The closest Airfoil alternatives on the Mac are SoundSource, from the same developer, and Audiout, which is the app we make. macOS covers one case for free: Apple’s Music and TV apps can play to several AirPlay speakers at once. Which of them you want comes down to a single question, so answer it before you spend anything. Is the thing you’re trying to fix one app’s sound, or the whole house?
Because everything else on your Mac gets one speaker at a time. You pick a speaker in Control Center, and Spotify, the browser, the game and the video call all go there together. (AirPlay, in this article, means Apple’s way of sending sound over Wi‑Fi to a HomePod, an Apple TV, a Sonos, or a receiver with it built in.)
What does Airfoil do?
Airfoil, from Rogue Amoeba, takes one app’s sound and sends it where you tell it: AirPlay speakers, Bluetooth speakers, Chromecast speakers, and other Macs running its free receiver software. It’s the app that made this category exist, it comes from a developer Mac users have trusted for two decades, and it sells as a licence rather than a subscription.
You choose the app, then you choose the speakers, and each speaker gets a slider you can drag by hand when one of them lands late. There’s a built-in equalizer too, and a free iPhone companion, Airfoil Satellite, which works as a remote or turns the phone itself into one of the speakers. It is actively maintained: as of September 2026 the current version is 5.12.7, dated 13 August 2026 in Airfoil’s release notes. If “take this one app and send it over there” is the whole of your problem, Airfoil has been doing exactly that, well, for years.
What does SoundSource do?
SoundSource, also from Rogue Amoeba, is a control panel for everything your Mac plays. Volume per app, a different speaker per app, and equalizers and Audio Unit effects (the Mac’s standard plug-in format for sound effects) applied to one app at a time. Since version 6, released in December 2025, it can also send a single app, or the whole Mac, to a group of speakers at once, AirPlay and Bluetooth alike.
Buy SoundSource if what you want is control over how things sound. Your browser quieter than your music. A bass boost on the laptop speakers and nothing else. An equalizer curve on one app while the rest stay flat. That’s its home ground, and it’s the one thing on this page ours doesn’t do at all.
What can macOS do on its own?
More than people expect, in a narrow lane. Apple’s Music app and TV app can each play to several AirPlay speakers at the same time, in time with each other, at a volume you set per speaker. Click the AirPlay icon inside the app, tick the rooms you want, done. If your listening lives in Apple Music, that may genuinely be the end of this.
Outside those two apps, macOS gives you switching rather than sharing. Control Center sends everything to one speaker, and when you pick a different one, everything moves. Same with AirPlay from Control Center: one destination at a time.
So the free version of this problem has two shapes. The whole house, but only Apple’s apps. Any app, but one room.
Is there a free Airfoil alternative?
FineTune is the one the directories put first. Free, open source under GPLv3, in the menu bar: a volume slider and a 10-band equalizer for every app, and audio to several output devices at once. It wants macOS 15 or later. Its feature list says nothing about AirPlay, Chromecast, or holding a late speaker back, so a house of wireless speakers is not the case it sets out to solve. For per-app volume on the speakers already attached to your Mac, it costs nothing to try.
What if you want every app on every speaker?
That’s the job Audiout was built around. Whatever your Mac is playing goes out to the speakers you choose, each room with its own fader in the menu bar, so the kitchen comes down without touching the living room. Bluetooth speakers sit on the same mixer as the AirPlay ones. A Bluetooth speaker that lands a fraction behind gets measured with your Mac’s microphone, or lined up by ear. Audiout Remote, the free iPhone app included with Audiout for Mac, is coming soon and will measure it from your phone.
Route a single app and it gets a fader and a room of its own, so Spotify can be in the kitchen while a call stays on the Mac. Apps you haven’t routed follow Main Audio, the fader over everything. Save a set of speakers as a scene and one click brings it back, each speaker at the volume you saved. The price is €24.99 once, and the free 14-day trial of Audiout for Mac has every feature in it.
It needs a Mac with Apple Silicon running macOS 14.4 or later. On an Intel Mac, Airfoil and SoundSource are your options and this one isn’t. If the sync side is what sent you looking, why AirPlay speakers drift apart and connecting several Bluetooth speakers to a Mac go deeper than this page can.
Airfoil vs SoundSource vs macOS vs Audiout
| Airfoil | SoundSource | FineTune | macOS built-in | Audiout | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AirPlay speakers | Yes | Yes | Not in its feature list | Music and TV apps only | Yes |
| Bluetooth speakers | Yes | Yes, in an output group | Yes, paired ones | One at a time | Yes |
| Chromecast speakers | Yes | No | Not in its feature list | No | Yes |
| Per-app routing | Yes, one chosen app | Yes | Yes | No | Yes, to AirPlay and Bluetooth speakers |
| Holding a late speaker back | A slider per speaker, set by hand | No | Nothing for it | No | Measured with your Mac’s microphone, or set by ear |
| Equalizer | Built in | Yes, per app, with plug-in effects | Yes, 10-band per app | No | No |
| Price | Paid licence | Paid licence | Free | Free | €24.99, one-time |
| Source public | No | No | Yes, GPLv3 | No | Yes, GPL-2.0 |
All four of the paid or free apps above are actively developed, so features and prices move. Check Rogue Amoeba’s own pages before you buy either of theirs.
Which one should you get?
Get SoundSource if the sound itself is what bothers you, and you want per-app equalizers and effects on a Mac you use all day. Get Airfoil if one app to a set of speakers is the shape of your problem, especially on an Intel Mac, where it’s the mature answer and ours doesn’t run at all. Stay free if you listen through Apple Music, because Music and TV already do the multi-speaker part well. Try FineTune if per-app volume and an equalizer are what you want rather than more rooms.
And if you went looking for an Airfoil alternative because there are speakers in four rooms and music in one, that’s the case the third option was built for. Either way, the first move is the same: work out whether you’re fixing one app or a house, and let that pick the app for you.
Common questions
Is there a free way to play any app to several speakers on a Mac?
Not from macOS itself. The free multi-speaker feature lives inside Apple’s Music and TV apps, and it only carries what those two apps are playing. FineTune is free and open source and handles per-app volume and several outputs at once, though its feature list says nothing about AirPlay, Chromecast or speaker timing. For sending any app to a house full of speakers, the apps built for that are paid.
Do these apps keep the speakers in time with each other?
All three paid options handle timing across AirPlay speakers, which is the case most people hit first. Bluetooth is the awkward one, because a Bluetooth speaker often plays a fraction behind the rest. Airfoil gives you a delay slider you set by hand. SoundSource has nothing for it. Audiout measures the gap with your Mac’s microphone instead.
Can I use SoundSource and Audiout at the same time?
Some people will want both, since one shapes the sound of each app and the other sends everything to the house. They both capture what your Mac is playing, though, so set them up with different apps rather than pointing both at the same one. Otherwise they end up competing for the same audio.