- Spotify App For Mac
- Music Spotify App
- Download The Spotify App
- Spotify Tube App Downloader
- Spotify App Download Free
Open the Web App Open; In your Library, select the Artists category Artists Tab; Connect Spotify (click on it on the left panel) Select the Spotify artists you want to move (by checking the corresponding box on the left of each artist) Click on the Convert tool on the top toolbar; Select YouTube as the destination (and connect this platform). The app can also be used to play files stored on your device, while Spotify doesn't offer neither of these features. If you have a Play Music library already uploaded, you'll soon be able to.
The music streaming war is at its peak. Every company wants a pie of this growing market trend. So far, Spotify is leading the race with the absolute majority. Biggies like Amazon, Apple, and Google with YouTube Music are catching up to the Swedish company’s lead. Of course, even we wondered which one to pick and that lead to this comparison of YouTube Music vs. Spotify for streaming music in our office.
Speaking of Google, their journey has been eventful in music streaming. The search giant first tried their luck with Google Play Music, made it available as default on all Android devices, and yet failed to get meaningful traction among the users.
Afterward, Google ditched Play Music and announced YouTube Music, a brand-new music service with audio and video integration. To counter Spotify, Google is trying to leverage the YouTube platform for deep integration and aims to deliver better value for money combo.
In this post, we are comparing YouTube Music with Spotify. The comparison will cover their UI, discover menu, listening experience, price, features, and more. Let’s get started.
Cross-Platform Availability
Spotify is available on every platform. The app is accessible on Android, iOS, Windows, macOS, web, Apple Watch, and Galaxy Watch. It also supports Android Auto and Apple CarPlay.
Google has made YouTube Music available on iOS, Android, web, Windows, and macOS (via Progressive Web App).
Download Spotify for iOSDownload YouTube Music for iOSAlso on Guiding Tech
How to Turn Spotify Lyrics on for All Devices
Read MoreUser Interface
YouTube Music uses a nice dark theme throughout the interface. You can navigate the major options from the bottom. The Settings menu and search rest at the top. The Library menu is nicely divided into downloads, liked songs, artists, and playlists. I like how the Player UI changes the color based on the music album.
Spotify has the best user interface among all other music streaming apps. It uses a gradient theme across the menus and sections. It almost gives you an effect of ambient lighting.
Unlike YouTube Music, the search menu is at the bottom, which is good for reaching it easily. Spotify also changes the player UI based on album color, but once again, the presentation and overall feel is better than YouTube Music.
Discover Songs
Discovering new music is as important as the listening experience. After all, these music streaming services offer millions of songs to the user, and one won’t want to spend much of their time finding new songs.
As for YouTube Music, the service asks for interested languages and artists for a personalized homepage. When you search for a song and start playing it, the app auto-queue similar suggestions for the user.
As expected, YouTube Music offers ready-to-go playlists for a workout, driving, happy mood, etc. My favorite function is Discover Mix, which put together a list of 50 songs and gets updated every Wednesday based on my listening habits and liked songs.
The concept is identical to Apple’s New Music Daily and Spotify’s New Music Friday.
Spotify also asks for languages and favorite artists for better recommendations. You can search for new songs by going into categories such as Rock, Dance, Chill, Jazz, and more.
When you create a playlist, Spotify suggests more songs based on the added tracks. And I have to say, they are usually spot on.
Spotify also creates a ‘Discover Weekly’ playlist that put together a list of new songs based on your listening history and liked songs. It doesn’t stop here. Spotify generates four daily mix playlists, which combines most listened songs as well as new ones.
Also on Guiding Tech
Amazon Music vs Apple Music: Which Music Streaming Platform Is Better
Read MoreListening Experience
As expected, both services offer high-quality 320kbps music streaming. YouTube Music offer stats for nerds option, which displays technical data for a song. You can enable the option by going into settings > playback & restriction > switching on stats for nerds menu.
As for Bluetooth streaming, it worked as expected with my Mi speaker and Funcl AI wireless earbuds. There was no delay or any weird behavior. My only issue was that YouTube Music couldn’t resume a song with a single tap gesture on my earphones' right earbud. It worked perfectly fine with Apple Music and Spotify. I would like to see lyrics support in the future update.
Spotify provides few functions to customize and improve the overall listening experience for the end-user. You can enable gapless playback to eliminate the delay between two songs.
It also comes with a built-in equalizer to make adjustments as per your music listening tastes.
Spotify provides audio normalization to balance out all the songs on a single scale. I usually don’t prefer that.
My favorite addition is behind the lyrics section. It is right under the listening UI and provides lyrics as well as cool trivia about the song.
Extra Features
YouTube Music has added video and lives performance section in the app. While listening to a song, one can quickly switch to video and play the clip from YouTube. I appreciate the integration but hate the behavior where my YouTube Music search history gets synced with the YouTube app.
