I’ve been using YT music since 2018 and for the past few months I’ve been messing around with different streaming apps and now im using Apple Music up until a few months ago. I don’t know if I made the right choice but I’m enjoying Apple Music as of right now. The biggest factor thats going to keep me from switching permanently is that with YT Music you can do more than just download music, you can download videos as well and old tracks you can’t find on Apple Music or Spotify. There’s about 300 songs I have on My YT Music library i can’t find on Apple Music or even Spotify. YT Music is slightly louder and you can tell the difference but Apples Lossless takes the cake, Spotify has HiFi and YT Music doesn’t have anything special just the regular high medium and low audio quality. The main problem that made me switch to Apple Music was with YTM Shuffling. Regardless if i was playing my downloaded songs or a regular playlist, it would be under “queue” and after about 20 songs I would have to restart my playlist, every single time which got really annoying, a really horrible update. Spotify I just never got into, I didn’t feel like I should waste my time building a library on there. Spotify is the type that if you don’t have some type of library built, it ain’t worth it and should build with Apple Music or YTM instead. On YTM I have 4,000+ songs and on Apple Music I have about around 1,500.
Spotify doesn’t have Hi-Fi. Max quality is 320 kbps OGG.
YTM maxes out at 256 kbps AAC.
Apple Music (non-lossless) at 256 kbps AAC. And of course their lossless and hi-res lossless offerings.
Absent Apple’s lossless tier, audio quality for the three services are comparable.
I also tried the big three (Spotify for years, Apple and YouTube Music mostly in the last year) and found Apple Music to be the best for me, since I value uploading my own songs and integrating them into my library on all my devices, which Apple does best out of the three.
I thought transitioning to YT music would be a breeze since most of my uploaded songs these days are YT covers, and being on the YT platform would save me the hassle of having to download and upload them to a different service. However, I miss the library integration Apple has where they don’t differentiate between saved and uploaded songs and let you edit tags so everything can be grouped the way you want it to. On YT they separate saved and uploaded songs entirely and force you to use playlists if you want to play saved and uploaded songs together.
I’m not a fan of it at all, but I’m still subbed since it comes free with YT Premium and saves me $10/mo compared to Apple. If I were more serious about music like you OP I would probably go back to Apple though.
YouTube Music vs. Spotify vs. Apple Music
I use Apple Music because I am able to upload my existing library that I have built up over decades. I also love using Siri to control it in the car. I have YouTube music as part of my YouTube premium subscription. I mostly use it for live, promotional performances (like KEXP), and obscure out of print titles. I’m listening to more Indian classical music these days and YT Music gives me access to stuff that just isn’t available on the regular streaming services.
People complain about YouTube music having lots of non album versions of songs but I consider it a major benefit if the service.
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I use Apple Music because I am able to upload my existing library that I have built up over decades. I also love using Siri to control it in the car. I have YouTube music as part of my YouTube premium subscription. I mostly use it for live, promotional performances (like KEXP), and obscure out of print titles. I’m listening to more Indian classical music these days and YT Music gives me access to stuff that just isn’t available on the regular streaming services.
People complain about YouTube music having lots of non album versions of songs but I consider it a major benefit if the service.
Youtube Music in its current state is rough, but has room for improvement. I've been a GPM user for years and while not super thrilled about everything being phased over to YTM, it has the potential to be great. Google's track record isn't fantastic with new products and getting rid of old ones, but I'm going to be optimistic about it going over to Youtube Music. Additionally, YTM will offer GPM's personal library uploading and playback, which is really useful for a lot of people who have large collections of purchased music they'd like to play on their phone.
Given that YTM is still "in the works" for the most part, it's hard to compare to Spotify or Apple, which are more polished products. But here's how I'd break it down:
Spotify has a great social aspect for people that want that, and it works well. Their Discover Weekly playlist is apparently great and gets better the more you use the service. Spotify is compatible with just about any device, and their desktop app and web player are well done. They have daily mixes made for you based on your music tastes, which are nice. Overall Spotify is a great service. I think a common complaint is that their mobile app is "meh" at best (to me), and very dark.
Apple Music, on the other hand, is very white. It has a very clean, Apple aesthetic which some people have come to love. Comparable music library to Spotify, GPM, etc. It's absolutely geared toward the Apple Crowd, and while there is an Android App, it's not great. If you're already invested in the Apple ecosystem, Apple Music is probably going to be your best choice. If you're on Android, it's a hard sell. From a purely aesthetic standpoint, the app is well done. There is no official web player unless you have iTunes installed on your computer, which may be limiting to people.
It's hard to say much negative about any of these products, since you can get unlimited music at your fingertips for $10/month. And that's fantastic. It really comes down to "different strokes for different folks," and most of them have at least a 30 day free trial if you want to check them all out and see which one you like best.