There were times when only a few services were available to stream music. But thanks to technology, we now have a ton of options to choose from which is the best music streaming service.
Having too many options can make a person “spoiled for choice” and this exactly is the case here. We will now explore a few of the best music streaming services so that you can get to choose which is the best music streaming service for you.
Table of Contents
Spotify
Spotify is the pioneer in the music-streaming space, and it’s arguably the best known. Since its launch, Spotify has also added a raft of new features to improve the experience.
You can download music for offline listening. There are auto-generated Discover Weekly playlists as well as a number of different Daily Mix playlists to choose from.
Spotify might not have the highest music quality or the exclusives that some of the other big music streaming services do. However, the streaming platform offers one of the most polished services out there.
Pricing
The most popular option is Spotify Premium, which costs $9.99 per month. If you’re a student you can get access to a 50% discount. And Spotify has also recently introduced a family option, which allows up to six users to enjoy Premium for $14.99.
Pros:
- The free version is impressively robust.
- It’s easy to build your own playlists and sync them for offline listening.
- Highly personalized custom playlists.
In a nutshell, it is highly compatible, has a ton of content, decent resolution, free version available.
Cons:
- No live content
- Advertisements in the free version.
Apple Music
Apple Music has grown to become one of the most popular streaming services. It offers plenty of features and some discount options for families and students.
There’s also a ton of playlists, many hand-crafted by musicians. Apple Music was launched in 2015. But thanks to hefty negotiations it now has an extensive library of more than 50 million songs.
Pricing
Apple Music costs $9.99 a month but students can join for $4.99. For that, you’ll have access to everything. Apple also offers a Family membership that costs $14.99 and gives unlimited streaming to up to six people.
Pros:
- It combines your iTunes library with music you don’t own, rounding out what you can play.
- A combination of human music experts and algorithms help find the music you’ll want to hear based on what you play.
- You can control what you hear or search for new music using Siri on iOS devices.
Cons:
- As you’d expect, the Android app and experience aren’t as smooth as the iOS one.
- It doesn’t work with old iPods (except iPod Touch).
Deezer
Deezer is much less talked about than Spotify or Apple Music, particularly in the US where it was unavailable until 2016. But it’s a great streaming service nonetheless, available in 189 countries and has more than 14 million active users.
Deezer has revamped its pricing tiers recently. It did have a standard and an elite tier. Now it has a free service, which offers you access to its 56 million tracks and the chance to shuffle.
Pricing
Deezer Premium, which costs $9.99 a month. Same as Spotify and Apple Music and that gives you unlimited skips, ad-free mode, and offline listening.
Deezer also has a student offer, which gives you Deezer Premium but for only $4.99 a month.
It has a family tier, called Deezer Family, for $14.99. It gives you everything as a Premium subscription but allows you to share the service with up to 6 users.
At the same price as Deezer Family, there’s also Deezer HiFi. You can listen to tracks at a much better quality.
Pros:
- The Interface is good.
- Service of Deezer HiFi for $14.99 with better quality.
Cons:
- The content is no match for Apple Music.
Tidal
Owned by hip-hop mogul Jay Z, Tidal is the only “major” streaming music service that offers lossless streaming with sound quality that is virtually identical to — or better than — CD.
Tidal’s main selling points are two-fold; it offers the highest-quality music streams out of all of the major streaming services, and it also pays the highest amount of royalties to its artists.
Pricing
For starters, you can pay $9.99 for the basic Tidal service, called Premium. Or you can opt for the more expensive HiFi tier for $19.99.
There is also a range of different Premium and HiFi tiers, take a look at the Subscription Types page on the Tidal website for a full – and detailed – breakdown.
Pros:
- High-fidelity music streams.
- Lots of video content, including concert live streams.
- Offers occasional ticket presales.
Cons:
- The mobile and web players aren’t as straightforward as some others.
- The catalog isn’t as exhaustive as Spotify’s.
Pandora
Now full-fledged streaming service with the addition of the a la carte Premium and no-ads Plus tiers, Pandora also offers one of the most popular radio services in the US.
Pricing
Pandora is probably one of the best values of any available streaming service, offering you service for the low price of $0 per month.
It’s absolutely free to sign up and, if you don’t mind an ad or two every 10 minutes, it will stay that way as long as you use it.
If you are bothered by advertisements, you can pay $4.99 or $54.89 per year.
Pros:
- The service enjoys one of the largest user bases, thanks to its free version.
Cons:
- The size of the catalog isn’t up to the level of its competition.
- Its audio quality is among the lowest available, even on the Premium subscription (192Kbps).
- It doesn’t really offer enough of an incentive for an upgrade compared to the others here.
Worth mentioning other music streaming services:
- Amazon Prime Music (30-day free trial)
- Youtube Music
- Google Play Music
- LiveXLive
So what is the best music streaming service for you? We laid out almost all the necessary information for you to choose the best music streaming service which suits your taste.