YouTube Music supports Siri Shortcuts too. It’s available in the Settings menu. I have set it to play my Bollywood playlist when I speak, ‘Hey Siri, play some music.’
Spotify wants to be the hub of all audio streaming needs of a user. Last year, the company heavily invested in podcast products, and now it’s offering a solid podcast experience in the app. Just go to search, scroll down to podcast, and start following channels.
The app also comes with Facebook integration. You can connect it to your social account and follow your friends. Sadly, the service doesn’t offer Siri Shortcuts or iOS Widget support.
Price
Spotify offers three plans. Premium individual costs $10 per month. The Student plan is 50% off at $5 per month, and the Family plan starts at $30 per month, which lets you add five more members. The added functionalities include ad free experience, high music quality, and unlimited downloads. These prices are for the US region and may vary in different countries.
YouTube Music is a part of YouTube Premium, which costs $12 per month. The family plan is set at $18 per month. The plan offers ad-free YouTube experience, unlimited downloads, and background video playback.
Also on Guiding Tech
#music
Click here to see our music articles page
Level-Up Your Music Game
As you can see from the comparison above, both YouTube Music and Spotify have their pros and cons. YouTube Music shines with video integration and Siri Shortcuts. Spotify edges out rivals with more accurate song suggestions, podcast add-on, better UI, and lyrics integration.
Next up:Convinced about leaving Spotify for YouTube Music? Read the post below to learn how to move your playlist along with it.
The above article may contain affiliate links which help support Guiding Tech. However, it does not affect our editorial integrity. The content remains unbiased and authentic.Read NextHow to Transfer Playlists from Spotify to YouTube MusicAlso See#spotify #YouTube Music
Did You Know
Google plans to roll-out ARCore to around 100-million Android devices.
More in iOS
Top 5 RSS Reader Apps for iPhone
It may not seem like it at first glance, but YouTube was always perfectly positioned to take over music streaming. You might already know that Google is the most popular search engine in the world, but not many people know that the second most popular search bar that people type things into is YouTube. Now that Google Play Music (RIP) has officially been turned into YouTube Music, it’s worth asking how it stacks up against some of the other most popular music streaming services. In this article we’re going to be comparing it specifically to Spotify to see which one is worth your money.
What are the differences between the free version of Spotify and YouTube Music?
While both Spotify and YouTube Music offer premium subscription plans, it isn’t required. Both services offer decent free tiers that let users use the service without needing to spend a dime. Of course, be prepared to be blasted with ads if you choose to go this route. Both Spotify and YouTube Music will play ads in between songs which can really get in the way of a good playlist. It isn’t just ads that get in the way either as both have other limitations to their free tiers. The first, and most important limitation when talking about a music streaming service is sound quality. If you’re on the free tier YouTube Music will stream at 128kb/s and Spotify maxes out at 160kb/s on mobile.
Spotify and YouTube Music both have their strength and weaknesses when it comes to UI design.
It’s true that neither of these services are known for their superior sound quality, but being able to choose something other than the bare minimum would be nice. Aside from the streaming quality, there are also limitations on functionality. If you’re not on a paid Spotify plan, it isn’t possible to search for and select individual songs that you want to listen to. Instead, you can only choose songs that are already in select playlists. Though it’s worth mentioning that in researching this I found that Spotify was letting me access certain premium features while on an unpaid plan for some reason. On Spotify, you also won’t be allowed to skip more than six times if you’re on a mobile, and you also can’t download music for offline listening. Neither of these limitations exist on YouTube Music.
The free version of YouTube Music also has some annoying limitations.
Before you go dancing off to use YouTube Music though, you should know that it’s not all sunshine and rainbows. The free version of YouTube Music also has notably annoying limitations. For example, if you’re on mobile you can’t leave the app to go do something else because then the the music will stop playing. So if you turn off the screen—it will also cut off the music. This isn’t a problem on desktop (you can just open up a new tab in your browser), but it’s really annoying if you’re using a smartphone.
What content do they offer?
Spotify offers both music and podcasts side by side.
If you’re torn between Spotify and YouTube Music, this is the section that will most likely be the deciding factor for most. Both are primarily music streaming services but that isn’t all they offer. Let’s start with Spotify. The company is one of the most popular music streaming services in the world, so obviously they have a lot of music. The music library numbers in the tens of millions and in my usage they have almost every song I can think of readily available to listen to.
Best podcast apps
3 days agoBest podcasting mics
September 18, 2020Why Apple Podcast ratings are so important
April 25, 2020The company has also been making a huge push to dominate podcasts. Not only does it have almost all of the programs I regularly listen to, but Spotify has been dropping some serious cash to bring a number of exclusive podcasts to the service including Joe Rogan, Kim Kardashian, and Michelle Obama. True, you might not really care about what any of those people have to say, but you have to admit those are some big names. If Spotify is willing to spend that amount of cash just on a few podcasts then it’s clear they have big plans for this part of their business down the line. If you consume a lot of podcasts like I do, it’s something to be aware of.
