Chorus vs Airfoil: which one do you need?

The short version

These two apps both get sound to more than one place, but the resemblance stops there. Airfoil pushes your Mac's audio outward, into other rooms and onto other devices, some of which have no AirPlay support until Airfoil gives them one. Chorus stays closer to home: it groups and switches the outputs on or near your Mac, and hands each app its own destination. They aren't really rivals so much as two tools that share the word "audio".

Chorus vs Airfoil at a glance

What Chorus is

Chorus is a native macOS menu-bar app for the devices already attached to your Mac. It groups outputs so several of them play as one, with a single volume that actually moves the sound and balance between the devices in the group so a quiet speaker can be brought up to meet a loud one. Because AirPlay speakers show up in macOS's normal output list once they're paired, Chorus can select and switch to one the same way it treats any other output.

Around that sits the rest of the job. You choose your input in the same panel. You send individual apps to different outputs, so a call can stay on your headphones while music plays across the room. You save the arrangements you use and switch between them with a keyboard shortcut, and your volume keys drive a whole group instead of one device. Chorus notices devices as they connect and disconnect and adjusts, which matters if you unplug a display at the end of the day. If you want to drive it from elsewhere, it automates through Raycast, Shortcuts or Stream Deck.

There is no driver and no kernel extension. Chorus uses the audio grouping macOS already has, so nothing is installed into the system and dragging the app to the Trash leaves your Mac as it was. It is $4.99 once, free for 30 days with no account and no card details, and one licence covers up to three Macs. It needs macOS 13 or later and runs on both Intel and Apple Silicon.

What Airfoil is

Airfoil, from Rogue Amoeba, the same company behind SoundSource, Loopback and Audio Hijack, does a different job entirely. It streams your Mac's audio outward, to devices around the house that support AirPlay, Bluetooth or Google Cast. Its real distinguishing feature is Airfoil Satellite, a companion app that runs on another Mac, a PC, an iOS device or an Android device and turns it into an extra receiving speaker, even when that hardware has no AirPlay support of its own.

Airfoil is currently at version 5.12.6, released September 2025, and supports macOS 14.4 up to macOS 26. It costs $29 once, with a $15 upgrade for people already on an earlier version, and a free trial is available, though the audio overlays a static sound after ten minutes.

What Airfoil doesn't do is organise the speakers wired directly to your Mac. It has no per-app routing to different local outputs, no equaliser, and nothing built for keyboard-shortcut switching between local setups. Its job is getting sound out of your Mac and across the network, not managing the outputs sitting right in front of you.

Where Chorus wins

• The price, for this particular job. $4.99 against $29 is roughly a sixth, and if your job is local, not whole-house, you aren't paying for streaming you'll never use.
• It groups the outputs Airfoil leaves alone. Built-in speakers, a wired desk speaker, a display, an already-paired AirPlay device: Chorus treats them as one group with one real volume and per-device balance. Airfoil has no answer to that.
• Per-app routing. Send a call to your headphones while music keeps playing through the room, something Airfoil doesn't offer at all.
• Setups on a keyboard shortcut. Save the arrangements you actually use, then switch between them with a shortcut, or from Raycast, Shortcuts or Stream Deck.
• Nothing installed into the system. No driver, no kernel extension, and no trace left behind when it goes.
• Three Macs on one licence, and 30 days free before you decide.

Where Airfoil is the better buy

• It reaches devices Chorus can't. Airfoil Satellite turns a PC, an old iPad, an Android phone or another Mac into a receiving speaker, even with zero AirPlay support built in.
• It's built for whole-house audio. Stream the same source to several rooms and several kinds of hardware at once, which is a different scale of problem than one Mac's own outputs.
• It works with speakers Chorus never touches. Chromecast and Bluetooth receivers across the network are Airfoil's territory, not Chorus's.
• A $15 upgrade if you already own an earlier Airfoil, which changes the maths considerably.
• It's from a long-standing Mac audio developer with a long track record shipping networked streaming software.

So which should you pick?

Pick Chorus if the problem is on your desk: two displays that should sound like one, a mic you keep having to reselect, a call that belongs on headphones while everything else plays out loud, and a setup you'd like to change with one keystroke. That's a local job, it's $4.99, and you can try it for a month before paying anything.

Pick Airfoil if the problem is bigger than your desk: sound that needs to reach another room, a speaker that isn't AirPlay-native, or a proper multi-room setup spanning several kinds of device. That's a streaming job, and Chorus was never built to do it.

Plenty of people end up wanting both, one for the desk, one for the house. If you're only sure about the local half, start with the free trial of Chorus and see how far it gets you.

For more on how its AirPlay and Bluetooth streaming works, see Airfoil's own product page.

Frequently asked questions