What are the best music streaming services?

Up to 50k songs can be uploaded to an online cloud storage and streamed directly from there at up to 320kbps without a paid plan. Additionally, during the upload process user's library will be scanned to see if any songs match Google's catalogue. The ones that do don't need to be uploaded and can be streamed directly from Google's catalogue. See More

Top Pro

Offers free cloud storage for personal music streaming service

Top Con

No support for Education or Work (formerly Google for Apps) accounts in the family plan

If you have a custom domain tied to a Google for Apps account then the family plan is not an option. See More

Ron Ross's Experience

Best radio/recommendation/discovery? Option to upload personal files up to 50000. See More

Top Pro

Subscription includes YouTube Red in certain countries

YouTube Red is a paid video streaming service that allows you to play all YouTube content ad-free as well as offers original and exclusive series and films creating in partnership with major YouTube networks and personalities. The YouTube Red service is however only available in a few countries, including the United States. See More

Top Con

No native desktop apps

astowney's Experience

The interface is clunky, and Google pays artists a miserable $0.0068 / play when similar services pay twice that (Tidal pays $0.0125 per count) See More

Top Pro

Access to the growing, well-curated Google Play library

The service certainly isn't lacking in the choice department. See More

Top Con

Quality only as high as 320kbps MP3s

There is no option to listen to lossless music, even if that is what the user has uploaded. The highest quality is 320kbps MP3s. If a lossless track has been uploaded and the user then downloads the track at a later date the file will also only be a 320kbps MP3. See More

mxgms's Experience

Google your life! It helps them to know much more abut your personal preferences in a very intrusive way compounding a full marketable profile of yourself. It already knows much about us. See More

Top Pro

No advertisements for paid or free listeners

The Google Play Music experience for free and paid listeners is 100% uninterrupted with no advertisements. See More

Top Con

Casting goes in and out

Sometimes the casting from google music doesn't work too well. See More

Cole Hamilton's Experience

I came into the streaming music age with a large collection of music. I feel like Google Play Music offered the best way of integrating my music collection with a streaming service. See More

Top Pro

Many albums become available as soon as they're released

Many of the albums in Google Music All Access music streaming service becomes available as they are released. If you like listening to new music as it comes out this is great. See More

Top Con

Rips artists off

At $0.0068 / count, Google pays the artists a little less than Apple Music ($0.0074). It's not as bad as Spotify ($0.0044). See More

IntelligentResheph's Experience

It's hard to beat Google Play Music with YouTube Red. See More

Top Pro

320 kbps sound quality

By default Google Play Music will automatically adjust the sound quality according to the network speed but 320 kbps can be selected in the settings to be played regardless of network speed. See More

Top Con

Limited options without a subscription

Free users can only listen to music they uploaded or purchased through Google Play, or ad-fronted radio stations that are curated or based on a chosen song or artist. They can't play specific songs from Google's streaming library on demand. See More

Top Pro

Good mobile app designs

The designs are bright and easy to use. The applications are well developed and feel very quick. The search as you type feature also works very quickly. See More

Top Con

No directory-based searches

Can't find artists by searching through structured folders. See More

Top Pro

Can organize streamed music alongside uploaded music

Organizing and listening to music is easy with the Queue system that integrates perfectly with the library and search views. See More

Top Con

Interface

Google's "material design" is supposed to promote best user experience practices, but it can be ugly and impractical. See More

Top Pro

Can make smart recommendations based on an artist or song

Google Play Music can make smart recommendations for playlist by the user just picking an artist or song they want recommendations formed from. See More

Top Con

Cannot limit bit rate on a metered network

Google chooses the bit-rate based on the network speed. If you have a fast network that is metered, your download limit could be reached quickly. See More

Top Pro

Family plan available in certain countries

For $14.99, you can give up to 6 members of your family access to Google Play All Access. The family plan is available in Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, United Kingdom and United States. This makes financial sense if even just 2 people are using the service. See More

Top Pro

Google+ integration

Play Music is only integrated with Google + but the social network allows you to share links to your favorite music or a YouTube video of the song for friends that don't subscribe to Google Play Music. See More

Top Pro

Also offers streaming service

GPM can be used as a normal music player but also as a streaming service like Spotify. See More

Top Pro

Upload library through browser

Google has added the option of uploading songs through the browser with the help of a Chrome extension download as well as directly through the desktop Chrome app. See More

Top Pro

Free no advertisements

Google Play Music is a free service for storing and streaming ones library that has zero advertisements in the interface as well as the playing music. See More

Top Pro

awesome "radio" mode to discover related artists!

