Spotify vs. Apple Music
You may wonder about music streaming services that are best for you from Spotify and Apple Music. Spotify offers music alongside audiobooks, novels, and podcasts, a free plan, supports more platforms, and has somehow better social features while Apple Music offers sound quality, exclusive features, music videos, broadcast radio, and shows.
Apple Music and Spotify somehow similar features such as personalized playlists, live lyrics, collaborations, share play support, crossfade, and music discovery features that make it difficult to choose one of them. When choosing which streaming service to subscribe to, these differences should be taken into consideration.
Spotify vs. Apple Music: Comparison Overview
Spotify vs. Apple Music: Plan’s Category
We’ve already looked at the plans and their limitations, so now, let’s take a closer look at the premium plans the two services offer.
Spotify has some Plan features as well that users may prefer.
They are as follows:
- Spotify offers more flexible plans like Premium Duo & premium Mini.
- Unlike Apple Music, Spotify also comes with a free, ad-supported plan.
- The free version of Spotify will pause your music to play recorded ads and in-app advertisements.
- Ads within the app and recorded ads can be removed by purchasing a Premium subscription to Spotify.
- There’s no official Spotify Premium annual subscription, but you can get around this with a $99 gift card for a 1 year Spotify subscription at Amazon.
| Spotify Plan | Price | Features |
Free Plan | Free | Free music and podcast streaming with adsSkip songs up to 6 times per hourShuffle modeAccess to Daily Mix playlists30-day free trial for Premium |
Premium Student | $5.99/month | 1 month freeAd-free music/podcast streamingOffline ListeningOn-demand playbackHulu (ad-supported) planShowtime |
Premium Individual | $10.99/month | 1 month freeAd-free music/podcast streamingOffline ListeningOn-demand playback |
Premium Family | $16.99 per month for 6 accounts | 1 month freeAd-free music/podcast streamingOffline ListeningOn-demand playbackUp to 6 accountsParental controlsFamily Mix playlistSpotify Kids access |
| Additional Premium Plans:Premium Duo: Premium Mini: | $14.99 per month, 2 accounts(~$0.13/day or ~$0.46/week) | 1 month freeAd-free music/podcast streamingOffline ListeningOn-demand playbackUp to 2 accountsDuo Mix playlist |
| Annual Plan | $99 per year (with the gift card) |
YouTube Music has a few Plan features users might like.
They are as follows:
- By comparison, Apple Music has no free tier so it can’t compete on this level.
- On the plus side, there are no adverts in Apple Music, and you can sign up for a free month.
- Despite Spotify’s free tier, Apple Music’s monthly individual fee is great value.
- Spatial audio support and lossless streaming continue to be basic features of Apple Music.
- It has also launched a dedicated Apple Music Classical app with 5 million classical music tracks in lossless and high-resolution audio free to existing Apple Music subscribers.
- It should be noted that enrolling in the Apple Music annual plan is a little complicated. You must first sign up for a monthly plan before switching to yearly paying using the app or the account settings on your Apple device.
| Apple Music Plan | Price | Features |
| Free Plan | No | – |
Premium Student | $5.99/month | Access to the Apple Music library and exclusive contentOffline listeningAd-free streaming |
Premium Individual | $10.99/month | Access to the Apple Music library and exclusive contentOffline listeningAd-free streaming |
Premium Family | $16.99 per month for 6 accounts | Access to the Apple Music library and exclusive contentOffline listeningAd-free streamingAccess for up to six peoplePersonal accounts for each member |
| Annual Plan | $109.99 per year | $109.99 per year |
| Additional Premium Plans | Voice: $4.99/month | Voice: $4.99/month |
Apple Music wins this category.
Spotify vs. Apple Music: Sound Quality
It is possible that some functions are not available on the web, mobile, or desktop players. Keep in mind that only Premium subscribers get access to all of these features.
| Audio Quality Setting | Spotify | Apple Music |
| Coding standards | AAC, Ogg Vorbis | AAC and ALAC |
| Automatic | Depends on internet speed | 64 kbps to 256 kbps depending on the connection |
| Low-quality mode | 24 kbps | N/A |
| Normal quality mode | 96 kbps | N/A |
| High-quality mode | 160 kbps | 256 kbps |
| Very High-quality mode | 320 kbps | N/A |
| Lossless | N/A | Up to 24-bit/48 kHz |
| High-Resolution Lossless | N/A | Up to 24-bit/192 kHz |
Lossless audio is supported by Apple Music but not by Spotify.
Apple Music has another big advantage over Spotify through lossless and high-resolution audio. With lossless audio, you may get CD-quality sound from a digital file by essentially avoiding much of the data loss that occurs when songs are compressed from their source.
Apple Music’s standout feature, however, is Dolby Atmos, which they brand as “Spatial Audio.” Both lossless and Dolby Atmos are included with Apple Music at no additional charge.
Apple claims that its Digital Masters: offers the “highest possible quality audio” and specific tracks are available in this kind of format.
