Last year, there was a controversy over podcaster Joe Rogan, because of which many artists pulled their music from the Spotify platform and listeners switched to other music streaming apps. Whether that controversy recently moved you or are simply looking for better Spotify alternatives with competitive premium subscriptions, we have something in store for you.
In this comprehensive guide, we have curated a list of the best music apps like Spotify (free and paid).
So without further ado, let’s dive into them.
Table of Contents
What is Spotify?
With a base of 551 million active users worldwide and 220 million premium subscribers, Spotify is the leading audio streaming service of 2023, followed by Apple Music. The overall number has increased to 12.68% compared to last year, whereas the number of premium users has spiked by 7.31%.
The platform offers an array of digital services from original podcasts, to the latest songs and albums of your favorite artists, documentaries, exclusive video series, and so much more, all for free but with a couple of limitations.
Furthermore, the software is very well-designed with a user-friendly interface and compatibility with all devices, including desktops, mobile (Spotify for Android and Spotify for iOS), and tablets. This allows you to break away from the constraints of a single system and listen to and watch your favorite shows on the go.
But that is just a glimpse of it. Let’s look at its features in more detail, and then we will jump onto the best Spotify alternatives.
Spotify Features
Spotify Connect
While listening to music on Spotify, you can seamlessly connect to other devices in your local network, such as a desktop, smart TV, AirPlay, Chromecast, and more, and enjoy the music on a bigger speaker or screen.
40+ Category Genres
There are 40 types of genres on Spotify. This includes the latest releases, playlists based on your likings and daily listening, charts, pop super hits, top mixes based on the nation’s geography, Indie, Sufi, Lofi, Jump in Back, aka throwback, relaxing, meditation, romance, classical, EDM, blues, party mix, travel mix, and more. This implies that no one needs to go elsewhere and can choose something depending on their preferences while continuing to enjoy the music.
Radio Playlist
Now listen to your favorite artists without any interruption via Spotify’s radio playlist feature. Some of the recently curated radio playlists are by Taylor Swift, Coldplay, Fleetwood Max, and Drake.
Exclusive Podcasts
Spotify offers different kinds of podcasts for everyone’s taste, including movie buzz, mythology curiosity, healthy lifestyle habits, political views, modern wisdom, and also from your favorite podcasts like Joe Rogan, Tom Segura, or Beerbiceps.
Share with Anyone
The app lets you socially share your personalized playlists or picks with your loved ones on any platform with just a single tap. Alternatively, you can copy the respective link and share it.
While we are discussing the music streaming app, don’t forget to check out these best soundboard apps for Android and iOS devices.
Spotify Subscriptions
While you can play and listen to any playlist, podcast, or show with Spotify’s freemium plan, there are certain limitations. To make the user experience better and hassle-free, the company has curated the following premium plans, considering everyone’s needs.
Here is what premium can bring for you:
- You can listen to your favorite picks non-stop, ad-free.
- Download them in offline mode on up to five devices and play them whenever you want. No more dependency on internet connectivity.
- Prepay your subscription on the go with Paytm, UPI, and more.
- Smart shuffling adds more refreshing songs that match the vibe of your ongoing playlist.
Spotify Reviews
What don’t we like about Spotify?
Even though Spotify offers a diverse range of features for listeners, there are a couple of downsides that we don’t like about this software or app:
- Unwelcoming ads and re-playing the same song in the free plan.
- Low bitrate.
- No live radio.
- The Web player can be glitchy sometimes.
Now that you know all about this digital audio streaming service, let’s head towards the best Spotify alternatives, which you all are here for.
Best Music Streaming Alternatives to Spotify Listeners
With over 40 million songs, 40+ artist genres, and exclusive podcasts and shows, there is no doubt that Spotify is one of the best music streaming apps we have experienced so far. However, the significant limitations (mentioned earlier) in its free version, along with the rising competitiveness of free Spotify alternatives, have led users to incline toward other music apps. The thing is, these apps are not yet fully known to people out there, which is why we are here.
