SonoBus alternative: no install for your listeners

SonoBus is good software and it is completely free, so if you are looking for a SonoBus alternative you probably have one specific problem: the person you want to send audio to has to install it first. This compares it with AudioTeleporter. I make AudioTeleporter, and SonoBus beats it in several ways, all of which are listed below.

Two tools for two different jobs

SonoBus is a multi-user, peer to peer audio tool built for playing together. Everyone in a group sends and receives, with per person volume, pan and mute, a metronome, a soundboard, text chat and per input compression, gating and EQ. It is open source under the GPL, made by Sonosaurus, and it runs as a standalone app and as a plugin on macOS, Windows, Linux, iOS and Android.

AudioTeleporter does one thing. It is a plugin on your master bus that streams your mix out to people who are listening, and it plays back in their web browser. Nobody jams, nobody talks back, nobody installs anything.

The install question, which is the whole point

With SonoBus, every participant runs SonoBus. Audio travels over its own protocol directly between clients, so there is no browser playback at all. The share link you can generate is a launcher rather than a player: open it and you get two buttons, one to download SonoBus and one to open the app you already installed. It is a nice touch, but it does not stream anything.

The developer made this choice on purpose. A browser client has been requested more than once and they have said no, twice, in public. There are still open requests asking for it, and one of them argues the case better than I can: the author wants to stop asking guests to install software beforehand and simply point them at a URL.

SonoBus does generate links to VDO.Ninja, which is a browser based service, but that adds webcam video alongside your SonoBus session. It is not a way to deliver SonoBus audio into a browser.

With AudioTeleporter the listener side is the browser. You send a link, they click it, they hear the mix. There is no account, download or pairing code, and you never walk a client through an audio driver on the phone while they lose patience. If the people listening are clients, managers or artists rather than fellow engineers, that single difference is usually the entire decision.

Audio quality, where SonoBus wins on bit depth

On raw specification, SonoBus can send fully uncompressed PCM at 16, 24 or 32 bit float, or Opus from 16 up to 256 kbps per channel, and you choose the quality per person, both for what you send and what you request from others. Its default is 96 kbps Opus. Sample rates of 44.1 and 48 kHz are supported and it resamples automatically if participants differ.

AudioTeleporter streams lossless FLAC on the Pro tier, at your session's own sample rate up to 192 kHz, in 16 or 24-bit, and Opus at 64 or 256 kbps on Free and Basic. Lossless means nothing is thrown away, which is the part that matters when someone is approving a mix. AudioTeleporter goes higher on sample rate, but SonoBus offers 32 bit float, a step above AudioTeleporter's 24-bit, so if bit depth is your deciding factor, SonoBus has the higher ceiling and it costs nothing.

Setup, networks and the friction

SonoBus is peer to peer, which is what makes it fast and free. Its own user guide is open about the cost of that: it says the technological barriers are higher than Zoom, that a user ideally understands WDM versus ASIO drivers, CoreAudio, buffering, WiFi versus Ethernet and network jitter, and that sometimes the setup is very frustrating. ASIO is highly recommended on Windows. Ethernet is strongly recommended over WiFi. On symmetric NAT or institutional networks you may need to pick a specific UDP port and forward it to a static internal address.

It also states plainly that it does not currently use any encryption for its data communication. AudioTeleporter runs over standard TLS, the same as any https website, which matters if you are sending unreleased material to a client.

On the AudioTeleporter side the setup is the plugin, a start button and a link. There is no port forwarding, because your listeners connect to a relay over the same protocols their browser already uses to load web pages.

Price

SonoBus is free, with donations, and there is no account to make. That is hard to beat and I will not try.

• 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
• 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

Where SonoBus is the better choice

• Playing music together: SonoBus is built for it, with per person mixing, a metronome and low latency peer to peer audio. AudioTeleporter cannot do this at all.
• It is free and open source under the GPL, so you can read it, build it and run your own server. The source is on GitHub.
• Two way and many way audio: everyone hears everyone. AudioTeleporter is one direction only.
• A higher bit depth, with uncompressed 32 bit float PCM available.
• Recording, including multitrack, plus chat, a soundboard and file playback into the session.
• No account and no payment, ever.

What AudioTeleporter does not do

• Stereo only: no Dolby Atmos, no 5.1 or 7.1.
• One direction: no talkback, no jamming, no chat, no video.
• No recording, on either end.
• Listener caps of 1, 5 and 20 by tier, where SonoBus groups allow more.

Which one should you pick

If you are making music with other players in real time, use SonoBus. It is free and well made, it is designed for exactly that, and no amount of browser convenience makes up for the fact that AudioTeleporter does not do it.

If you are the one making the sound and other people just need to hear it properly, AudioTeleporter is the easier answer. They open a link in whatever browser is already on their laptop or phone, they pick their own buffer between 50 milliseconds and a second, and on Pro they hear lossless audio for €5.99 a month. Start on the free tier and send yourself a link before you spend anything.