The music streaming war is at its peak. Every company wants a pie of this growing market trend. So far, Spotify is leading the race with the absolute majority. Biggies like Amazon, Apple, and Google with YouTube Music are catching up to the Swedish companyâs lead. Of course, even we wondered which one to pick and that lead to this comparison of YouTube Music vs. Spotify for streaming music in our office.
Google Play Music can be bought for an extremely low subscription about $9 for a single account and $14 for a family plan yet Spotify has Spotify provides its premium support for $9. But the catch is, Google Play Music has many more features even if you use it for free. Spotify is a digital music service that gives you access to millions of songs. Spotify is all the music youâll ever need. Log in; Toggle navigation. Listening is everything Millions of songs and podcasts. No credit card needed. GET SPOTIFY FREE Spotify Company About Jobs For the Record Communities For Artists Developers Advertising Investors.
Speaking of Google, their journey has been eventful in music streaming. The search giant first tried their luck with Google Play Music, made it available as default on all Android devices, and yet failed to get meaningful traction among the users.
Afterward, Google ditched Play Music and announced YouTube Music, a brand-new music service with audio and video integration. To counter Spotify, Google is trying to leverage the YouTube platform for deep integration and aims to deliver better value for money combo.
In this post, we are comparing YouTube Music with Spotify. The comparison will cover their UI, discover menu, listening experience, price, features, and more. Letâs get started.
Cross-Platform Availability
Spotify is available on every platform. The app is accessible on Android, iOS, Windows, macOS, web, Apple Watch, and Galaxy Watch. It also supports Android Auto and Apple CarPlay.
Google has made YouTube Music available on iOS, Android, web, Windows, and macOS (via Progressive Web App).
Download Spotify for iOSDownload YouTube Music for iOSAlso on Guiding TechHow to Turn Spotify Lyrics on for All DevicesRead MoreUser Interface
YouTube Music uses a nice dark theme throughout the interface. You can navigate the major options from the bottom. The Settings menu and search rest at the top. The Library menu is nicely divided into downloads, liked songs, artists, and playlists. I like how the Player UI changes the color based on the music album.
Spotify has the best user interface among all other music streaming apps. It uses a gradient theme across the menus and sections. It almost gives you an effect of ambient lighting.
Unlike YouTube Music, the search menu is at the bottom, which is good for reaching it easily. Spotify also changes the player UI based on album color, but once again, the presentation and overall feel is better than YouTube Music.
Discover Songs
Discovering new music is as important as the listening experience. After all, these music streaming services offer millions of songs to the user, and one wonât want to spend much of their time finding new songs.
As for YouTube Music, the service asks for interested languages and artists for a personalized homepage. When you search for a song and start playing it, the app auto-queue similar suggestions for the user.
Free hulu and showtime with spotify. As expected, YouTube Music offers ready-to-go playlists for a workout, driving, happy mood, etc. My favorite function is Discover Mix, which put together a list of 50 songs and gets updated every Wednesday based on my listening habits and liked songs.
The concept is identical to Appleâs New Music Daily and Spotifyâs New Music Friday.
Spotify also asks for languages and favorite artists for better recommendations. You can search for new songs by going into categories such as Rock, Dance, Chill, Jazz, and more.
When you create a playlist, Spotify suggests more songs based on the added tracks. And I have to say, they are usually spot on.
Spotify also creates a âDiscover Weeklyâ playlist that put together a list of new songs based on your listening history and liked songs. It doesnât stop here. Spotify generates four daily mix playlists, which combines most listened songs as well as new ones.
Also on Guiding TechAmazon Music vs Apple Music: Which Music Streaming Platform Is BetterRead MoreListening Experience
As expected, both services offer high-quality 320kbps music streaming. YouTube Music offer stats for nerds option, which displays technical data for a song. You can enable the option by going into settings > playback & restriction > switching on stats for nerds menu.