So, without spending another minute discussing their whys, let’s jump onto what they are.
1. Deezer
The very first pick on our list of the best free Spotify alternatives is Deezer. With more than 70 million songs available and in-built algorithms that recommend songs to you based on your daily listening, it is an excellent music streaming app. It has a very refreshing feature named SongCatcher that you can use to recognize the name of any song playing around you (try playing any song in the background or just do some humming).
Contrary to Spotify, Deezer gives you access to a wider range of songs, artists, and communities that belong to you, as well as a whole lot more personalized and intuitive music experiences in its free version.
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Let’s have a look at its potential key features:
Personalized recommendations
Based on your daily playlists, likes, and listenings, the software’s in-built algorithm gives you personalized recommendations that match your taste.
Flow for an infinite mix
Deezer’s in-built AI automatically generates infinite mixes of different genres based on what you are listening to currently, your mood, and your music style. This ultimate feature combines your existing playlists along with some discoveries to mind-blowing your day.
Sing along with the lyrics
Don’t just listen; you can also enjoy singing your favorite songs with their lyrics and translations.
Offline mode
Deezer subscribers can take their listening experience to the next level by downloading songs and podcasts and playing them anywhere they want.
Identify the song name
With the SongCatcher feature, you can instantly identify the song playing in your vicinity and add it to your track list.
Lossless quality
You can experience all the listening in high-fidelity sound. It gives you a lossless quality experience that you will be able to go back to again.
Transfer your library
Import your entire collection from any music streaming app to Deezer, including Spotify, giving you another reason why it is a great Spotify alternative.
Exclusive podcasts
From Mindset Mentor by Rob Dial to Patenting He’ll by Rob Beckett, The British History, and a lot more, Deezer gives you a whole range of exclusive podcasts from all walks of life to enlighten your life.
Compatible Devices
Mobile (Android, iOS), desktop, TV, Amazon Alexa, Google Nest, tablet
Ratings
4.4 (Play Store) and 4.7 (App Store)
Pricing
In addition to its free version, the Deezer software comes in the following premium pricing plans:
- Deezer Premium: $13.99, no-ads, limited skips, HiFi sound, offline listening, and more.
- Deezer Student: $10; Avial of all the premium benefits at half price only.
- Deezer Family: $20.99 with up to 6 premium accounts.
2. YouTube Music
YouTube Music is another free Spotify alternative and is considered to be a preferred choice for users who are also interested in uploading their music collection. Additionally, with its powerful search engine, YouTube Music makes it easy for you to immediately find music. All you need to do is say or type a part of the song or the lyrics of the song, and the search engine will display the results accordingly.
Besides, this music streaming service has a very user-friendly interface. As soon as you open the audio player, its home page will display music categories such as relax, party, romance, focus, feel good, and much more. You can select any of them based on your mood. Moreover, YouTube Music offers a lot more advantages than Spotify.
Let’s have a look at its potential key features:
100 million+ songs and much more
YouTube Music offers more than 100 million songs of all types of moods and genres, along with live performances, podcasts, remixes, and new releases that are hard to find on other platforms and videos.
Ad-free music
With a YouTube Music premium subscription, you can enjoy listening to your favorite shows and songs without any interruptions.
Listen in the background
You can continue listening to or watching your audio or video playlist even after locking your phone’s screen or while using other apps.
Offline mode
With YouTube Music, you can download your most-liked playlists and play them on the go.
Connect with other music fans
Recently, YouTube Music has introduced a comment section, where you can drop your thoughts on whatever you are listening to and see what the community has to say about your thoughts. A perfect way to have a one-to-one interaction.
Timed lyrics
This feature allows you to sing your favorite song in sync with the lyrics word-for-word. And if you want to jump at a specific time, just tap on that part of the track.
