My Spotify student subscription just expired, and I'm looking at other options like YouTube Music and other streaming services. What's the best one currently and why?

I want to know about:

Usability (navigation, user experience, etc...)

Catalog of music and artists

Extra features (like lyrics, playlists, connectivity, etc...)

Price and available plans

Audio quality

"Useless extras" (like Spotify Wrapped, for example)

Edit 1: I'm using YouTube Music Premium for 1 week Edit 2: I'm sticking with Spotify because I use the student package (R$11.90), and the YouTube Music student package doesn't include YouTube (separate student subscription for R$16)

So If you haven’t heard, the CEO of Spotify is using artists money to invest in AI military drones (for more context here’s a link to what I’m talking about: https://consequence.net/2025/07/king-gizzard-remove-music-spotify-ai-drone-tech/ )

And I’m thinking of switching services. Can anyone point out any that are much better than Spotify so I can listen to more to go against Spotify and their actions?

I just wanted to get some people's insights on what music services they use currently. There are a multitude of them out there now and have heard some interesting responses before.

My wife & daughter use iphones and spotify (which they have been complaining has been crap for the past couple months), my son uses samsung and youtube music and I use Pixel and Amazon prime music. Trying to consolidate into one music streaming service. Wondering which of these services would sound great across any device.

Edit: Wow so many people for Tidal. I will sign up for the trial and see how good it is. Thanks for all the help.

Edit 2: Decided to do a Qobuz trial also since so many are recommending it also. Now I just have to remember to cancel one lol.

Final Edit: We ended up choosing YouTube music. Everyone in my family picked it. They all listen to it on their phones or cars. I play it exclusively in my truck via Android Auto. Its been 6 months no complaints.

What application/platform is everyone using to listen to music on the regular?

Tell me your thoughts on it, what are the pros? What are the cons?

Ex: Spotify, Pandora, YouTube Music

I have an iPhone and used Apple Music since its inception but changed to Spotify at the beginning of the year mainly due to the AM app on Windows being trash. However, I’m looking to try something other than Spotify because it never suggests any new music. It’s been driving me insane that I’ll make a new playlist of a different genre but keep getting unrelated suggestions to that genre, and all the suggestions are the exact same songs over and over for the past year no matter what the genre is for that playlist!

My top priority for a music streaming service is the UI on both iPhone and Windows, and music discovery. I do care about sound quality but the other 2 are more important. I also make playlists with my boyfriend so collaboration would be important to me too.

What is everyone’s experience using Tidal or AM for music discovery? I can’t remember if AM had good discovery because they had just released a new feature in my country when I switched over to Spotify. I’ve also heard their windows app has improved too so I’ve been thinking of switching back. But is Tidal better?

Edit: Thank you for all the recommendations! I was not expecting to get so many responses. I’ve learned of a lot of streaming services I didn’t know about. I do use other sources to find music too but I was hoping to find one that could do it all. Sadly, I don’t think there is just one service that fits all of my needs. Also for those recommending Pandora, it is only available in the US (as others have mentioned…) and I do not live there.

What is the best service for legit new/unknown music discovery. A decade or so ago, I remember listening to a podcast that claimer Pandora used 100+ data points in a song to analyse and provide recommendations.

Was that ever true? And if so, a decade on I don't feel any services I know do that. I feel like if I listen to something from Adult Contemporary (or any other category), they just give me the top 300 songs from that, in some random, made up list.

I'm not saying Spotify is bad, it's just nothing rarely surprises me.

Who has the best recommendations for new, unheard, non-popular music that is actually like the song you are listening to?

Hello everyone!

Been wanting to do some research on the best music streaming app, but every app always has some caveat that prevents it from being GREAT.

I’ve always used Spotify and never really ventured out that far so was hoping yall could help. I understand the best way to support the artist is to buy directly, but in the age of streaming it can be difficult.

My biggest stipulations are

• Large catalog (I mention because I tried Bandcamp app, they didn’t have enough of the mainstream stuff I liked) • Pays the artist more than other apps (I’m aware Spotify is one of the worst for this) • UI/Functionality across other platforms • High quality sound • Recommendations/overall app experience dedicated to the user (I feel Spotify does a great job at this)

The price isn’t necessarily a huge factor to me as paying the artist more fairly is worth the extra $$

Social also isn’t huge deal to me.

Thank you.

For me it currently is Spotify, but I wonder if any of the other services like Tidal or Deezer have benefits I am missing?

Pondering switching services since It feels like Spotify mainly pushes its own playlists, which often end up sounding like “more of the same” to me. I also read that they recently made significant cuts to songwriter royalties which I think is an awful move they can only get away with because the whole music industry is dependent on them.

