If you love listening to music, you are probably familiar with the many music streaming platforms available. A couple of the most popular are Spotify and Apple Music. With these platforms, you can get subscriptions that will give you unlimited access to the vast library of music provided by each of them. There are, however, many notable differences between these two streaming services. If you’re looking to subscribe to one of them, knowing the differences between Spotify and Apple Music can help you decide which platform would work best for your listening needs.
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Amount of content available
One of the most important aspects of any music streaming platform is the amount of content available on it. This can vary between services, so it’s helpful to see what you can get from each.
Apple Music beats Spotify in this regard, with over 70 million songs in its library, while Spotify offers over 50 million. So, if you want to discover a lot of new artists, Apple Music will provide you with a lot to find.
Spotify, however, not only offers its own music library but also a catalog of over 700,000 podcasts. So, if you like listening to them besides music, Spotify might be the best option for you.
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Prices
To access all the features of each of these apps, you will need to subscribe to the Apple Music plan or the Spotify Premium subscription. With Spotify in particular, however, you have the option to use the app for free with access to its entire library. However, you will need to hear the announcements between songs, you won’t be able to download anything for offline playback, and you can’t skip songs more than 6 times per hour, among some other limitations.
For both of these platforms, the starting price for an individual plan is $9.99/month. Also, the plans and pricing differ slightly. With Apple Music, there is a Family plan for $14.99 per month that gives you the benefits of an individual account, but you can have up to six other accounts linked to the plan. There is also a Student option with Apple Music for a discounted price of $4.99/month.
Spotify offers a few other things. It has a Duo plan at $ 12.99 per month that allows for two separate accounts and a Duo Mix playlist within the app that links both accounts’ music into a playlist. The Spotify Premium Family plan costs $ 14.99 a month like Apple Music’s, but you can also access Spotify Kids and a family mix playlist.
Spotify also offers a discounted price for the student plan at $ 4.99 / month and in addition to Spotify Premium, you will also get a Hulu and Showtime plan. Between the two apps, you’ll really get the most out of Spotify.
Recommendation algorithms
To find new music according to your tastes, Spotify has more features designed to help you do that. On your Spotify main page, you will find multiple categories and playlists shown based on what you have listened to on the app. Spotify also generates a Discovery playlist to show you unheard songs that you might like.
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Apple Music doesn’t have nearly the same features for recommending music as Spotify, but there are still some similar features like the Listen Now page or artist stations that can introduce you to new songs or artists.
Audio functions and options
If you like to play with the audio playback of your music to get the best sound, both of these apps have some options for equalizing the music. The app with the most options, however, is Spotify.
You can manually edit the EQ directly in the app or choose from a number of pre-created presets. There are also other audio enhancement options available in Spotify’s settings.
With Apple Music, you can still change the EQ, but you don’t have as much manual control as you can just choose from existing presets.
Playlists
The ability to create playlists is another integral feature of any useful music platform. Both of these apps have easy-to-use playlist creation, however, some of the features of each differ.
For example, in Spotify, you can create collaborative playlists, which means more people can add songs. Spotify also allows you to easily share your playlists with others by giving you Spotify codes that link directly to the playlist. Another benefit of Spotify playlists is that once you add a few songs, at the bottom of the playlist you can see more recommendations for songs to add based on what’s already in the playlist.
With Apple Music, you also have the option to share your music through typical sharing paths like on social media. However, there is no collaborative feature for playlists on this app.
Looking for music
Finding a certain song you want to hear can be difficult if you don’t remember things like the title or the artist. Both apps have a designated search function, but Apple Music makes things a lot easier as you can search for songs by typing in the lyrics.
With Spotify, you’ll have to search by song title, artist, or album title, but they try to help you by providing you with real-time results for what you’re typing.
How different are Spotify and Apple Music?
How different are Apple Music and Spotify, and is it distinctly better than the other? There are subtle and definite differences that can make or break one of the apps for you, so if you notice any of these in the differences above, you might benefit from trying the app you would think you’d prefer the most first.
Overall, most of each app’s functionality is normal when it comes to music streaming apps. If you’re still not sure which one you would prefer, both apps offer free trials of their paid services so you can try them out for yourself.
