Which Music Streaming Service Is Better? Apple Music Or Spotify?

It is undeniable that both Apple Music and Spotify have great quality, yet you cannot subscribe to both of those. That’s why we made a small comparison to make it easier for you to choose whether to use Spotify or Apple Music.

Should you are considering whether to commit to Spotify or Apple Music, then this post is definitely for you. Let’s take a look at some perks of these two giants.

Subcription and Price

Both services provide a free 3-month-trial for premium features and they are also offered at a very affordable price in India. While users only have to pay Rs. 99 per month for Apple Music, Spotify premium only costs $1.70 (around Rs. 116).

Should you are a student purchasing premium, you’ll have access to Showtime and Hulu. As for Spotify, it still allow users to play songs without paying any money. But there will surely be lots of advertisements come in between your songs, not to mention you are forced to listen in shuffle mode and your song skips are limited to 6 ones/hour.

As for Apple Music, free users are only allowed to us Beats1 Radio and songs in their iTunes library.

Quality of Streaming

As for Spotify on mobile, users can choose the streaming quality up to 320kbps. For the desktop version, the quality is often at 160kbps for regular users and 320kbps for premium ones.

As for Apple Music, its quality remain stable at 256kbps.

Unless you are actually an audiophile, the streaming quality wouldn’t be too noticeable. Should you are in deep concern of song quality, you should switch to apps supporting lossless streaming.

In this case, it would be a draw for both services.

Selection of Music and Library

Both Spotify and Apple Music have a huge library of more than 50 million tunes. Occasionally, some exclusives for certain music videos are offered by Apple Music.

Both services let you listen to offline songs, yet Apple Music let you synchronize every songs in your device onto your playlists, while Spotify only let you to listen from the Spotify app. Another minus point for Spotify is that they do not store songs in the clouds, so users can only listen to local files.

The winner for this section must be Apple Music.

Navigation and Interface

In this section, Apple Music prefers the white color all over the app while Spotify would rather have the black background. The navigation is quite easy on both services, given that there are main tabs at the interface’s bottom.

As for Spotify, some animations and short clips are played when you use the app in full screen mode. Both services allow users to track lyrics while listening to songs, but only Apple Music gives its users the privilege of finding songs by lyrics.

Regarding CarPlay support, the good news for you is that Android Auto can use Apple Music for Android now, so you are capable of controlling your own music through infotainment system.

It’s a draw for this section.

Where can we listen?

Neither Apple Music nor Spotify is limited to any platforms or systems. Both services can now be used in both Android and iOS, both on mobile and on desktop.

As for Spotify, the web address is open.spotify.com. For Apple Music, it’s more like a web widget: tools.applemusic.com.

Speaking of smart speakers, Apple’s HomePod with Siri voice control is available on FireTV, Apple TV, Apple Watch, and Echo speakers (but you will have to use Alexa App, and it is available in US only).

As for Spotify, users are free to connect with whatever devices that they want. If an application is specified as compatible with Spotify Connect, users can use Spotify app to control the playback remotely. And Spotify is also available on PlayStation and Xbox.

The winner in this section is definitely Spotify.

Tools for Music Discovery

Let’s admit that most of us use music streaming service to find out new music. And as we might have already seen, both Apple Music and Spotify are capable of exposing users to a wide range of new tunes.

Both services made up weekly-updated playlists for users to listen: Release Radar and Discover Weekly on Spotify and New Music Mix on Apple Music.

These services will ask you for your favorite music genres and artists so that they can recommend songs that are most suitable for you.

Should you have the chance to experience Spotify, you will find that its feature of recommending music based on users’ listening habits is extremely on-point.

The winner is surely Spotify.

Social Sharing

Both services let their users to follow artists and friends to keep up with the latest songs. Spotify Codes even allows you share albums and songs with your friends, but this feature is not usually updated in comparison with Apple Music, given the fact that celebrities seem to be more active on the Apple platform.

So the winner must be Apple Music.

Which Music Streaming Service Should You Choose?

In the case that you’re looking for free service, then Spotify is definitely for you.

If you have made up your mind to be a premium users, then consider these things: If you are fond of Apple devices, then Apple Music is definitely for you. With the amount of money that you are going to spend, Spotify will do better job in knowing your music taste, but Apple Music will let you mix up your own playlist.

After all, Spotify and Apple Music is not the only services that you can have, but above are things that you might want to know before actually paying for any of those services.