As for Bluetooth streaming, it worked as expected with my Mi speaker and Funcl AI wireless earbuds. There was no delay or any weird behavior. My only issue was that YouTube Music couldnât resume a song with a single tap gesture on my earphones' right earbud. It worked perfectly fine with Apple Music and Spotify. I would like to see lyrics support in the future update.
Spotify provides few functions to customize and improve the overall listening experience for the end-user. You can enable gapless playback to eliminate the delay between two songs.
It also comes with a built-in equalizer to make adjustments as per your music listening tastes. https://clipgreat131.weebly.com/numark-mixdeck-quad-virtual-dj-mapping-download.html.
Spotify provides audio normalization to balance out all the songs on a single scale. I usually donât prefer that.
My favorite addition is behind the lyrics section. It is right under the listening UI and provides lyrics as well as cool trivia about the song.
Extra Features
YouTube Music has added video and lives performance section in the app. While listening to a song, one can quickly switch to video and play the clip from YouTube. I appreciate the integration but hate the behavior where my YouTube Music search history gets synced with the YouTube app.
YouTube Music supports Siri Shortcuts too. Itâs available in the Settings menu. I have set it to play my Bollywood playlist when I speak, âHey Siri, play some music.â
Spotify wants to be the hub of all audio streaming needs of a user. Last year, the company heavily invested in podcast products, and now itâs offering a solid podcast experience in the app. Just go to search, scroll down to podcast, and start following channels.
The app also comes with Facebook integration. You can connect it to your social account and follow your friends. Sadly, the service doesnât offer Siri Shortcuts or iOS Widget support.
Price
Spotify offers three plans. Premium individual costs $10 per month. The Student plan is 50% off at $5 per month, and the Family plan starts at $30 per month, which lets you add five more members. The added functionalities include ad free experience, high music quality, and unlimited downloads. These prices are for the US region and may vary in different countries.
YouTube Music is a part of YouTube Premium, which costs $12 per month. The family plan is set at $18 per month. The plan offers ad-free YouTube experience, unlimited downloads, and background video playback.
Also on Guiding Tech#musicClick here to see our music articles pageLevel-Up Your Music Game
As you can see from the comparison above, both YouTube Music and Spotify have their pros and cons. YouTube Music shines with video integration and Siri Shortcuts. Spotify edges out rivals with more accurate song suggestions, podcast add-on, better UI, and lyrics integration.
Is Spotify Free Better Than Google Play Music Free Music
Next up:Convinced about leaving Spotify for YouTube Music? Read the post below to learn how to move your playlist along with it.
The above article may contain affiliate links which help support Guiding Tech. However, it does not affect our editorial integrity. The content remains unbiased and authentic.Read NextHow to Transfer Playlists from Spotify to YouTube MusicAlso See#spotify Is Spotify Free Better Than Google Play Music Free Games#YouTube MusicDid You Know
Google plans to roll-out ARCore to around 100-million Android devices.
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Spotify is arguably the most popular streaming service in the world. It has a massive library of music as well as a sizable library of podcasts. In this Free Spotify vs Spotify Premium breakdown, weâre going to see if the paid version is worth the monthly fee, or if youâre better off bearing through the ads to save money. You may even discover some features of Spotify along the way.
Editorâs note: This Free Spotify vs Spotify Premium article was updated on October 1, 2020, to include links to relevant information and to address an FAQ about Spotify promotions.
Related: Best music streaming services
The listening experience with Free Spotify is unpleasant
Microsoft office 2016 for mac free. Spotify Free and Premium Spotify may look similar at first, but extended functionality varies greatly.
There are some key functional differences between Free Spotify and Spotify Premium, particularly with the mobile interface. With the free mobile version, you can only skip six tracks per hour, whereas with Premium, you can skip as many as youâd like. Skip limits can put a damper on things when you repeatedly arenât in the mood for certain randomized songs, but sure itâs a forgivable inconvenience.
Spotify Premium letâs you skip tracks endlessly, the free version does not
Another drawback to Free Spotify on mobile: you canât select specific songs for playback. Rather, you can select an album or a playlist and shuffle the songs in it. This can get annoying when you have an earworm and just need to listen to that particular song. With Premium, you can listen to that song over and over to your little heartâs content.