Hi

I'm switching away from Spotify for two reasons: Playlists are bugged. When I play a playlist, I always get the same few songs. Some of the songs I can tell 100% will be played within the first 10 songs. It's driving me crazy. Also, they're focusing more on audio books and podcasts which I don't care about, they pay songwriters less, and they're upping the premium price. A paying customer since the beginning is now signing off for good.

What are my alternatives? Tidal? I didn't like it when I tried it 2-3 years ago but I'm willing to give it another shot. Are there any other good options? I don't mind paying.

I use Spotify for years (since 2020) but it has some negatives:

1. No Hi Fi / Lossless Audio support

2. I have to increase the volume on my iPhone a lot to get a similar noise sound as Apple Music and Tidal

3. Apple Watch app and Apple experiences are not the great and natively overall compared to Apple Music

I tried Apple Music a bunch of times, but still I’m coming back to Apple Music due to:

1. Wrong album dates

2. A more bugs and lags than Spotify

3. Cider app for PC is completely trash (No good app for pc, and the web version and iTunes are both too slow)

4. Playlists ordering is a mess

5. Removing an album from library removes all the songs in the library

6. Not showing numbers of views and trending artists songs like Spotify

I also tried Tidal, but:

1. iOS app is meh compared to Apple Music

2. I use the Hi Fi Plus trail plan and only PC makes the sound difference, on iOS it sounds worse and more quite compared to Apple Music

3. No Shazam app support like Spotify and Apple Music

4. Artists are sometimes duplicated or have merged songs of other artists with the same names

5. Almost every album and song has a duplicate (happens more often than Apple Music, and it’s making it not organized)

My use cases: iPhone 14 Pro/iPad Pro 11 2018/Apple Watch SE 1 with AirPods Pro 1 (2019), and Windows Gaming PC with Beyerdynamic DT-990 Pro studio headphones with a Yamaha AG06 mixer (instead of a DAC station).

I want to choose only one app between Spotify, Apple Music and Tidal. Which one should I choose at the end?

I’m curious to see the results. Does having lossless audio mean a lot to you?

Please pardon me if this is a stupid question (I am An Old), but, what is the best streaming service for Electronic Music? Or are they all the same? I'm a big fan of bands / DJs like Tinlicker, Marsh, Luttrell, Orbital, Royksopp, Com Truise, Boards of Canada, and a lot of artists on the Anjunadeep label. Where would I find the most complete discographies of artists like these? Thank you!

Update: Thanks everyone for the info ... I've got some researching to do!

I've gone through quite literally all of them, Spotify, apple music, deezer, tidal, qobuz

I don't like Spotify much at all and it isn't even because of the music quality, it's purely the UX design and all the stupid stuff they add like smart shuffle

The others all offer lossless and are very similarly priced in my country, so I'm wondering what everyone uses and if there's a reason to go with say Apple over Tidal or Qobuz?

I've been hearing that Spotify's sound quality is limited to 320kbps and Apple and Tidal have lossless qualities.
I've also heard that Tidal does lack in the size of its music library (im not talking about just the greatest of hits, even some of the niche artists are included in the library sooo tidal would be lacking).

So between Apple Music and Spotify, which one's better in terms of both quality and music library? Is there another service better and larger than these 2?

I'm honestly just really annoyed with streaming right now. Recently I left Spotify because I was forced to listen to music on shuffle when listening on my Mac (the device I use the most when listening to music). Then I switched to Deezer and I was liking it a lot. But now I can only listen to 30 seconds of a song if I stay on the free plan.

Frankly, I don't think being able to listen to an album the way an artist intended, or listening to a song in full, are premium features. I just want a simple, user-friendly, streaming service that will actually let me listen to my music in peace. Any suggestions?

Hi,

since spotify wants to raise the price about 20% me and most of my friends are looking for alternatives. Where do you people go to and why?

I was contemplating Youtube Music since you can also add all videos to your playlist that are uploaded there and play them just as normal music. Alternatively Amazon Music, but I am not sure they have as many songs.

Cheers!

Hello, I had been using Amazon Music Unlimited for the past while for listening to music, which I had gotten for free for 3 month on Prime Day. It recently ran out and now I need another service to listen to high quality music. Was going to start one of the other services' free trials, but I'm wondering which service has the best audio quality? I read that the format that Tidal uses (MQA) is lossy and so, it might be worse quality? Is Amazon Music Unlimited better than Tidal for quality? I might just resubscribe if it is the best. What other services are there? I don't care too much about the layout, interface and whatnot of the app or service. I just want whatever will give the best sound quality.

I'm starting to hate how unusable Amazon Music can be, so I'm considering other music streaming services. As long as I can download my songs for offline listening, and the app is stable with no significant bugs, then I personally don't mind which one.

If you could leave your suggestions in the comments, that would be great! :-)