How to Choose Between Spotify and Apple Music

Apple Music and Spotify are the two most popular streaming services in the world; most of us already have our favorite. Fans get into endless debates about which service is better, and for many people, that boils down to two factors: pricing and recommendation algorithms. However, there are many other factors that settle the Apple Music vs. Spotify debate—you could be after better sound quality, sharing features, support for your preferred platforms, and many other things. But which service is superior? It depends on what you're looking for.

Apple Music vs. Spotify: pricing

If you're on a really tight budget and just cannot afford to pay for a music streaming service, Spotify's ad-supported free tier allows you to listen without paying a dime. Apple Music offers a three-month free trial, but once that's done, you will have to pay. It's worth noting, though, that Apple Music does not have any ads.

Spotify Premium has four plans, with Premium Individual at $11.99/month, Premium Duo (for two accounts) at $16.99/month, Premium Family at $19.99/month (up to six accounts), and Premium Student at $5.99/month (only for students). Apple Music costs the same as Spotify, without a "Duo" option: $5.99/month for the student plan, $10.99/month for an individual plan, and $16.99 for family. The student plan comes with free access to Apple TV+; Spotify's equivalent plan lets you access Hulu's ad-supported plans. 

If you're all in on the Apple ecosystem, you can get the Apple One bundle for a great discount. Apple One Individual costs $19.95/month for four services—Apple Arcade, Apple Music, Apple TV+, and iCloud (50GB). The Apple One Family plan offers all of this with 200GB iCloud storage for $25.95/month for up to six people. The Premier plan includes all of the above for six people, plus Apple News and Apple Fitness, for $37.95/month.

Both services have something to offer for seasoned deal hunters, but Apple Music's promotions generally let you get more for free (assuming you don't just stick to Spotify's ad-supported tier). There are plenty of discounts on Spotify Premium, with the best offer being a three-month free trial. But for example, while Apple Music's free trial usually caps out at three months, at the time of writing, new users can get six months of Apple Music for a one-time payment of $2.99.

Apple Music offers better sound quality

If you're after the best sound quality, then Apple Music is a better option than Spotify. Apple Music allows you to listen to lossless audio files at no extra charge. With the right kind of wired audio equipment, you'll be able to hear the difference in sound quality. Spotify doesn't allow you to play lossless audio files yet. 

To be clear, the sound quality in both services is quite good—most people will not feel like they're listening to inferior audio. Especially if you use a pair of cheap earbuds, there's no point in trying to pick one service over another based on sound quality. This matters only for those who have high-end audio gear rather than those with low quality or Bluetooth earbuds. However, Apple also offers lossless audio for certain AirPods when paired with an Apple Vision Pro headset, since that circumvents Bluetooth. The company says, "AirPods 4, AirPods 4 with Active Noise Cancellation, and AirPods Pro 2 with USB-C Charging Case provide Lossless Audio with ultra-low latency when paired with an Apple Vision Pro."

Apple Music has another advantage in Spatial Audio, which is a form of virtual surround sound and creates a more immersive listening experience. 

Both services have a vast music library

Spotify and Apple Music both have over 100 million songs at the ready. Most people will find everything they need on either service, but some niche artists or genres may be better represented on either of these services. For example, Apple Music has a whole app dedicated to classical music.

Playlists and recommendations

Music streaming services live and die by their recommendation algorithms. Although Spotify started out with a huge advantage in this area, Apple Music has been slowly catching up. At the moment, Spotify's algorithm is still better at recommending music, but Apple Music has lots of excellent human-curated playlists that may appeal more to some people. This is a highly subjective debate that swings one way or another based on the genres you prefer. That's why it's best to give both services a shot and see if the playlists are recommendations work for you. 

UI and app experience

Apple Music's apps are great on Apple platforms, but they're mediocre on other devices. The service has a web player, an Android app, a Windows app, and is available on other platforms too, but its experience remains sub-par on most of those. In my experience, and that of other users, Apple Music can be slow, laggy, and prone to crashing when used outside of Apple's own devices. If you're someone who's locked into the Apple ecosystem, you'll be pleased with Apple Music, but if you're more of a cross-platform person, Spotify is the better option.

Unique features

Apple Music and Spotify both also come with unique features that could help you gravitate towards either one. Apple Music Sing lets you view song lyrics in a karaoke-style UI and syncs them with the song that's currently playing. This makes it easy to follow lyrics, especially on a large-screen device such as an Apple TV. The experience is far more robust than Spotify's synced lyrics feature. Apple Music also offers a great accessibility feature—Music Haptics—on your iPhone. It uses the iPhone's Taptic Engine to create haptic vibrations for your songs, ranging from barely discernible to long reverberations, depending on the part of the song that's playing. It enhances the listening experience for everyone and in particular, helps people who face hearing-related challenges.

On the other hand, Spotify Connect makes it a lot easier to control music playback on other devices. Spotify also supports collaborative playlists—a feature that's still in beta on Apple Music. For collaboration, Spotify Blend automatically curates a playlist based on your and your friends' tastes and Spotify Jam makes it really easy to create party playlists. 

Non-music features

Spotify includes podcasts and audiobooks in its service, which has been a polarizing addition. Some people want their music app to have just that, while others don't mind listening to other forms of audio in Spotify. However, almost everyone is annoyed by the fact that Spotify plays ads in podcasts, even for premium subscribers. The service also offers a few hours of audiobook listening for free, but it charges an additional sum if you want more.

Sharing and social media

As hard as Apple Music is trying to catch up, Spotify is the service with the better sharing and social media options. Its year-end roundup—Spotify Wrapped—is simple to post to social media, and you also have neat options to share any song to Instagram Stories. Apple Music Replay's sharing options are rather limited, but you can load the roundup in the Music app itself and also view monthly recaps of your top songs.

While you can share song lyrics to Instagram via Apple Music, in general, Apple's social media game isn't as good as Spotify's.

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