The Deezer music streaming service is available in 182 countries. There are 192 countries on this world, which means Deezer is available in all but 10 countries. See More

Deezer Music

Top Pro

Available to customers living outside the US

Top Con

Doesn't pay artists enough

Deezer pays artists significantly less than other similar services. As of March 2018 it was paying $0.0064 / play, less than Apple Music and Google Play, half as much as Tidal ($0.0125). Not as bad as Spotify or Pandora, but could certainly do better. See More

IndependentDaphne's Experience

Amazing See More

Specs

Platforms:Web, Android, iOS, Windows Phone

Paid Plan Audio Quality:320 kbps MP3 (Premium) / 1411 kbps FLAC (HiFi)

Algorithmic Radio:Yes

The Deezer music streaming service has more than 40 million songs, which makes Deezer one of the largest music catalogs available now. See More

Top Pro

Huge collection of music

Top Con

Sometimes skipped songs occurred

Some songs skipped even if you are a premium user. See More

astowney's Experience

Deezer doesn't pay artists enough. Since they all offer a very similar experience, have a similar catalog size and subscription price, I don't see any reason to subscribe to a service that pays artists less. See More

Top Pro

Built-in lyrics

Deezer comes with a lyrics feature where users can see the lyrics when the selected track is playing. See More

Top Con

A lot of songs are cut at the end

Many songs are not played until final chords, and many others are of very low quality records, showing audio distortions. This is frustrating. See More

DebonairProphasis's Experience

Sound quality better than Spotify but without take your lots of your money like Tidal. See More

Top Pro

Available on a large number of platforms

Deezer (with a premium subscription) is available on a wide range of devices such as those running Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, Windows Mobile, smart TV and a web app. You can see the full list here. See More

Top Pro

Personalised radio

The Deezer music streaming service offers a radio-like service called Flow which plays random music based on your favorites. See More

Top Pro

Outstanding CD quality (with Elite Service)

For those that subscribe to the Elite Service ($19.99/mo), the bitrate is hi-def CD-quality 1,411kbps at 16/44.1 kHz. See More

Top Pro

Great choice of Musi Mixes

You can download mixes and save. See More

Top Pro

Inbuilt music ID feature

The SoundCloud music streaming service has over 115 million tracks accessible for free. Majority of those free tracks are uploaded by musicians that aren't backed by major labels. As such SoundCloud is a great place to discover new content that often will not be available on other music services that primarily license their music through deals with record labels. See More

SoundCloud

Top Pro

Free access to a huge selection of underground music

Top Con

Music distributed through major labels is behind a paywall

Specs

Platforms:Web, Android, Desktop, Sonos, Windows Phone

Paid Plan Audio Quality:Good

Free tier:Partial

Offline Download:Premium (partial)

Anyone could submit an uploaded track to one or more groups, increasing exposure on the music streaming service platform and building kindred relationships. Furthermore, artists can upload with a distinctive URL. See More

Top Pro

Anyone can upload and share

Top Con

Lots of variation in audio quality for user-uploaded music

The quality is extremely inconsistent. Which leaves a lot to be desired when wanting to listen to quality sounding music. See More

Top Pro

Creates a true sense of a community

By emphasizing user comments (attached to specific points in songs) SoundCloud brings the community aspect of listening to music to the forefront more so than other music streaming services. Additionally, the ability to follow users and artists, liking, sharing and reposting songs helps strengthen a sense of community further. See More

Top Con

Promoted tracks will appear even with a SoundCloud Go subscription

A promoted track is an advertisement that remains even with paid subscriptions. This negates any form of paying in order to remove any advertisements. See More

Top Pro

Pleasant comments

Unlike most comments on the Internet, SoundCloud has managed to create a comment system that's both useful and successfully encourages positive interaction. See More

Top Con

Autoplay on SoundCloud can't be turned off

Top Pro

Allows discovering new music straight from the source, the artist

Top Pro

Good discovery features

In addition to typical algorithmic suggestions, on the SoundCloud music streaming service you can view what people you follow (friends or artists) are listening to and you can see what people like and repost. See More

