SoundSource Alternative for Mac: Per-App Volume Without the $49 Price Tag
The best SoundSource alternatives for Mac per-app volume control, compared by price, features, and what each actually does.
SoundSource is genuinely excellent software - but at $49, it costs more than most people want to spend just to turn down one loud app. If you need per-app volume, per-app output routing, or a mute button that doesn't silence everything, there are real alternatives worth knowing about, and I'll be specific about what each one actually does and doesn't do.
Why people go looking for a SoundSource alternative
macOS has no built-in volume mixer. Every app shares the same output, and the system volume slider moves all of them together. SoundSource solves this properly - it gives each app its own fader, its own output device, and a 10-band EQ - and Rogue Amoeba has been building Mac audio software for years. The problem is the price. $49 is hard to justify if what you actually want is "turn down Chrome without touching Spotify." That's a real need, but it doesn't require the most powerful audio tool on the market.
There's also a subset of people who need SoundSource specifically because it supports Audio Unit plug-in effects - routing audio through third-party AU processors in real time. If that's you, stop reading: SoundSource is the right tool and nothing else comes close. But if you just want per-app volume, mute, and output routing, read on.
What the alternatives actually offer
Soundish - $14.99 once
Soundish is what I built after getting tired of the same problem myself. It gives each running app its own volume slider (0-200%, so you can overdrive quiet apps past the system ceiling), its own output device, and its own mute. It also has a 10-band EQ per app with presets, audio profiles that save and restore every app's volume/mute/output/EQ in one shot, and global hotkeys including one that controls whichever app is in front. Since version 1.5 there's no driver, no install step, and no restart - it uses macOS's own audio tap and asks once for permission to capture system audio. Nothing is recorded.
The thing that took longest to get right was Electron apps. Slack, Discord, Chrome, Brave, and Edge all spawn helper processes that emit audio under names that don't match the parent app. Attributing those streams back to the right app so they show up under "Slack" rather than "Slack Helper (Renderer)" was the hardest engineering problem in the whole project. It works now, but it took longer than any other part of the build.
What Soundish doesn't have: Audio Unit plug-in effects. If you need to run an AU compressor or EQ plug-in on your system audio, Soundish is not the answer.
Price: $14.99 once, 7-day free trial, no card required.
Sound Control - ~$29 once
Sound Control by Staticz sits between Soundish and SoundSource in price. It offers per-app volume and output routing, and has been around for a while. The interface is functional. It doesn't have AU plug-in support either, so if that's your criterion it won't help. At roughly twice the price of Soundish for a similar core feature set, it's harder to recommend unless you've tried both and prefer it.
eqMac - free tier / Pro at $40/year or $80 once
eqMac is open-source and takes a different approach: it's a system-wide EQ and volume tool rather than strictly a per-app mixer. The free version gives you a global EQ. The Pro tier adds per-app volume. At $40/year it's more expensive than anything else here on an ongoing basis; the one-time option is $80. It's a good piece of software if EQ is your primary goal, but pricier than it looks if you just want per-app control.
Boom 3D - $20-30
Boom 3D is primarily a system-wide EQ and spatial audio tool with a volume booster. It doesn't offer genuine per-app output routing - you can't send Discord to headphones and Spotify to speakers with it. If your goal is making everything louder and punchier, it's fine. If your goal is separating apps onto different outputs, it won't help.
SoundSource - $49 once
Included for completeness. SoundSource does everything: per-app volume, per-app routing, per-app EQ, Audio Unit plug-in chains, and a well-designed menu bar interface from a team with a long track record. If you work in audio production and need AU plug-ins - hardware emulations, dynamics processors, anything from a third-party AU bundle - this is the right buy and the alternatives won't cut it. The price is fair for what it is. It's just more than most Mac users need.
Feature comparison at a glance
| Soundish | Sound Control | eqMac Pro | Boom 3D | SoundSource | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Per-app volume | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | - | ✓ |
| Per-app output routing | ✓ | ✓ | - | - | ✓ |
| Per-app EQ | ✓ (10-band) | - | ✓ | global only | ✓ |
| Audio Unit plug-ins | - | - | - | - | ✓ |
| Audio profiles | ✓ | - | - | - | - |
| Volume overdrive (>100%) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| No driver needed | ✓ | - | - | - | ✓ |
| Price | $14.99 | ~$29 | $40/yr or $80 | $20-30 | $49 |
| Free trial | 7 days | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | 30 days |
Which one should you actually buy?
You need AU plug-ins → SoundSource. Nothing else does this.
You want per-app volume and routing at the lowest price → Soundish. It covers the core use case - Chrome quiet, Spotify loud, Discord on headphones - for $14.99 with no ongoing cost and no install step.
You care about system-wide EQ more than per-app routing → eqMac (free tier may be enough).
You want audio that sounds bigger and you don't care about routing → Boom 3D.
If you've come from Windows and you're confused about why macOS has no volume mixer at all, Switching from Windows to Mac? Here's How to Get Your Audio Control Back covers the full picture. And if you're looking specifically for how to send one app to a different output - say, keeping Teams on headphones while music plays on speakers - How to Change Audio Output Per App on Mac has the step-by-step.
For a detailed head-to-head on Soundish versus SoundSource specifically, including when SoundSource is genuinely the better buy, Soundish vs SoundSource goes into more depth.
Common questions
Is there a free SoundSource alternative for Mac?
macOS has no built-in per-app volume mixer, so there's no free native option. eqMac has a free tier for system-wide EQ but per-app volume requires the paid Pro plan. Most paid alternatives offer free trials (Soundish is 7 days, SoundSource is 30 days) so you can test before buying.
Does a SoundSource alternative need to install a driver?
Soundish 1.5 and later requires no driver or kernel extension - it uses macOS's own audio tap API introduced in recent versions of macOS. SoundSource also runs without a kernel extension. Older versions of some tools (including older Soundish) did require a driver install; that's no longer the case for either of the main options.
Do these apps work on macOS Sequoia and macOS 27?
Soundish requires macOS 14.6 (Sonoma) or later and works on both Intel and Apple Silicon. It was fully tested on macOS 27 as part of the October 2026 update. SoundSource and Sound Control both support recent macOS versions; check each developer's site for their current compatibility statement.