Create playlist art with AI
With its AI-generative capabilities, YouTube Music lets users create customized cover art for their playlists that represent their uniqueness.
Compatible Devices
Chromecast audio devices, mobile (Android, iOS), Google Cast-connected speakers, TVs, desktops, smartwatches, iPhones, and iPads
Ratings
4.5 (Play Store) and 4.7 (App Store)
Pricing
YouTube Music offers the following premium pricing plans:
- Monthly subscription: comes with a free month trial plan; afterward, it is $1.19.
- Pre-paid plans: choose either of the 1, 3, or 12-month plans at $1.31, $3.72, or $11.92, respectively.
Enjoying the Spotify alternative recommendations so far? Then, spare some time and check out this amazing music app list, especially curated for Android devices.
3. SoundCloud
The next free Spotify alternative on our list is SoundCloud, a music streaming service that is highly known for serving as a major platform for emerging Indie artists. With over 250 million tracks from 30 million musicians from 193 countries, SoundCloud is one of the leading music discovery services in the world.
You can find the debut Indie artists on this platform, which you might not even find on Spotify. Talking about its interface, it has well-divided sections: the home page (which displays different categories such as popular tracks, albums, playlists, and reposts), the feed (where you can see what people you are following are talking about), and the library (to save your Fourier tracks, albums, and playlists).
Furthermore, one can use this platform as a listener (by creating a playlist) or as an artist (by uploading your tracks and engaging with your community).
Let’s have a look at its potential key features:
250 million tracks for every mood
SoundCloud offers 250 million+ tracks from established to recently launched artists for every mood. And you can always see what’s popular in the popular tracks section.
Unlimited uploads and downloads
With a SoundCloud premium subscription, you can upload multiple tracks to their server and also download unlimited tracks and podcasts for listening.
Podcast tools
The platform provides podcasters with some power-packed functionalities, such as tags for catalogs, a call-to-action b button within their show, and the customization of thumbnails.
Performance analysis
The platform lets you track your content performance, including the engagement on your song or podcast, in terms of listening, downloading, and sharing. It also monitors website traffic.
Unlimited distribution to 60+ apps
The platform offers you unlimited global release distribution to 60+ music streaming apps like Spotify, Apple Music, TikTok, and more.
Monetize your tracks
With the fan-powered royalties feature of SoundCloud, artists can monetize their tracks. The more listeners engage with their content, the more they will get paid.
See the social engagement in real-time
This is one of the best features of SoundCloud. Both listeners and artists can see the social engagement on their uploads or comments in real-time and thus interact with their community. Cool, right!
Compatible Devices
Mobile (Android, iOS), Chromecast, Android TV, AirPlay, Sonos, Xbox One
Ratings
4.7 (Play Store) and 4.5 (App Store)
Pricing
SoundCloud offers the following pricing plans to its listeners:
- Next: It is a free plan and offers up to 3 hours of track uploading, sharing with collaborators, and basic fan insights.
- Next Pro: $8.25/month, with all premium features.
4. Apple Music
With a catalog of over 100 million songs and zillions of personalized, curated playlists, Apple Music is the next best free Spotify alternative for music lovers. It is even the better-preferred choice by iOS users, as it makes music listening and sharing seamless within the Apple ecosystem.
Furthermore, the audio player offers an extensive array of music options for every mood, like feel-good, focus, home, chill, and more. You can even find playlists based on the coming events or occasions, like the Halloween one coming this weekend. Additionally, there are city charts, throwback albums, exploring music by decade, and a lot more.
Let’s take a look at its potential key features:
Browse from editors’ favorites
You can either browse the specially curated playlist for you or you can pick straight from the editor’s choice. No more time is spent finding the classics.
Enjoy your favorite artist interviews
This is new. From DJ Shadow to Grupo Frontera, Elton John, and The Message, you can now watch interviews with your favorite artist or band right from Apple Music.