Top Pro

Easy to use widgets and apps

Top Pro

Huge userbase

SoundCloud has over 175 millon monthly active listeners. See More

Top Pro

Free to use

You don't even have to log in or sign up for an account if you don't want to. There are paid options for if you want to upload large quantities of audio (eg if you're a music label you'll need this), but it's free to download as much and as often as you like. See More

Top Pro

Creative Commons filter

SoundCloud allows for finding music that is licensed under Creative Commons. See More

Top Pro

Recommendations

Links to related music, based on what you're listening to, can be found in the sidebar. See More

Top Pro

Explore tab has new music constantly

Explore tab on SoundCloud shows trending music that can be filtered based on genre/tag. There's a constant stream of new music. See More

Top Pro

Subscribe to artists

You can subscribe to artists to be notified the instant they upload a new song or give an update. See More

Top Pro

Supports following users

You can follow people with similar tastes or that often find new music. When they favorite a song, SoundCloud will notify you about it. See More

They bring together music from a variety of different sources so the quality can be inconsistent. See More

last.fm

Top Con

Unpredictable quality from 3rd-party sources

Top Pro

Interesting options for creating own 'radio' streams

You can generate from 1 to 3 artists/tags and manage the stream with liking / disliking currently playing songs. See More

Specs

Platforms:Web, iOS, Android

Paid Plan Audio Quality:128kbs

Price:$3/mo

Clicking on a song in Last.fm list will start playing it in your Spotify music streaming service desktop application, if you have it running. See More

Top Con

Frequent updates to base software requiring restarts

Top Pro

Perfect integration with Spotify

Top Con

Missing features

There is a lack of features often found in other music streaming services, such as no lyrics support, no way to search by genre, as well as a lack of any live content. See More

Top Pro

Almost all the features are available without paid subscription

Top Pro

Plays music from 3rd-party sources like Youtube

Sometimes it's not just audio but video recording of your favourite artists as well. See More

The Pandora music streaming service is the best at predicting which songs the user would enjoy hearing. Unlike services which have rudimentary recommendation algorithms, Pandora uses over 400 selection attributes that are combined to form over 2,000 focus traits including rhythm syncopation, key tonality, harmonies, and instrumental proficiency. Not only does Pandora use this plethora of conditions to determine each song's inclusion in your station, but it also displays the specific reason that each song was played, as well as its relation to your input criteria. See More

Pandora

Top Pro

Most personalized radio experience

Top Con

Limited skips

Pandora makes it very difficult by limiting your playlist to only a specific song or artist. The player also does not allow you to rewind or repeat any songs. You are only granted six skips per station per hour, and even this is limited to 72 skips per user per day. This is often frustrating if you are trying to focus your playlist on a very specific music selection. See More

DebonairPollux's Experience

Great for finding new music and expanding your genres. Interesting analyses of a song. See More

Specs

Platforms:Web, Android, iOS, Windows Phone

Paid Plan Audio Quality:192kbs

The Pandora music streaming service allows you to rate each song played with a "thumbs-up" or "thumbs-down" to signal your opinion of the song that is played. The station incorporates every single rating to intelligently learn your preferences over time, resulting in an extremely tailored station based on your input. See More

Top Pro

Easily learns what you like and dislike

Top Con

Not available outside the US

For those that live outside the US, the service is not available to them, which greatly limits users from around the globe. See More

astowney's Experience

The catalog is way smaller than other services, and Pandora pays artists a miserable price See More

Top Pro

Extremely versatile stations

Unlike other music streaming services, Pandora allows you to create a station from a single song, artist, album, or genre, and the service has a huge library of over 800,000 tracks from 80,000 artists. More importantly, Pandora lets you mix and match an unlimited number of input criteria to create a station for any mood/style/occasion. See More

Top Con

Frequent advertisements

The free version of Pandora has frequent audio advertisements that are injected every few songs, making the service impossible to use in a party-type setting. However, these can be avoided by paying for the premium edition or by using other ad-blocking software. See More

Top Pro

Free

Being available for free means anyone can try the service in order to see if it appeals. See More

Top Con

Rips artists off

Only Youtube pays artists less than Pandora. Spotify has been under fire for not paying artists enough, at $0.0044 / play (as of march 2018). Well, Pandora pays less than 3 times that! ($0.0013). Tidal pays artists roughly 10 times more ($0.0125). See More

