By: Grace Chen
The debate between Spotify or Apple Music is well-heard of, absolutely. Everywhere you go, you hear people choosing between the two with some ranking Spotify as better and others sticking with Apple Music. However, did you know there are also so many other alternatives for these platforms that people in the world use? Let’s go through them, including Spotify and Apple Music as aforementioned.
Spotify:
Pros:
- Uniquely curated personal playlists
- Social functions where users can see what their friends are playing and vice versa
Cons:
- No lossless audio (the uncompressed and unmodified music from their recording processes)
- Advertisements can be bothersome
Apple Music:
Pros:
- Includes lossless and spatial audio
- Convieniant and the navigation is seamless
Cons:
- No free version to use unlike Spotify
- Quite cluttered as it contains so many categories together
Youtube Music:
Pros:
- A nice and wide selection of songs available
- Includes a free trial and is ad-free
Cons:
- No voice integration program such as with Alexa
Amazon Music Unlimited:
Pros:
- Offers a greatly expanded catalog for an extra outlay every month
- Lyrics are visible on the “now playing” screen
Cons:
- Only offers musical content
- No information about the artists
Tidal:
Pros:
- Lossless playback is available making the music sound in it’s most original form, sounding as good as or even better than CD’s
- Tons of videos available including livestreams of concerts
Cons:
- The mobile apps and web player are not very straightforward
- Not as exhaustive as Spotify
Deezer:
Pros:
- Free tier on mobile and contains 56 million tracks
- Has a lot of subscribers using this app
Cons:
- Still does not offer enough content compared to its more popular competitors
Overall, while Spotify and Apple Music appear to dominate the majority of college students, the music streaming platform industry is big—it never hurts to learn about the other streaming platforms that exist!!