High Fidelity
Apple Music provides lossless, high-fidelity quality in all its tracks at no additional cost.
Support for Dolby Arnos with spatial audio
Apple Music supports spatial audio that gives users an impressive 3D listening experience on AirPods 3, Pro, and Max.
Tune in to your most-liked radio stations
Apple Music offers a wide range of broadcast radio stations, from international ones such as BBC, ONE FM 91.3, and more to local ones. You can even create your custom radio station, but this feature is only available with a premium subscription.
Ask Siri
When you feel lazy, you can always get help from Siri, the voice assistant on Apple devices, to control music playing within the Apple Music software.
Share the lyrics in messages
With Apple Music, you can sing your favorite song by fully syncing it with beats and lyrics. You can even share the most-liked part of the lyrics in messages with your loved ones.
Compatible Devices
Apple Music is compatible with a minimum of iOS 10 and watchOS 2.2. Thus, this audio player will work seamlessly with the iWatch, iPod (6th generation), iPhone 5 and newer, Apple TV, and Samsung TV from 2018 onwards.
Ratings
3.8 (Play Store) and 4.7 (App Store)
Pricing
Apple Music lets listeners access all the tracks and radio shows for free for 1 month and then charges a monthly fee of $10.99.
5. Bandcamp
During the mid-2000s, when the revenues of the music industry were falling, two business models came into existence. One was Spotify, where constant music was streaming from the cloud, giving listeners a feeling as if this music was running on their devices. The second model, which we now know as Bandcamp, was where artists could come and upload their tracks. And listeners, based on how they feel about these tracks, can contribute accordingly. The average contribution was $5.
Coming to the point, Bandcamp is an excellent Spotify alternative for independent musicians and offers a whole bundle of power-packed features. It is an online record store and music community that bridges the gap between music lovers and artists.
Using this streaming platform, musicians can showcase their music through a call-to-action eCom function that sells their discography in physical or digital formats for a charge of 10–15%. So far, the platform has managed to help fans contribute $1.2 billion, which is pretty great.
Let’s have a look at its potential key features:
Explore 30+ different music genres
Discover a whole range of music genres, including electronic, acoustic, folk, pop, jazz, metal, rock, rap, blues, Latin, and many more, and wish list them.
Artists can sell merchandise
Artists can upload their music and sell their merchandise in digital, vinyl, compact disc, and cassette formats. Fans can even select the best-selling, new arrivals, or artist recommendations and buy from them in any of the above formats.
Ad-free experience
Bandcamp does not entertain any sort of external advertisement on its platform.
No copy infringement
The app does not provide any copyright protection for the tracks uploaded by artists. This means there is no digital rights management facility. Stay updated with Bandcamp daily.
Bandcamp features the latest tracks from new artists every day. This gives the fans a chance to hop onto new music and musicians with a likelihood of engagement and even a purchase from the listener.
Lossless audio
The audio player has maintained a lossless high quality that gives music lovers a full-on studio vibe.
Compatible Devices
Chromecast-supported devices, mobile (Android, iOS), Apple CarPlay
Ratings
3.7 (Play Store) and 4.8 (App Store)
Pricing
This music streaming service is completely free to use.
6. Funkwhale
Funkwhale is one of a kind and one of the best Spotify alternatives that lets you stream your tracks and podcasts without fear that they might get deleted from the platform. It is an open-source music discovery service, which means it’s completely free to use.
Also, the Funkwhale consists of numerous independent sites, also called pods or servers, where you can upload your music, listen to it, or share it with your friends anywhere you go.
Furthermore, the platform is very well designed for artists and listeners. Those who want to join pods can do it by registering an account. For those who are creators, they can start their pods or let someone else host the pod for them.
Have fun while reading these good-to-go Spotify alternative apps. Then, do read these best audiobook apps too, perfect for every bibliophile.