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There is a caveat with Free Spotify, however; you can select songs for playback with unlimited skips, so long as you are listening to them from one of Spotifyâs 15 curated playlists under âMade for Youâ on the âHomeâ page. These include popular editorial playlists, such as âRapCaviarâ and âAlternative R&B,â and playlists algorithmically tailored to your listening preferences such as âDiscover Weekly,â âDaily Mix,â and âRelease Radar.â The songs on these playlists change frequently. If thereâs a blue shuffle icon next to the playlist title, you may only shuffle songs.
Get ready for annoying ads with Free Spotify
The absolute worst thing about Free Spotify is how frequently ads interrupt playback. The advertisements are incredibly annoying, are surely designed to be that way. Many of them feature the most irritating noises you could imagine, such as traffic horns overlaid with a voice saying things like, âIs this annoying? If you buy Premium, you wonât have to listen to this anymore.â Iâll give them credit, because this tactic of being obnoxious works pretty well: paying for Spotify Premium is almost worth it for the sole purpose of removing these ads.
Listen offline with Spotify Premium
Depending on how much you pay for data, it might be a good idea to save your favorite tunes for offline listening.
With Spotify Premium, you can download an unlimited number of tracks for offline listening. This is great for long flights or if you want to turn off your data while away from home. With Free Spotify, you arenât able to download any music, so you may be spending money in the form of data usage rather than a Premium subscription.
On the desktop Spotify app, there are fewer discrepancies between Free Spotify and Spotify Premium. For example, on the desktop app you can select any specific song you want with unlimited skips regardless of if you have Spotify Premium or not. However, you are still subjected to ads on Free Spotify with the desktop app, and you cannot download music for offline listening on your computer unless you have Spotify Premium.
A glitch to Spotify Free affords Premium features
In August 2020, there was a glitch with Free Spotify that allowed for unlimited skips, specific song selection, and ad-free listening on both the mobile and desktop versions of the streaming service. This glitch made it almost identical to Spotify Premium, minus the ability to download music for offline listening. I reached out to a Spotify customer service rep, who told me, âTo my knowledge we have ads and limited skips on the Free version.â This glitch surely will not last forever, though, so Iâm going to have to crown the winner of best listening experience to Spotify Premium.
Winner: Spotify PremiumFree Spotify vs Spotify Premium: Discovery features are identical
Spotify Discover and Release Radar update every Monday to introduce new songs to its users.
One of the best things about Spotify is the way it promotes discovery of new music. This is apparent in its algorithmically produced playlists, designed to suggest styles of music that align with your listening history. The âDiscover Weeklyâ and âDaily Mixâ playlists are updated frequently with new suggestions. Perhaps you really dislike a recommended song or artist, you can press a button telling it to avoid a certain type of music or to blacklist that artist from your profile. The âRelease Radarâ playlist churns out new releases from artists you follow and updates weekly.
One of Spotifyâs best features is available to Free and Premium users.
Spotify has a large variety of genres, moods, and other categories under the Browse tab, and here you can listen to its editorial playlists to discover new music. It will also recommend editorial playlists based on your listening activity, and it will algorithmically create âRadioâ playlists for every song, artist, album, and playlist.
When you create a new playlist, the Spotify algorithm suggests songs for you based on the title of your playlist as well as the songs youâve already put into it. Regardless of if youâve paid for Spotify Premium, these discovery features are available and very helpful.
Winner: DrawFree or paid, enjoy the same social features
Spotify for desktop looks the same no matter what version you subscribe to.
Music has always been a social art form, but things have changed quite a bit since the days my dad would buy the latest Neil Young record on vinyl and sit around the turntable with his friends. Of course, people still get together to listen to music nowadaysâthough, perhaps not so much in 2020. Thereâs something exciting about sharing the social benefits of music with others, even when youâre trapped at home. Spotify uses several different tools on its platform to encourage music sharing, and you donât need to buy Premium to access any of them.
