Apple Music vs. Spotify: What’s Best For You

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Well fellow music lovers, it’s time we ask ourselves the age-old question: Apple Music or Spotify?

I have debated between the two music-streaming services for quite some time, and my guess is that you have too. That’s why I’m here today, to tell you what I think about the two sites, and hopefully help you find the best way to listen to your tunes.

First things first, let’s talk price.

Spotify at the beginning is totally free, but of course you can only shuffle play music and you’ll get ads frequently. Their Premium service is $9.99/month and that gets rid of the ads and supplies you with unlimited skips. They have a student price of $4.99/month, and a family plan that’s $14.99/month, for up to five people.

Apple Music has a 90-day free trial that includes every service. Then the base price is also $9.99/month. They have a student price that’s $4.99/month, and a family plan that’s $14.99/month. It’s awesome that the prices are pretty much the same, but I definitely can’t deal with listening to ads. Spotify loses points for that one.

Now, it’s time for the music. There are many discussions about who is on Spotify and who isn’t; and the same goes for Apple Music. Both sites claim to have over 30 million songs in their library, so there is plenty to choose from. As far as music discoverability, Spotify wins this round. While, Apple Music has the option to discover new artists, there is not as much variety as there is in Spotify. Searching through Spotify led me to many new artists that are similar to the ones I already love, and on Apple Music’s “For You” tab I was lead right back to the same artist that I already listened to.

Navigating through both of these apps was simple; they each have a straightforward design and get you where you need to go. As a whole, I do think that Apple Music has the lead when it comes to the convenience factor. I am able to combine my own music library with the library I downloaded from their service all in the same place. The last thing I want to talk about is playlists. Apple Music has many varieties of playlists offered by users, but I have yet to find one that I really love. This may be because there are not as many people posting their playlists publicly, or they may be hard to find. This is why I think Spotify wins this round, because there is a playlist for every occasion on this site.

In the end, there is no right or wrong answer as to which streaming service is better. It all depends on what feels right for you. After doing a poll of what my friends listen to, the results came back as 72% for Spotify and 28% for Apple Music. So tell me, where do you listen to music?

 

For the record, I am team Apple Music all the way. The convenience of combining my own library, with downloaded songs from their system outweighs everything for me, and that’s why I like it better.