Top Pro

Predicts what you like with great accuracy

Pandora's music genome algorithms are eerily accurate to the point where it can be considered a personal DJ. See More

Top Con

Limited artists

There are only 1 million songs on the service. This means there are a lot of artists missing. See More

Top Pro

Available on mobile and in vehicles

Pandora has an application on all major mobile platforms, including iOS, Android, and WP7. In addition, it is available in numerous vehicles as an add-on, many with voice commands. See More

Top Con

Limited bitrate

Most songs played on Pandora Radio are 128 kpbs bitrate. That being said, the paid version of the service offers songs with a bitrate of 192 kbps. See More

Top Pro

Premium Streaming

Premium is just like any other paid streaming service for the same amount. It does the same things and has a a comparable library. With the personalized radio it makes it a force that is often overlooked. See More

Huge variety of music to pick from including rare recordings, covers, mixes, etc. See More

Youtube

Top Pro

Large catalog of music

Top Con

Confusing service for music

There is a Youtube Music app, which allows one to stream music videos as well as just the studio audio versions of songs. This feature is not accessible on the Youtube website, or the regular Youtube app. In order to get ad free service on the site as well as the music app, ones needs to subscribe to Youtube Red for $9.99 a month. This nets the user features, such as Youtube (Google) created movies and videos as well as a way to save musical playlists for offline use, but only in the Youtube Music app. This makes for a confusing and fragmented service that requires using multiple apps, a website, and a subscription to a paid service that encompasses much more than just music, in order to get the full use out of music on Youtube. See More

DazzlingBamapana's Experience

Digital Interruptions on standard YouTube are now common that were not before. No other service I've tried has developed the problem that YouTube has in the last 3-4 months. It varies from source to source, but is basically the same (15s/55s/3-4m). We're hearing of 32-bit compatibility issues. I don't know but I'm tired of it and I'm sure not going to pay for the quality they now have, no matter what the source happens to be. I believe it is shoddy history tracking of applications. Enough is enough. Taking my $10.00/mo. elsewhere. It was nice knowing you YouTube. Bye Bye. See More

Specs

Platforms:Web, iOS, Android, Windows Phone, Chrome OS

Offline download:Premium (Partial)

Top labels:WMG, UMG, SME

Top Pro

Community created mixes and remixes

Because anybody can upload to YouTube, it has content from remixes of popular songs to hour long mixes and everything in-between. Much of this content can't be found on other music streaming services. See More

Top Con

Lots of ads unless you buy a subscription

There are lots of ads on YouTube, even in the middle of long songs. Some of them can be skipped, however others cannot. Most of the time ads are only displayed between songs. See More

astowney's Experience

Youtube rips artists off. Lots of people upload crappy quality stuff. Also, why use a video service for music? See More

Top Pro

Really good suggestions

YouTube has some of the best suggestions around. Almost all of the suggestions are similar to the song you're currently playing, and allow for an endless music streaming service. See More

Top Con

Rips artists off

YouTube pays artists $0.0007 / play, which is less than 6 times what Spotify pays ($0.0044), and Spotify itself is criticized for ripping artists off. See More

Top Pro

Multiple frontends available

There are Chrome extensions (UpNext, Streamus), webapps (The Parade) and even native desktop apps (Atraci) that are all powered by Youtube. They provide additional functionality and convenience on top of what Youtube already offers. See More

Actual human beings take time to decide what should be played, and on what stations. Sometimes people curating these stations are professional DJs who have experience in curating music content. This makes the music streaming service feel much more organic. See More

Slacker Radio

Top Pro

Curated music streaming service

Top Con

Rather intrusive ads

While it's understandable that the free tier will have ads, between video, audio and banners, they can be quite intrusive. See More

TrustingMyesyats's Experience

It rocks. Best service out there. Works in Canada. Huge library of music. Always good quality. See More

Specs

Platforms:Web, iOS, Android, Windows Phone

Paid Plan Audio Quality:320kbs

There's a mid-tier subscription of only $3.99 and a full subscription of $9.99 See More

Top Pro

Low cost subscription

Top Con

UI is too focused on social media

About half of the UI wastes space on social media info posted by Slacker Radio hosts and DJs. Basically advertisements (but different from their regular advertisements), but in a social media setting. See More

Top Pro

Works on a large number of platforms

Web, iOS, Android, Windows Phone, Blackberry are all platforms that Slacker will work on. See More

