Replacing Spotify used to be difficult, but its competitors have caught up in many areas.
Enlarge / Replacing Spotify used to be difficult, but its competitors have caught up in many areas.

The United States is one of the places where the dominant streaming music platform is Spotify. There has been a lot of interest in trying something new.

Some people are curious to see what else is out there since they have been using it for a long time. Some are trying to make a change because of the controversy surrounding the platform and its relationship with Joe Rogan.

Whatever your reasons, there are several well-established competitors that offer many of the same features as Spotify. We'll quickly run down what distinguishes them.

We are looking at services that allow you to stream virtually any song on demand at any time, so we are keeping the focus on true competitors to Spotify. That excludes popular radio-focused services that aren't focused on la carte song selection. Even if they offer similar features, it excludes smaller services that can't offer the same breadth of content.

We think these services are good enough that a switch from Spotify won't feel bad.

The big one

Apple Music

Plans: $10/month (Individual), $15/month (Family), $5/month (Voice, Student)

For good reason, this is the obvious choice. The overall user experience of Apple Music is as close as it gets to that of Spotify.

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The biggest difference between the two is that Apple Music is much more focused on human curation than the other way around.

There are professionally-curated radio stations on Apple Music. Apple puts a lot of effort into the handpicked stuff, while its recommendations and associations are not as strong.

Jimmy Iovine announces Apple Music in 2015.
Jimmy Iovine announces Apple Music in 2015.

There are pros and cons to each emphasis. The most important thing in common between the two services is that they both have a huge library of individual songs. You can listen to as many songs as you want.

Apple Music does not have an ad-supported free tier. If you don't want to pay $10 per month for a service, this isn't the service for you.

Apple Music gives artists a larger slice of the financial pie, and it also offers higher-quality audio for some content.

Pros

  • Higher sound quality for some content
  • Better human curation and live radio programming
  • Compensates artists a bit better
  • Tighter integration with Apple hardware, software, and services (if that's your ecosystem of choice)
  • Stronger incorporation of your personal music library

Cons

  • Notably worse algorithmic features and recommendations
  • While there are Android and Windows apps, Apple Music doesn't always play nice with smart speakers or other products not made by Apple
  • Smaller podcast selection