Enjoy collaborative playlists on Spotify
To create collaborative playlists, press the three-dot symbol at the top-right of your screen (mobile), or next to the playlist title (desktop), and select âCollaborative Playlist.â Then, by share the playlist link with your friends. This will let them add and remove songs to and from it. Anybody with the link may do so, and itâs private unless someone holds the link. Collaborative playlists are great for when you and your roommates are throwing a party, or youâre planning a road trip with friends. Heck, theyâre even good for when you just want to share some songs with someone regularly.
https://propertiesclever551.weebly.com/blog/can-t-download-spotify-on-windows-10. In a similar vein, if you have a Premium Family subscription or a Premium Duo subscription, Spotify will algorithmically create either a âFamily Mixâ or âDuo Mixâ of songs based on the listening history of all the subscribed members. This isnât technically a social feature because these playlists are created by Spotify and not the users themselves, so Iâm not going to count its absence against Free Spotify.
Peek at what your friends are rocking out to
If you use Facebook, you can link your Spotify account to your Facebook account, making it easy for your Facebook friends to find your profile on Spotify by name or through the Find Friends button on the desktop app. You can search for your friendsâ Spotify usernames; browse and add their playlists to your library; view their recent listening history; and, on the desktop Spotify app, view their active listening history.
This is a great way to discover new music and gain an idea of what types of music your friends are listening to. If it creeps you out that people can look through your playlists or see what youâre actively listening to, you can make your playlists private and disable the active listening feed. All of these features are available whether or not you pay for Premium. Download adobe camera raw 6.7 mac.
Winner: DrawSome music may be unavailable if you donât pay for Premium
Free Spotify pays artists less per steam than Spotify Premium does. In response to this discrepancy, Spotify allows artists to set up a paywall for the first two weeks after a release. If an artist chooses this option, their release will only be available to Premium users until the two weeks have gone by. If itâs important to you to have access to all the latest releases, this may be a feature that sways you to pay for Spotify Premium. Additionally, if you value the amount of money your favorite artists are getting paid, Premium is superior in that department. The following chart depicts the average amount Spotify pays artists per stream.
Winner: PremiumFree Spotify vs Spotify Premium: Sound quality is higher with Premium
While there is no high-resolution option for Spotify users, and Spotify only supports AAC and Ogg Vorbis, lossy file formats, there are still key differences in sound quality between Free Spotify and Spotify Premium. With Free Spotify, the maximum bitrate you can stream at is 128kbps on the desktop app and 160kbps on the mobile app, whereas Spotify Premium affords you 320kbps streaming on both desktop and mobile. In essence, this means that Spotify Premiumâs music contains more data points and therefore more detail to its sound.
Spotify Premium has higher quality than Free Spotify, but it doesnât have a HiFi setting. If youâre looking for a high fidelity streaming service, try Tidal HiFi.
Winner: Spotify PremiumRelated: Tidal vs SpotifyThere are different priced memberships for Premium, but Free is free
Spotify offers four different types of Premium subscriptions, and some of them are really great deals. First, there is the Spotify Premium Individual subscription, which is $9.99/month. This allows access to all the Premium features such as no ad interruptions, on-demand playback, and downloading tracks for offline listening. If youâre a full-time student at a university or college, you should be eligible for the Premium Student subscription, which is $4.99/month. Not only does this afford you all the same abilities of Spotify Premium, but, if you are a student in the United States, it also includes a subscription to SHOWTIME and the ad-supported version of Hulu.
If you want to share a Premium account with your live-in partner, you can get Premium Duo. It costs $12.99/month and both you and your partner will have your own separate accounts. Along with all the regular Premium features, you have the option to join âDuo Mix.â You and your partner can both go to the âDuo Mixâ on your âMade for Youâ page on the mobile app, click the three dots, and select âJoin Duo Mix.â Spotify will algorithmically design a playlist to be appealing to both you and your partner. You can change the mix to be chill or upbeat, depending on the mood, and you can choose to remove any explicit songs from the mix. Each song has the profile picture of either you or your partner next to it, so you can see whose listening activity the song was generated from.