Top Pro

Large music library

Offering such a large library ensures there is enough music of different kinds to appeal to anyone. See More

Top Pro

Algorithmically generated stations

Stations are created based on an artist, album or track. Slacker then recommends tracks to the user who can either upvote or downvote them, and Slacker will follow suit and recommend tracks considering how the user voted. See More

Top Pro

Streams for free on T-Mobile

Top Pro

Allows downloading stations locally

Easily save music for offline use by downloading the tracks that you enjoy. See More

iTunes can synchronize playback information, podcast subscriptions & settings and automatically download purchases made on other devices. See More

Apple Music

Top Pro

Syncs across devices

Top Con

No free plan

While there's a three month free trial that lets you test out features of the service, Apple Music is a subscription-only deal. There's no ad-supported free version or anything like that. See More

Faris L.'s Experience

For people with an iPhone, Apple Music is my reccomendation. It syncs perfectly with the rest of your Apple ecosystem and integrates into Messages, Siri, etc. Apple Music also has a large selection of music that will not disappoint. Addtitionally, with Family Sharing, you can share a family Apple Music plan with up to six people. See More

Specs

Platforms:Android, iOS, Windows, macOS

Paid Plan Audio Quality:256 kbps AAC

Algorithmic Radio:Yes

iTunes has a flat, clean design with playback controls at the top-left, search at top-right and a row of ways to categorize available media beneath that. Plus it can be minimized to take up much less space. The minimized interface is called the MiniPlayer and it can be set to display on top of all other windows. It's possible to show iTunes on top of all other windows when playing movies as well. See More

Top Pro

Sleek interface

Top Con

Mediocre algorithms

Apple Music's algorithms are not very helpful if you are trying to find more music. See More

astowney's Experience

Apple should pay artists a decent price. See More

Top Pro

iTunes Store has a huge selection of media

iTunes has a huge catalog of videos, songs, and podcasts in the iTunes store. See More

Top Con

Heavyweight

Appears to get bigger and bigger with each update, without really adding more value to someone who just wants to listen to and organize music. See More

Top Pro

Playlists created by people

The Apple Music streaming service focuses on playlists selected by curators rather than intelligent radios in other streaming services. Choosing playlists selected by the curators improves the experience with another method of music discovery. Of course you can still heart or disheart any song on your own to improve the service's suggestions in the For You section. See More

Top Con

Buggy iTunes app

Immediately after the launch of Apple Music worldwide with the release of the iTunes 12.2, once users upgrade to the latest version of iTunes, many users experienced issues with music list being mixed up, wrong metadata etc. See More

Top Pro

Family sharing for up to six devices

Top Con

Poor UI

Top Pro

Internet radio

iTunes includes a streaming music service called Radio that creates stations based on chosen genre, song or artist. Requires Apple ID to access. See More

Top Con

Some album have missing tracks / artists have missing album

Due to copyright issues some albums on the service have tracks missing or some artists on the service have albums missing, which begs the question, why list the album if it is not complete. See More

Top Pro

Airplay support

iTunes allows streaming audio to all Airplay enabled devices within Wi-Fi range. It's possible to select more than one device to play a song at the same time. See More

Top Con

No crossfade

There is no crossfade, or gapless playback, which is pretty useful for a party for example. See More

Top Pro

Siri integration in a music streaming service

Top Con

Requires an apple device

Apple products are expensive as hell, and you can't use Apple music without one or iTunes See More

Top Pro

Connect feature allows closer communication with musicians

Musicians post on the Apple Music streaming service about news, ideas, new music etc. You can engage with them directly on the site. See More

Top Con

It changes the default artwork of your music

Top Pro

Beats 1 Internet radio offers a shared audio experience

Beats 1 is a 24-hour radio station station run by Apple. It is hosted Zane Lowe, Ebro Darden and Julie Adenuga. See More

Top Con

Doesn't pay artists a fair price

As of march 2018, Apple Music paid the artists $0.0074 per count. That's better than Spotify ($0.0044) and slightly more than Google Play ($0.0068) but way less than Tidal ($0.0125) or Napster ($0.019). See More

Top Pro

Built-in parental controls

iTunes parental controls can be used to deny access to certain parts of iTunes such as podcasts, internet radio, store or shared libraries and restrict access to media that has a certain rating or warnings. See More

