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Add to SafariWhen comparing Youtube vs SoundCloud, the Slant community recommends SoundCloud for most people. In the question“What are the best music streaming services?” SoundCloud is ranked 1st while Youtube is ranked 12th. The most important reason people chose SoundCloud is:
Links to related music, based on what you're listening to, can be found in the sidebar.
Specs
Question Ranking
Pros
Pro Large catalog of music
Huge variety of music to pick from including rare recordings, covers, mixes, etc.
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.
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.
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.
Pro Recommendations
Links to related music, based on what you're listening to, can be found in the sidebar.
Pro Subscribe to artists
You can subscribe to artists to be notified the instant they upload a new song or give an update.
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.
Pro Follow people
You can follow people with similar tastes or that often find new music. When they favorite a song, SoundCloud will notify you about it.
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.
Pro Pre-releases
Some music labels, especially newer ones, release on SoundCloud before anywhere else.
Pro Creative Commons filter
SoundCloud allows for finding music that is licensed under Creative Commons.
Cons
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.
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.
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.
Con Ambient music monetization denied
YouTube doesn't allow the monetization of the ambient musical tracks.
Con Can't do an advanced search
You can't search, for example, for Creative Commons music with the tag #trap. It could be useful to search for music you like that is under Creative Commons.
Con Interface is full of bugs
The SoundCloud website has tons of problems, including issues with notifications, favorites, and uploading sounds.
Con Audio ads in some uploaded content
Some content on SoundCloud includes audio ads, particularly sponsored podcasts.
(Note that SoundCloud itself doesn't add these - all the audio you're hearing is exactly as it was uploaded.)
