Apple Music and Spotify are locked in a battle to be the most popular music-streaming service in the world today. Both feature tens of millions of songs and have millions of users worldwide. Their popularity and positions as the top music services made me wonder: which platform comes out on top? It all depends on what type of listening experience you want.
If you’re looking for a free music-streaming service, the Spotify free plan is the way to go. However, you can only play music on shuffle, and the 30-second ads every 15 minutes become annoying fast. Three consecutive 30-second ads frustrated and distracted me while I was working. The Spotify Web Player allows you to pick and play music in whatever order you want, but the ads are still present. Apple Music requires you to pay to use it. If you don’t mind paying, you have several options to choose from. Apple Music and Spotify both have multiple plans with similar costs; Spotify Premium’s standard plan and Apple Music both cost $9.99 per month. Apple Music gives three months of free trial while Spotify gives one or two months based on the package you decide to try.
In terms of the quality of music, Apple Music takes the win here. On the surface, I found the quality of Apple Music better than the quality of Spotify on its free tier. After getting Spotify Premium, it was difficult for me to tell the difference in quality between them. But, after listening to both for some more time, Apple Music still had slightly better music quality. Apple Music and Spotify Premium, not the free-tier, have equalizer presets, which you can choose to suit different genres of music. Some examples include the “Hip-Hop” equalizer that increases the bass of songs and the “Vocal Booster” equalizer that increases the sound of vocals. Apple Music’s equalizer settings are better than Spotify, but Spotify’s is much easier to access and use. Apple Music also recently introduced Spatial Audio with support for Dolby Atmos to their platform, providing a high-quality listening experience with compatible devices.
When it comes to personalization and interface, Spotify has the edge over Apple Music. Both have playlists that are created based on listening preferences, but, often, Apple Music’s missed the mark and didn’t provide much new content. On the other hand, Spotify’s playlists were much more personalized and provided many more playlists, and the interface was much more user-friendly than Apple Music. Apple Music’s sound settings are located in the Settings App while Spotify’s sound settings could be adjusted in the app itself. It was easier to access my profile and see what I played recently on Spotify as well. Heck, Spotify even greeted me with a “Good Evening.”
When it comes to the amount and type of content, it’s purely user-based. If you like to listen to music and are interested in radio shows, Apple Music is the way to go. It has over 75 million songs with numerous radio shows focused on different music genres and trends in music. If you are looking for podcasts to go along with music, Spotify is the best choice, with approximately 70 million songs and over 2.5 million podcasts, which cover a wide variety of genres such as sports, comedy, news, video games, and more. Apple Music will give you more content while Spotify gives you more variety.
Both Apple Music and Spotify have their ups and downs. But, the best choice all comes down to what you want. After using both of these platforms, I prefer Apple Music over Spotify since I’m more interested in the quality of the music I listen to and I don’t mind paying for it. If you want a more casual listening experience that is personalized and easy to use, go for Spotify. However, to unlock most of the benefits of Spotify, you will need to pay. If you don’t mind the ads and don’t want to pay, use Spotify’s free service. The best platform is the one suited to your desires and preferences.