Podcasts are great for such a variety of different tasks. Whether you like to listen to them as you drive, or prefer to listen to them to get yourself to sleep, there’s a near-infinite way that podcasts can improve your life.

But finding a good one can be tricky. More than that, it can often be downright painful. There’s a ridiculous number of different podcasts out there, and that number’s only growing.

So, what can you do to combat this? Fortunately, there are quite a few podcast search engines out there to help you find exactly what you’re looking for. Here are four of the best.

1. Listen Notes

First on this list is Listen Notes, a podcast search engine that aims to take the difficulty out of finding a new podcast.

If you’re unfamiliar with podcast search engines, they tend to behave not that differently from any of these other search engines that find what Google can’t . That is to say, with Listen Notes, you’ll find yourself presented with a search bar for you to type in your query.

You can type anything here, just like you might with any other search engine. Say that you want a true-crime podcast, all you’d have to do is type in "true crime", and you’d be good to go.

What’s great about Listen Notes is the ways that it helps you to figure out what you want. You don’t always know exactly what you’re looking for, after all.

Listen Notes makes this possible thanks to a number of different filers and options that you can select from. For example, trending topics are listed under a trending tab, so you can see what other people are looking for.

If you want to discover something new, then Listen Notes has tons to help you out there as well. You can find podcast episodes that are being played in real-time, you can find podcasts similar to those that you like, or just the most popular podcasts of the day amongst others. This applies as you search as well.

It is worth mentioning that Listen Notes has other features that are available for premium members only. If you want more advanced search filters, for example, then you’ll need to pay for this premium service.

More search results and information are also included, but the based functionality of the website is available entirely for free.

2. Pod Hunt

Next up on this list comes Pod Hunt. If you’re looking for something that’s got some good ideas but is a little less developed, then Pod Hunt is a great place to get started.

Pod Hunt behaves like a traditional podcast search engine, though it’s worth noting that some of its results can be pretty limited. You’ll often only get five or so results from your searches, which are then organized based on how many times each podcast has been voted for. Good in theory, but lacking the numbers to make it really shine.

Where Pod Hunt excels, however, is in its categories, collections, and feeds. Whilst not a search engine, these three features are all great ways to discover new podcasts that you would have otherwise missed.

Categories, as you might have guessed, are a collection of different categories and themes by which you search for podcasts. There are over 70 different categories here, so you should be able to find exactly what it is that you’re looking for. The categories tend to be more fleshed out than your search results as well.

The collections are a little more interesting, categorizing podcasts down into different types that expand beyond just a simple theme.

One of the collections is focused on startups, for instance, with podcast episodes on a huge range of topics that all relate. The number of pages in each collection is huge, with hundreds being the norm.

Finally, there are feeds. At this point in time, there seems to be just the one, but further development on this idea in future is not only possible but would be quite interesting.

The current feed is just an RSS feed that you can plug into any free app you can use to listen to your favorite podcasts . It gives you the five most voted podcasts of the day, every day.

3. Podchaser

If you’re looking for something a little more community-focused with a good range of search results, then Podchaser might be more to your liking.

Podchaser is a podcast search engine with a lot of depth. For example, when you search with this engine, you won’t receive just a list of episodes, or a list of podcasts. You can search by creators, tags, and categories, and can even look for other users.

These results then have further filters to make sure that you’re finding what you’re looking for. The category results let you filter by podcast or episode, and even let you change how the list is organized and more, such as by rating, date of last episode, language, and many more.

4. Spreaker

Finally, Spreaker makes it to this list. If you’re looking for something without all the bells and whistles and with a more straightforward and easier-to-use interface, then Spreaker is potentially your best bet.

All you have to do is type in your query, and you’re good to go. It’s quite a lot like Google, with your search taking you straight to your results. Unlike some of the other entries on this list, that means no choosing from extraneous categories or options.

Once you arrive at your results, they’ll be split between podcasts and users, with the option to expand on these available to you. If you scroll down, you’ll be able to find individual episode results as well.

The number of returns here is honestly pretty solid, and you’re unlikely to be disappointed that you’re unable to find anything if you use Spreaker.

Finding Podcasts Has Never Been So Easy

As you can see, there’s a huge variety of ways that you can search for and discover new podcasts. The trickiest part of the journey is more or less over, which means now all you have to do is find the time to listen.