Spotify is a popular music streaming service, and there isn’t any doubt about that. But not everyone is happy with it. The free version is limited, it has irritating ads, the playlists aren’t great, and you are limited to how many tracks you can skip. The paid version doesn’t seem to offer much more for the money, so we decided to find the best Spotify alternatives.
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Top 5 Spotify Alternatives:
There are so many streaming apps to choose from that you could spend days trying to find what suits you. You may not want mainstream music, preferring to listen to indies and emerging artists instead. We did the homework for you and trawled through hundreds of apps, and we think these five offer great services and are good alternatives to Spotify.
All of these competitors offer both a free and paid version. On most, the free version offers way more than Spotify does, and the paid versions give you far more value for your money. Let’s see what’s on offer.
1. YouTube Music – Free and Subscription options
Source: SlashGear
About to be integrated with Google Play Music, YouTube Music offers an awesome selection of tunes for free, and it could the one service to topple Spotify from the top. As well as offering you a huge choice of music from all your favorite artists, YouTube Music uses AI to make recommendations for playlists based on your listening choices – the more you listen, the better those recommendations get, and it’s a great way of discovering new artists. You get full access to every YouTube version of a song, including the covers. There are ads on the free version, but these are not intrusive and don’t interfere with your listening experience. If you want more, you can upgrade to YouTube Music Premium at $9.99 per month, which gives you access to more music, no ads, offline mode, a better quality of audio, and your music won’t stop playing when your screen locks.
2. Deezer – free and subscription options
Source: Billboard
Deezer is fast catching up to Spotify in terms of popularity and, to all intents and purposes, it is pretty much the same as Spotify. Available for download on TweakBox app, Deezer offers over 50 million tracks to choose from, a shuffle mode that helps you find new artists easily, a feature called Flow that makes recommendations and gives you new styles of music to explore, a huge choice of pre-made playlists or you can build your own. Add music to Favorites with one tap, place your music in order based on genre or artist, find audio channels, radio stations, and podcasts and share your favorite tunes with your friends. If this isn’t enough, sign up to Deezer Premium at $9.99 to do away with the ads, benefit from offline mode, far better sound quality, and compatibility with connected devices such as Alexa.
3. MusicUp – free
Source: Dribbble
MusicUp is a very simple alternative to Spotify, and it is completely free to use. It is a web-based service that offers radio station-style playlists based on different genres. There is the cool addition of a Karaoke version so that you can sing along at any party. The playlists are all divided into different activities, such as “chill out”, “work out,” and more, and you can create collaborative rooms where you get together with other users and vote on the tunes on the playlist. It isn’t the most feature-packed alternative, but it’s great for a spot of easy listening and that karaoke fun.
- Download MusicUp
4. SoundCloud – free with subscriptions options
Source: Your EDM
SoundCloud is one of the original music streaming services on the web and is now available in a companion mobile app too. It is one of the best platforms for musicians and collaborators and for discovering new, up and coming artists. Plus, you can even upload your own recordings, get your name and music out into the world and reap the benefits of SoundCloud recognition. In terms of features, it offers over 120 million tracks to choose from, uses AI to make recommendations, the ability to create different playlists, and is community-based, so you will constantly be getting new music fed straight to your home screen. The free version offers a lot, but if you want more, consider a subscription to SoundCloud Go at $5.99 per month or SoundCloud Go+ at $12.99 per month.
5. BandCamp – free
Source: NME
Last, but by no means least, we have BandCamp. A completely free app, this is a little different. As a platform, its great for discovering new artists and a place for supporting artists. As an example, in the last 30 days, fans have paid almost $8 million to BandCamp artists. You have the choice of signing up for a fan account, a label, or an artist account, and the way to support artists is via purchases of gift cards. There is a blog that you can read from trending artists and indie artists from around the world, and this is one of the best platforms for discovering brand new artists. What you find here is many of the mainstream artists, so if that’s what you are looking for, pick another app.
There are tons of music streaming services in the app store; these represent a tiny fraction of what you can find. What we have done here, though, is, rather than concentrating on the big names that you already know, most of which offer the same music, is trying to pick a mixture of apps that all offer something a little different. Two of these are completely free, and the others offer a decent free version with the option to subscribe if you want more.
Source: MacForce
Try all of them; find what offers the music you want. The good news is, all of those that have subscription options offer free trials of their premium services, usually a generous 30 days, so you don’t have anything to lose by giving them a go – you can always cancel and move onto another app if one isn’t for you. Give them a go, and you might just find the streaming app you’ve been looking for.
