Stingray Music - 100s of DJs

Review by eFreeware

There are evenings when choosing what to play is more effort than it should be. You open a streaming service, scroll past a wall of albums and playlists, and end up listening to nothing at all. A radio-style app solves that by making the decision for you, and Stingray Music from Stingray Group is built around exactly that idea: hand-curated channels rather than a catalog you have to dig through.

The app has been on Google Play since August 2011 and has passed a million installs, with a 4.6 average across more than 54,000 ratings. It is free to download and supported by ads, with in-app purchases available, and it was last updated in September 2025 with what the developer describes as minor tweaks and bug fixes.

Built for listeners who would rather not choose

The pitch is simple: instead of assembling your own queue, you pick a channel and let it run. Stingray says it offers thousands of channels spread across hundreds of genres, each put together by curators the app names and describes. That model suits people who treat music as background to something else, whether that is cooking, hosting friends or working through a quiet afternoon.

It also fits listeners who like the feel of traditional radio but want more variety than a handful of stations. The filter system lets you narrow channels by activity, mood, theme, occasions and local trends, which suggests you can move from a dinner-at-home channel to a workout one without much thought. The developer notes that some of these filters are only available in certain countries, so the full set may not appear where you live.

What appeals to me about this approach is the low effort involved. There is no playlist to assemble before you start listening. If you enjoy being surprised by a station you would not have picked yourself, that is the appeal here.

Channels, curators and the controls you get

The core of the app is the channel list, and the developer puts the number in the thousands, spanning hundreds of genres. Each channel comes with a description and information about the curator behind it, so you can see what a station is meant for before you commit to it. That context is more useful than a bare title, particularly when you are browsing categories you do not know well.

Playback is not entirely passive. Skips are unlimited, so a track you dislike does not trap you for its full length. You can also like songs to push them higher in the rotation, and block specific songs and artists so they stop appearing. Over time that shapes a channel around your taste without requiring you to build anything from scratch.

There are practical extras too. A sleep timer lets a channel wind down with you at night, and channels can be shared to social networks if you want to pass one along. The developer also advertises high quality audio, which matters if you listen through decent speakers or headphones rather than a phone speaker.

Listening beyond the phone

Stingray Music is built to work beyond a single handset. The app works with Sonos wireless hi-fi systems, AirPlay and Chromecast, so you can push a channel to a living room setup instead of huddling around a phone. For driving, it supports Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, which is where a channel-based app makes a lot of sense: fewer taps, less attention taken off the road.

That spread of integrations is the part I find most convincing. A curated channel is at its best when it is playing in the background of a room or a car, and the developer has clearly thought about both. If your listening mostly happens through one of those routes, the app is set up for it.

What it costs, and what the ads mean

The app is free to download, and the developer describes access to the channels as free. It is supported by advertising, and there are in-app purchases. Upgrading to the premium version removes ads, which is the clearest difference between the two experiences.

There is a second route to premium that is worth knowing about. If your TV provider carries Stingray Music, premium access is included at no extra cost, with sign-in either through your provider's single login or by authenticating instantly with audio signal recognition. That is an unusual option and a useful one for anyone whose television package already includes the service.

I would treat the ad-supported tier as the default starting point. It costs nothing to try, and the free version comes with ads. Whether the premium upgrade is worth paying for depends on how much the interruptions bother you, which is a personal call rather than something I can settle here.

How it compares with the alternatives

The obvious comparison is a mainstream on-demand streaming service, where you choose the exact track and album. Those give you precision; Stingray gives you a running channel and a curator's judgment. If your enjoyment comes from picking the next song yourself, a channel-based app will feel like a step back, and that is a fair conclusion to draw.

The other comparison is traditional broadcast radio or an internet radio directory. Stingray's advantage in that company is the scale of its channel count and the controls layered on top, particularly unlimited skips and the ability to block songs and artists outright. A broadcast station gives you none of that.

There is also the question of hardware. If you already run a Sonos system, use Chromecast or AirPlay, or rely on CarPlay and Android Auto in the car, an app that plugs into all of those fits neatly into what you own. If your listening is confined to earbuds and a phone, the integrations will not matter much either way.

A good fit for background listening

Stingray Music is a straightforward proposition: free, ad-supported, and built around curated channels rather than a library you assemble yourself. The channel count is large, the controls for shaping a station are sensible, and the device support covers the places people actually listen. The 4.6 average from more than 54,000 ratings suggests a lot of users have found it workable.

I would point it at listeners who want music handled for them. If you like putting on a station for a dinner, a long drive or the hour before sleep, and you would rather skip a song than curate a playlist, this is the kind of app that earns a place on your phone. The sleep timer, the car integrations and the unlimited skips all serve that habit directly.

If, on the other hand, you want to play specific albums on demand and build your own collections, a channel-based service is not trying to do that job. Readers in that camp will know it. For everyone else, the free tier is an easy place to start, and the TV provider route is worth checking before paying for anything.

What's new in version 9.7.4

We made some tweaks and said bye-bye to a few little bugs