The Best Platforms To Stream Free Music

Listening to music is a real joy and you do not have to pay to have such an experience. There are some streaming platforms that let users stream for free, of course with restrictions and ads.

Spotify

If you subscribe to the free plan of Spotify, you will have access to it on iOS, Android, macOS, the web, and Windows. However, what you can do is limited. Free tier subscribers can now stream music from Spotify by giving a command to Alexa or Google Assistant-supported speakers.

Even without paying, users still have the popular playlists and recommendations found in the Premium tier. So you can have a list of songs to listen to.

In Playlists, you can skip or go back one track at a time. In the custom playlist, users can jump around too. However, only the subscribers of the Premium tier can skip ahead multiple tracks in playlists that are automatically generated.

As you have free music, Spotify will have to make money from your presence on its app in another way. After around 15 minutes, ads will show up. You can skip only the audio and video ads.

Some other restrictions that come with the free tier is that you cannot save songs to listen offline. So the free tier will only work if you are connected to the Internet. The highest quality of the audio is absent and you cannot listen to music outside of your country in more than 14 days.

On the mobile app, you are also limited when it comes to choosing tracks in playlists. You can only do so in selected playlists, which are essentially the auto-generated ones.

The shuffle mode is available for custom playlists and albums. Plus, you have only six times of skipping in an hour.

As Spotify sees the free tier an encouragement for users to switch to the paying option, it offers a lot of benefits.

Amazon Music

Amazon Music is now free to use on iOS, the web, Android, and the Echo smart speakers. However, the free plan only has two million songs, a fraction of the ten million subscribers of Amazon Music Unlimited have.

Amazon Music’s free music tier does not only have fewer songs, but it also restricts users on what they can do. You cannot choose a song from a random album, if you do, what you have is a radio mix that does not even include the song you have chosen previously.

Skipping tracks is allowed but you have only a limited number of times of doing so. You will have no idea what is coming up next, and ads will show up frequently. Creating a custom playlist is also unavailable with Amazon Music.

So with all the limitations, this service is unsuitable for those who want to jump straight to an individual song, but if you only want a mix, Amazon Music has a decent collection of tracks and stations.

These restrictions are on the mobile version too. It seems like the app is choosing what you listen to rather than letting you doing so on your own. And there is no option to download songs to listen offline either.

In comparison with other free music services, like Spotify, Amazon Music seems to trail behind really far.

Deezer

Deezer may have little reputation compared to other services but its free tier is quite decent and you can stream on iOS, Android, desktop clients, and the web.

When you visit the app, you will have lots of recommendations, including new releases, playlists of songs from your favorite artists, and many more. What users can do is to search for songs, make playlists, and play music on-demand.

You get to skip as much as you like and of course, there are ads to be expected, but their frequency is lower than that of Amazon Music.

However, these are the benefits for the web version, the mobile experience is far more restricted. In an hour, you are limited to six skips as well as other restrictions like no offline listening, ads, and no access to the highest quality of audios.

So in short, unless you only listen to music with a desktop computer, the mobile version will not be of much help.

Please note that you need to be a paid subscriber to be able to use the service on any other device other than your own phone or computer.

YouTube Music

YouTube is another source of free music even though you can only ask for mixes and moods rather than albums of songs.

With the app, you will have the usual categories like Good Vibe Rap, Dance Hotlist, All-Time Laid-Back Hits, Acoustic Pop, Top 100 Music Videos, and some newly-launched songs.

Inside these playlists, you can skip tracks, jumping backward and forward. Ads will show up from time to time but not as frequently as Amazon Music and some of them can be skipped too.

Search for artists and albums is possible and you can create custom playlists. However, ads will sometimes interrupt the listening experience.

These restrictions are for both the mobile app and the web client. When it comes to the iOS and Android versions, you do not have the option to listen in the background and you cannot save the songs to listen offline.

YouTube Music is a solid choice regarding free music experience. However, please note that it is built on YouTube, a place where you can find a ton of free songs with occasional ads.

Overall, the free tier of YouTube Music even comes close to that of Spotify in some areas.