Top Con

Apple Music has in some situations deleted user's local files

Top Pro

Great podcast integration

Top Con

The mobile app is known to crash from time to time

Top Con

Confusing onboarding process

Top Con

Apple Music is tied to iTunes

It is not tied to iTunes. See More

The Tidal music streaming service has a maximum streaming quality of 1,411Kbps bit rate with FLAC-formatted lossless files. This is quite an upgrade compared to most music streaming services, which go at about 320Kbps bit rate. See More

TIDAL

Top Pro

Amazing quality

Top Con

No free tier

The Tidal music streaming service has no free tier available. Only a 7-day trial. While the trial is helpful for learning what the service has to offer, it may not allow for a complete picture due to the time limit. See More

astowney's Experience

The experience is very similar to other services I have used (Spotify and Apple Music), but Tidal pays artists way more. See More

Specs

Platforms:Web (Chrome only for HiFi), iOS, Android, Windows, MacOS

Paid Plan Audio Quality:320 kbps AAC (Premium) / 1411 kbps FLAC/ALAC (HiFi)

The Tidal music streaming service mobile app has a built-in audio search, similar to Shazaam and Soundhound. See More

Offline download:Yes

Top Pro

Built-in audio search

Top Con

Songs may take some time to load

the Tidal music streaming service may take up to 10 seconds of buffering to load and play a song, sometimes even stopping a song mid-way to buffer. See More

Top Pro

Discounted student subscription

Tidal offers a 50% discount on monthly subscriptions for students with a valid university email account. See More

Top Pro

Pays artists more

As of March 2018, TIDAL pays the artists 2/3 more than Apple Music and 3 times more than Spotify, for an equivalent catalog and subscription price. (40M songs on TIDAL and Apple Music vs. 30M on Spotify, $9.99/mo for all 3). Napster is the only service that pays the artists more than TIDAL. See More

Top Pro

Awsome desktop app

If you have a free account, the music stream is interrupted fairly often (every few songs) suggesting you upgrade to a pro account. See More

Digitally Imported

Top Con

Advertizements with the free account

Top Pro

Great selection of electronic music

DI has a large selection of curated channels with a great variety of electronic music. See More

Specs

Platforms:Web, Android, iOS, Windows Phone

Paid Plan Audio Quality:320k

Offline Download:No

You're limited to streaming with an internet connection. See More

Top Con

Can't save songs for listening offline

Top Pro

Curated music 24/7

The free account gives you access to over 90 curated channels. These are channels created by music lovers who take the opinions of listeners into consideration. See More

Top Con

Raised prices for grandfathered program

Used to be $5 a month, then raised to $7 a month. See More

Top Con

Low bitrate in free plan

Top Con

Can’t advance to next song

Top Con

Not all genres are covered

DI.fm is electronic-music only and while you also get premium access to classicalradio.com, radiotunes.com, jazzradio.com and rockradio.com, you'll be limited to exploring within those genre. See More

Music streams at 16 bit, 44.4 khz, Flac, CD Quality. Also, high-res is available. See More

Qobuz

Top Pro

High quality streaming

Top Con

Officially available in a limited number of countries

Qobuz is only officially available in 10 countries (which does not include Canada and the US). You can use a VPN in order to pay for the service in an unsupported country. Some users have mentioned success with contacting the country and being added manually (you can read more here). See More

Specs

Platforms:Web, iOS, Android, Windows, Mac OS X (macOS)

Paid Plan Audio Quality:320 Kbps MP3 (Premium) / 16-bit 44.1 kHz FLAC (Hi-Fi) / 24-bit ≤192 kHz FLAC (Studio/Sublime+)

Earbits

Top Pro

Paid for by the artists, not the users

The Earbits music streaming service has an interesting business model that allows the service to be complete free (and ad free) to listeners. Some musicians pay for added profile features or other different tools that aids in exposure for them. See the full explanation here. See More

Top Con

Underdeveloped

Some areas of the service are lacking in polish and design. The user profiles are pretty sparse, making it difficult to customize. Navigation can be a bit unintuitive at times, which makes it a pain to browse the site. There are also issues with playback as well, adding up to many unpolished areas that leaves the user wanting. See More

Specs

Platforms:Web, iOS, Android

Top Pro

Great way to discover indie musicians

The Earbits music streaming service is open to independent artists only and does a great job of helping you discover lesser known music. See More