Let’s have a look at its potential key features:
Access from anywhere
Funkwhale comes with advanced sharing functionalities that let you share your most-liked tracks and podcasts from anywhere. It promotes freely licensed content in healthy ways.
Decentralized
The Funkwhale software works on a decentralized system, which means it is not controlled by any single entity or corporation. So your playlist is in your hands only.
No ads at all
You heard it right. The platform is entirely against any form of external advertisement that might ruin the listener’s experience.
Publish your creation
Artists or musicians can publish their original songs or podcasts directly on Funkwhale with no third-party involvement. And let users do the talking about your content within their personally preferred podcatcher.
Community-driven
This software is built by a like-minded community using open-source technology with the pure intention of bringing artist lovers together in one place. This way, you can explore the content shared by other listeners and add the ones you like to your library.
Compatible Devices
Mobile (Android), web browser
Ratings
4.8 (Play Store)
Pricing
This Spotify alternative is completely free to use.
7. Tidal
Tidal is another excellent Spotify alternative that gives fans a real-life experience and brings them closer to their favorite artists. With millions of soundtracks and over 650,000 music videos
and live streams, including BTS (behind the scenes) and documentaries, it is one of the leading global music streaming platforms.
Furthermore, the Tidal with HiRes FLAC gives you a best-in-class sound experience that you might have never experienced before. A little note: to have one-of-your-kind chops, ensure that your hardware is connected to a 5G or WiFi connection.
Additionally, you can seamlessly transfer your entire playlist from the current music app to Tidal without losing it. This makes the entire transition process easy and worthwhile.
Let’s have a look at its potential key features:
Best audio quality
Tidal uses a HiRes Free Lossless Audio Codec (HiRes FLAC) digital format that lets artists create and listeners experience music in high-fidelity lossless sound quality. The maximum it can go to is 24-bit, 192 kHz.
Access to 100 million+ songs and 650k+ videos
Tidal offers you access to over 100 million songs from all kinds of genres and more than 650k videos, including live streams and documentaries.
Track and share your listening habits
It also curates personalized playlists for you based on your everyday listening habits.
Live on Tidal
Using this platform, you can play or listen to your favorite tracks along with others in real-time.
Offline Listening
Using Tidal, take your music offline with infinite skipping tracks.
Compatible devices
Mobile (Android, iOS), tablets, wearables, smart TVs and streamers, speakers, desktops, and automobiles, all via Tidal Connect.
Ratings
4.1 (Play Store) and 4.7 (App Store)
Pricing
In addition to its 30-day free trial, the Tidal music streaming service offers the following two premium pricing plans, which are mainly differentiated by sound quality:
- HiFi: Highest sound quality up to 16-bit 44.1 kHz
- HiFi Plus: High sound quality up to 24-bit, 192 kHz
Final Words
That is all about the music streaming services that are the best free Spotify alternatives. All of the aforementioned picks offer an extensive range of songs and albums from your favorite artists with countless music genres, exclusive podcasts, personalized curated playlists, lossless audio quality, and more. Some of them provide these features with comparatively few to no advertisements, which makes them great alternatives to Spotify. However, if you want to know our favorite pick, that depends on what you are looking for. For instance,
- Deezer is best known for recommending new songs.
- YouTube Music is best for artists who want to upload their records.
- SoundCloud is best for remixing, and that too at a very competitive subscription.
- Apple Music: This audio player is particularly designed for iOS users.
- Bandcamp serves as a great platform for emerging artists looking to sell their tracks.
- Funk Whale is an open-source alternative to Spotify.
- Tidal is best known for its HiRes FLAC digital formats, giving you an unparalleled audio experience.
So, now that we have mentioned the USPs of each of these music discovery services, go and choose the one that suits your needs the most. However, the one thing I can assure you is that whichever Spotify alternative you pick, you are going to have a great experience.
We hope you found this blog informative!
If you have any further questions, feel free to ask them in the comment section below. We would be more than glad to help you.
Till then, happy listening!
