RPG soundboard alternatives
Six soundboards for tabletop games compared: which take your own audio files, which run on a phone, and what each one costs.
A soundboard is a grid of buttons you tap mid-scene: a sword, a door, a scream. If you want to bring your own files, RPG Soundboard ($4.99, desktop) and GM Audio Mixer (free, desktop) are the straightforward answers. If you want a board that already has the sounds in it and runs on a phone at the table, Thaumaturgy is free and Audio Forge is an iPad app with in-app purchases.
The soundboard end of the field
| App | Price | Platforms | Your own sounds | Works offline | Library |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Thaumaturgy | Free. No account needed, no ads, no paid tier. | Any browser; Google Play; Amazon Appstore (Fire tablets). No iOS app yet — it runs in Safari. | Three loop slots for your own MP3, OGG or WAV. The file never leaves your browser. | Yes, after the first visit. The Amazon build bundles the whole library. | 103 environments, 35 boards, 196 board sounds, 1091 clips. |
| Audio Forge | Free with ads and in-app purchases. Premium $3.99, ad-free $3.99, sound packs $3.99 each, yearly subscription $34.99. | iPhone and iPad (iOS 16.4+), and Mac (macOS 26.1+, Apple silicon). | Yes — imports your own MP3, WAV and OGG files. | Yes. The listing recommends it for places without reliable connectivity. | Not stated as a number; extra content is sold in packs. |
| RPG Soundboard | $4.99 on Steam, one-off. | Windows, macOS and Linux. | Yes — load your own music and effects; boards import and export as .rpsb archives. | Yes — a desktop app playing local files. | None — you bring the sounds. |
| RPG Sounds | Base app free or around $4 depending on the source — the listings disagree; sound packs $4.99 each. Check Steam before you buy. | Windows, via Steam. | Yes — Import Files and Import Folders in the library screen. | Yes — a desktop app. | Sold in packs. |
| GM Audio Mixer | Free. No trial, no ads, no in-app purchases, no account. Tips via Ko-fi. | macOS 13+ on Apple silicon, and 64-bit Windows 10 or 11. No Intel Macs, no mobile. | Yes — it plays only your own files, left where they are on disk. | Yes. It runs on your own computer and needs no connection. | None — you bring the sounds. |
| Tabletop Audio | Free and ad-free, supported by Patreon and one-off donations. Patrons get alternate versions of tracks. | The website, in “all modern browsers and devices”. No native apps listed. | No. The Custom SoundPad tool mixes up to 40 sounds drawn from released SoundPads. | Not stated. Ambiences can be downloaded; SoundPad sounds are not meant to be. | 500+ ambiences; 30 SoundPads with 1,200+ sounds. |
Bring your own sounds, or have them brought?
This is the fork, and it is worth being clear about which side you are on before you compare anything else.
Bring your own. You have a folder of audio you have collected, and what you want is buttons for it. RPG Soundboard is $4.99 once, runs on Windows, Mac and Linux, loads your music and effects and exports a whole board as a single portable file — which also means you can hand a board to another GM. GM Audio Mixer is free with no catch at all and plays your files where they already sit on disk. Both are desktop-only, so neither helps if you run from a phone.
Have them brought. You do not want to go hunting for a good sword sound. Thaumaturgy ships 35 boards and 196 sounds, free, in a browser, and lets you build your own from the same library. Audio Forge ships a board and sells packs at $3.99, and will also import your own files — the only entry here that genuinely does both, though it is Apple-only.
Three things worth checking before you commit
Does a button give you the same sound every time? A board that plays one identical clip for every sword swing stops working after the third swing. In Thaumaturgy most buttons carry several takes and pick one at random, and you can listen to each take and switch off the ones you dislike. Ask the question of anything else you are considering, because the answer is often no.
Can you rename the buttons? Mid-combat you are reading a grid at a glance, and “sword-impact-03.wav” is not a label. Thaumaturgy gives every button a name and a note underneath it — “swing and a miss” — which is a small thing that turns out to matter a great deal at the table.
Does it run on the device you will actually have? Most GMs end up running sound from a phone at the table and preparing on a laptop. Three of the entries here are desktop-only and one is Apple-only, which settles the question before any feature does.
When a soundboard is not what you want
Buttons are for things that happen. They are not the right tool for the sound of a place, which should run on its own for an hour without anyone touching it. If you find yourself tapping a rain button every thirty seconds, you want an ambience engine, not a board — and most of the apps here, ours included, do both. The wider comparison covers the ambience side.
In Thaumaturgy the split is deliberate: an environment is the place, and boards are the things that happen in it. Boards covers building one, and running sound during combat covers using it when the dice are out.
Related
Where these facts come from
Everything above was read on the maker’s own pages on 24 October 2026, and the links are below so you can check it yourself. Where a vendor does not state something — whether an app works offline, say — the table says so instead of guessing. Subscription pricing moves; if you are reading this a long way from that date, treat the prices as a starting point.
- Audio Forge — App Store listing
- RPG Soundboard — Steam store page
- RPG Sounds — Steam store page
- GM Audio Mixer — features, platforms, price
- Tabletop Audio — what it is, funding, counts
Open Thaumaturgy — the boards are on the second tab, and there is nothing to install.
Updated 24 October 2026