Spotify offers a family plan, a plan for couples, and a student rate.
Spotify Premium Family is very similar to Premium Duo, as all members must live at the same address. Premium Family, though, can support up to six separate accounts, and costs $14.99/month. Parents can choose to block explicit music for specific members, and children can use their Premium Family account on the Spotify Kids app. In addition to these features and all the regular Premium features, your family can listen to a generated âFamily Mixâ which works just like the âDuo Mix.â
All of these subscription options are very cool, but ultimately, when it comes down to it, free is free. If the absence of needing to fork over a portion of your paycheck every month is enough motivation to deal with the ads, lack of features, and inconvenience of Free Spotify, then Free Spotify is going to be the option for you.
Winner: Spotify FreeWhat are some lesser known Spotify features?
Spotify constantly and consistently comes out with new features. For example, in 2017, it created a âTime Capsuleâ playlist for all of its 16-years-old-and-up users, Premium or not. These playlists were personalized based on their extensive listening history. It was created to be the kind of playlist users would have listened to in their teenage years. Pretty cool, huh? Another recent creation of Spotifyâs was the âPet Playlist,â which users could personalize by inputting the species of their pet as well as ranking their petâs behaviors across a few different spectra. This data was then mixed with the genres and styles of music the user enjoys to create a playlist for users and their furry best friends.
Express yourself on Tinder and Instagram
Spotify has partnerships with many other apps, including Instagram and Tinder. You can share the name, artist, and album artwork of a song to your Instagram story with the click of a button on Spotify. If you link your Spotify account to Tinder, you can publish your frequently played songs on your Tinder profile, you know, to make sure you attract people with as impeccable music taste as yourself. And, of course, you can connect your account with Facebook to find friends more easily.
Spotify plays nicely with Android Auto and has its own Carplay mode
Carplay simplifies the interface, so distractions are lessened.
When you connect your smartphone to your car by Bluetooth, Spotify will automatically go into Carplay mode or Android Auto mode, depending on your OS and if your car is compatible with these features. These features reduce the amount of information displayed on the screen, making it safer to navigate the app while in the car. (We donât recommend using the app while actively driving, though. Have your passenger do it.) They also make for easy integration with the navigation apps Google Maps and Waze. Similarly, many music-listening devices, such as the Samsung Galaxy Buds Plus, offer Spotify integration for easy access.
Thatâs a wrap: End-of-year statistics
My personal favorite Spotify feature is âSpotify Wrapped.â In December of every year, Spotify creates an animation of statistics for each user, including but not limited to the song they listened to most over the past year, how many total minutes they spent listening to music over the past year, the podcast the user listened to most often, and the countries all the artists they listened to are based out of. In addition to this, Wrapped shows users the statistics generalized by region and in the world as a whole.
In December of 2019, Spotify even had âWrappedâ stats for the whole decade. âWrappedâ is available for both Free and Premium users, but Premium users get additional personalized data including the number of artists they discovered that year as well as their top new artist from that year. Because of this one small detail, Spotify Premium wins this section, but, all Spotify users get a lot of really cool features.
Winner: Spotify PremiumFree Spotify vs Spotify Premium: Which one is better?
And the winner is Spotify Premium! Itâs pretty clear that Premium has more features than Free Spotify, but whether or not youâre willing to pay for a subscription depends on you, of course. If you can get a student, family, or duo membership, Spotify Premium isnât too pricey, but if youâre still on the fence, Spotify has free month-long trials of Premium. Until next time, happy listening.
Next: Apple Music review
Can I get a free Google Nest Mini with Spotify Premium?
Not anymore! In September, Spotify teamed up with Google to give away free Google Nest Minis to all Spotify Premium subscribers, new and old. This promotion has since ended, but keep an eye on Spotify's website because it does promotions like this fairly frequently.
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