When comparing 8 Tracks vs Upbeat, the Slant community recommends 8 Tracks for most people. In the question“What are the best ways of finding new music?” 8 Tracks is ranked 10th while Upbeat is ranked 17th. The most important reason people chose 8 Tracks is:
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.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
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.
Pro Great for discovering new music
Due to how the service works, listening to user created playlists allows for pretty good discovery of new or undiscovered bands.
Pro No record label influence
Upbeat has no promotion deals, everything is decided by the community.
Pro Upload songs via SoundCloud
You can link songs that have been uploaded on SoundCloud.
Pro Community curated
Select a genre and vote on what you like alongside other people.
Cons
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.
Con Advertisements in free version
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.