Spotify announced plans to introduce lossless music, named Spotify HiFi, back in February 2021. However, it’s still not available.
Technically, Apple Music wins the audio quality category.
At this point, Apple Music’s lossless content selection beats Spotify’s in terms of bit rate and resolution.
Spotify vs. Apple Music: Music Library
Both Spotify and Apple Music have massive song catalogs, but Apple claims to have “over 100 million” songs compared to Spotify’s “over 80 million.” Apple Music surely has a larger total variety of songs than the other Apple Podcasts service, even if it offers over 2.6 million podcast titles.
Apple Music’s main attraction is its ability to create a virtual music library and arrange songs into playlists or smart playlists that are continuously created. In contrast, Spotify offers a basic set of features for library management, which isn’t surprising, given that Spotify’s core focus revolves around playlists.
Apple Music’s handling of pre-releases is far superior. When an artist announces a new album, users can pre-add it to their library and as new singles become available, they are ungrayed and ready to be streamed.
To be fair, Spotify has permitted a limited number of artists to use a native pre-add to library feature, but this is only accessible to a select set of artists for now.
Somehow Apple Music wins the library category.
While both platforms have a huge music library, Apple Music has more to offer, with more podcast titles as well as the pre-addition to their library.
Spotify vs. Apple Music: Discovery & Recommendation
Both Spotify and Apple Music will present you with personalized playlists. They will also recommend songs and artists you haven’t listened to yet but might like based on your listening preferences.
On Spotify and Apple Music, there are numerous methods to find new music which are displayed in the following table:
| Discovery Feature | Spotify | Apple Music |
| Search (Spotify) | Genres & MoodsNew ReleasesGlobal ChartsDiscover | Playlists You NeedNew MusicMusic by MoodBest New SongsDaily Top 100 |
| Song Recommendations | “Recommended” | Simpler Recommendations |
| Personalized Mixes | “Made For You”Daily MixRelease RadarDiscover WeeklyTastebreakers | “Made for You”New Music MixStations for You |
| Artist Profile Recommendations | “Fans Also Like” | Similar Artists” |
Spotify offers six Daily Mix playlists based on your music taste and top Artist, Genre, Mood, and Decade Mix playlists. There’s also a Discover Weekly playlist and a dedicated Release Radar playlist with new music from artists you follow or may like. The home tab is populated with customized recommendations, but you can find personalized music in Spotify’s Made for You tab.
The service also has a Uniquely Yours section in the Made For You tab with its AI-powered DJ feature and Spotify suggests music you can add to your created playlists in one tap based on songs you’ve already added.
On the other hand, Apple Music offers personalized music in the Listen Now and Browse tabs. You will find mixes, playlists, songs, albums, and stations (an endless mix of personalized music). Apple Music’s personalized playlists include Favorites, Get Up!, Chill, and New Music mixes.
There’s also a Stations for You section in the Listen Now tab with [Your Name]’s Station, Discovery Station, and several artist stations customized depending on your listening habits. These stations and playlists make discovering new music on Apple Music easy. However, you should listen to Apple Music’s Discovery Station more because it’s specifically meant for that.
Spotify wins the discoverability category.
Both platforms have great personalization algorithms, but many perceive Spotify’s recommendation algorithm as the best in the music streaming industry. Spotify’s wider range of discovery features and tools gives users more directions to uncover new songs and artists.
Spotify vs. Apple Music: Interface and Design
- Apple Music has all the music I need, complete with some smart recommendations and curated playlists based on my listening history, it makes it harder for me to find all that stuff.
- Spotify’s homepage shows me my six most recent albums/playlists while still leaving room for recommendations and new releases. Spotify’s mobile and desktop apps’ playlists have a helpful sorting feature that lets you reorder songs by title, artist, date, or duration.
- Apple Music features a lot of wasted space, with huge blocks of artwork that require me to do a lot of scrolling before I get to what I’m looking for.
- Doing everything from finding a new release playlist to simply hitting the “like” button on a song just feels more complicated in Apple’s app.
- The main difference here feels mainly aesthetic though. Apple Music favors a light, bright, and white look with high-contrast text, while Spotify has stuck to its darker black/grey color scheme with flashes of neon green.
Spotify wins this category.
Spotify vs. Apple Music: Which Should You Go For?
| Spotify | Apple Music |
| More subscription flexibility and perks | Large music library and excellent curation |
| Massive music library | New release and artist exclusives |
| Better content diversity with podcasts | Lots of exclusive and original video content |
| Good design and is easy to use | Access to live radio programming |
| Better music discovery algorithm | More intuitive user controls |
| Better streaming payouts | |
| Higher audio quality |
Conclusion:
In conclusion, you can try out both Spotify and Apple Music without parting with a cent. You can browse the catalogs using the web apps, without the need for a user account. You can sign up for Apple Music and get a free month to try the service out, or you can sign up for a free Spotify account and use the service for free until you’re ready to pay.
