What is the download proxy and do I need it?

The download proxy is an optional feature that routes audio download requests through your WordPress site via HTTP 302 redirect before sending the subscriber to your actual hosted file. WordPress logs the request (subscriber identity, episode, timestamp, podcast app) and immediately redirects — no audio is served from your server, no bandwidth cost.

This enables true per-episode, per-subscriber download analytics, podcast app identification, and exact last-access timestamps. Without it, feed polling data is available but per-episode download counts aren’t.

You don’t need to enable it to use Benecaster. It’s a trade-off: slightly more infrastructure complexity for significantly richer analytics.