeners hear you and cannot talk back through it.
• Recording, especially multitrack: Cleanfeed records live to WAV with an isolated track per guest, up to 32 tracks, drift free, with unlimited length on every tier. AudioTeleporter records nothing at all.
• Interviews, podcasts and ADR: that is what Cleanfeed is designed for, and it has the pedigree to match, including an Academy Award and an Emmy for its founders and users like the BBC and NBC Universal.
• Guest numbers: Cleanfeed Pro allows up to 32 guests. AudioTeleporter caps at 20 listeners on Pro, 5 on Basic and 1 on Free.
• Difficult networks: Cleanfeed states it works anywhere you can reach an https site, including through corporate proxies.
• Video, if you are on the Cinema tier.

What AudioTeleporter does not do

• Stereo only: no Dolby Atmos, no 5.1 or 7.1. Immersive mixes are out of scope.
• No talkback, no video, no chat. Run a phone or video call alongside it.
• No recording, no multitrack, no file delivery.
• Not built for live musical jamming, and Cleanfeed openly says the same about itself.

Which should you choose

Pick Cleanfeed if the session is a conversation. If you need to hear your guest, record them on separate tracks and hand a client the files afterwards, nothing here competes with it and the free Lite tier is a fair place to start.

Pick AudioTeleporter if the session is a playback. You are mixing, the artist or the label is somewhere else, and they need to hear the mix exactly as it is while you work. You get lossless audio, a plugin that sits on the master bus without any virtual audio driver nonsense, and a link your client can open on a phone. It costs €5.99 a month for the lossless tier, and the free tier is enough to find out whether it fits how you work.