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Frequently asked questions
How many podcasts are there?
The Podcast Index feed dump of 16 August 2026 holds 4,711,475 podcast feeds. That is every feed the index has recorded, including shows that stopped publishing years ago. How many podcasts.
How many podcasts are active?
437,693 feeds published an episode in the 90 days before 16 August 2026. The same count with a 365-day window is also published. Active podcasts.
Where do the numbers come from?
Two sources: the Podcast Index feed dump of 16 August 2026, and the Apple Podcasts top-100 charts of 18 storefronts fetched on 6 September 2026, joined to the dump on the Apple ID. Method.
Why does the total differ from Listen Notes?
On 6 September 2026 Listen Notes reported 3,806,954 podcasts, 19.2% fewer than the 4,711,475 feeds in the dump. Podcast Index's own live count that day was 4,727,620, 0.34% more. The method page lists each comparison. Sanity checks.
How is a podcast's hosting platform worked out?
From the host domain of the feed URL, normalised through an alias map so that several domains run by one host count as one platform. Hosting platforms.
How is a podcast's start year set?
It is the year of the oldest episode still in the feed. A show that trims its feed to recent episodes counts under a later year than its first episode, and a show that uploaded an older archive can count under an earlier one. Podcasts by start year.
Which languages are counted?
Language tags in the dump are normalised to the ISO base tag, so en-us and en-GB both count as English. 20 languages have their own page. Languages.
Why do some cells read <5 or n/a?
A count under 5 prints as <5. A share whose base is under 100 feeds is not published and reads n/a.
Why is there no list of podcasts with the most episodes?
The dump caps each feed's episode count at 1,000, so the top of that list cannot be ranked.
Is Podcastquery free to use?
Yes. Every page is free to read with no account or paywall. When quoting a number, link the page it came from and give the dump date.
Can I download the data?
Each research post links a CSV of the rows behind it. The research datasets are also published on GitHub. podcastquery-data.
How do I report an error?
Email hello@podcastquery.com with the page URL and what is wrong.