Top Con

Limited to independent artists

You won't find much of the Top 40 type music on Earbits as it's limited to independent musicians currently. See More

Top Pro

Available on Android, iOS and Chrome

Easily use the app on your preferred platform, as it supports Android, iOS as well as Chrome. See More

Platforms:Web, Android, iOS, Desktop

Mixcloud

Free tier:Partial

Price:Premium $6.99/mo - $69.99/yr | Pro: $15/mo - $135/yr

8 Tracks

Top Pro

Individualistic and personalized user playlists

The site is human-curated not automated. This can give a more personal feel, as each playlist on the music streaming service has been curated by a user. See More

Top Con

Advertisements in free version

Specs

Platforms:Web, iOS, Android, Windows Phone

Paid Plan Audio Quality:320kbs

Offline Download:No

Algorithmic Radio:No

Due to how the service works, listening to user created playlists allows for pretty good discovery of new or undiscovered bands. See More

Top Pro

Great for discovering new music

Top Con

No way to find certain songs

8 Tracks allows you to search for a playlist based on keywords, then requires you to listen to most of that playlist without skipping. As such, it's not so good for hunting down a specific song, but is great for discovering new music. See More

Top Con

Poor music streaming service outside of North America

8Tracks has changed its policy for how it supplies music to those outside of North America by not using any of their servers for those users. This change resulted in using Youtube for those users in order to still have a way to add songs to playlists. Sadly using Youtube results in many songs just disappearing and many playlists becoming defunct. See More

No notifications, social pressure, branding. Just explore what people around the world really care about. See More

Radio4000

Top Pro

Calm and anonymous

PrivateTheros's Experience

Possible to get more information to the track you're listening to, by conencting every track to a release on Discogs. So I can see the label that release the track, country, style and genres, release year. Very nice for organization orientated people like me See More

Specs

Platforms:Everywhere

Paid Plan Audio Quality:Free HQ

Free tier:Everything is free

Everyone can create and share their selection of favorites. See More

Top Pro

Listen to selections from around the world

2266365's Experience

So nice to discover music, selected by people from an other place of the world. I can also share my music to everyone, organize it, and save it easily. See More

Top Pro

Easy media library management

It is possible to use #hashtags to manage your media library. In the default presentation mode, medias are organized by month, it gives a sweet overview of a radio. See More

Top Pro

Free (as in tea and speech)

Free for everyone, no advertising, and free software See More

Top Pro

Fresh alternative to the traditional and old music software

Music crisis, artists not getting payed, major softwares and labels controlling the ecosystem. With open alternatives it is possible to redefine interactions between artists, content producers, listeners, and everyone who cares about music, creation, culture, knowledge, societies. See More

Top Pro

Open ecosystem (free software + API)

You can easily export and manipulate your data. All the website and software are free to copy, study, look at and share. It makes it possible to build other cool tools, with your music library data. See More

This service's web app works really well. See More

Joox

Top Pro

30 days free premium

Amazon Music Unlimited

Top Pro

Great web app

Top Con

Rips artists off

Amazon pays artists even less than Spotify! Per count, as of march 2018 Amazon paid $0.0040, Spotify $0.0044, Apple Music $0.0074 and Tidal $0.0125. See More

astowney's Experience

Spotify was under fire recently for paying miserable fees to artists. Guess what? Amazon pays artists less. See More

Specs

Platforms:Web, iOS, Android, Windows, MacOS

Paid Plan Audio Quality:256 kbps AAC

Free tier:Only available to current Prime subscribers and has a significantly smaller catalog

Prime customers get a discount on the service. See More

Top Pro

Discount for prime customers

Top Con

Clunky desktop app

This service's desktop app is clunky and nowhere near as nice as its web client. See More

Top Pro

Possible to transfer purchased music between devices with no limitations

Purchased music can be downloaded and transfered to other music players/file storage devices. See More

Top Pro

Mobile applications available

Mobile applications for Android and iOS. See More

Top Pro

Supports uploading custom tracks

Upload your own music files with the option to buy more storage if you have more than the limit. See More

Top Pro

Great recommendations

The built-in recommendations feature is great, since it uses both content purchased from Amazon and streamed music to calculate new suggestions. See More

Top Pro

Desktop client

Desktop client for Mac and Windows. See More