Spotify is making a huge push into podcasts.
While there are certainly plenty of podcasts that are uploaded to YouTube in video form, it’s by no means a priority of the service. Meanwhile, Spotify added video support to supplement their podcasts. So if you’re big into podcasts then Spotify is the clear winner here. That said, where Spotify falls short is where YouTube Music excels: songs that are off the beaten track. This includes covers, remixes, and any kind of live jam that a user might upload.
I also found some songs I had never even heard before.
While poking around YouTube Music, I not only found mixtapes from some of my favorite artists that aren’t available on Spotify (like this one) but I also found some songs I had never even heard before. For example: Blue Room by Chet Baker is one of my favorite jazz pieces, and I had no idea that there was a gorgeous acapella version until coming across it on YouTube Music. The same thing happened with this Frank Sinatra song that I was unable to find on Spotify or Apple Music.
In YouTube Music you can toggle between the full video or just the audio.
It’s in these random finds that slip through the cracks of the major publishing deals Spotify signs where I find myself really enjoying using YouTube Music. As long as someone, somewhere uploads it the chances are you can listen to it. And if you can’t find a song anywhere on the platform you can also plug the gaps yourself by uploading your own personal library. If you were a Google Play Music subscriber that already did this, YouTube Music also has a handy tool to transfer it all over automatically so you don’t have to go through the entire process again. YouTube Music also takes advantage of its huge music video library. If you search for a song you can either let the video play or, if you want to save some data, hit the “song” toggle up top which will just serve you the audio. If all you really care about is song availability then it’s hard to beat what YouTube Music has to offer.
Is Spotify or YouTube Music better for music discovery?
Both services do a good job at recommending new music once they get to know your listening habits.
Listening to your own music library is all well and good, but eventually you’ll run out of things to listen to. That’s why music discovery is also very important. Both of these services use a mixture of algorithms and curated playlists to show you new artists and songs you might like. While YouTube Music isn’t bad at this, Spotify has been putting on a masterclass in algorithm-based music discovery for years, to the point where the Spotify Discover Weekly playlists have gone pseudo-viral as so many people find it extremely good at surfacing music they would like.
Spotify has been putting on a masterclass in algorithm-based music discovery for years.
YouTube Music has its own version of this called “You Mix,” which is an endless playlist of music that the algorithm thinks you’ll enjoy and it’s truly impressive. Once it got to know what kind of music I liked I rarely found myself skipping songs here. Basically whichever service you choose, you likely won’t be disappointed once the algorithm gets to know your listening habits.
Just like regular YouTube, the strength in YouTube Music lies in its user-generated content.
Then there are the playlists offered by both services. In this aspect it’s safe to say that Spotify has the clear lead here just in terms of how many playlists are offered, but that’s mainly because they’ve had more time to make them. I’m sure YouTube Music will catch up in this aspect but as of right now I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve searched for an artist on Spotify and found a pre-made playlist with some of their most popular songs.
Pricing and plans
Spotify App For Mac
Depending on how much you pay for data, it might be a good idea to save your favorite tunes for offline listening.
Pricing between the two services is almost identical. A subscription for an individual will run you $9.99 USD/month on both platforms and student plans are also both $4.99 USD/month. Then there’s the family plans which are also identically priced at $14.99 USD/month for up to six accounts. This is the point where things start to differ. Spotify recently added a Duo membership for two people to share that’s priced at $12.99 USD/month which works for couples.
| Streaming Service | Free Model Available | Basic Plan | Premium Plan | Hi-Res Plan | Family Plan | Student Plan | Military Plan |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Amazon Music HD | No | - | $12.99 with Prime $14.99 without | - | $19.99 | - | - |
| Amazon Music Unlimited | No | - | $7.99 with Prime $9.99 without | - | - | $6.00 | - |
| Apple Music | Yes | Radio is free | $9.99 | - | $14.99 | $4.99 | - |
| Deezer | Yes | Free with ads | $9.99 | $14.99 | $14.99 | $4.99 | - |
| Pandora | Yes | $4.99 | $9.99 | - | $14.99 | $4.99 | $7.99 |
| Qobuz | No | - | $9.99 | $19.99/$24.99 monthly $299 annually | - | - | - |
| SoundCloud Go/Go+ | Yes | $4.99 | $9.99 | - | - | $4.99 for premium | - |
| Spotify | Yes | Free with ads | $9.99 | - | $14.99 | $4.99 | - |
| Tidal | No | - | $9.99 | $19.99 | $14.99/$29.99 | $4.99/$9.99 | $5.99/$11.99 |
| YouTube Music | Yes | Free with ads | $9.99 | - | $14.99 | $4.99 | - |
Spotify occasionally has random promotions where you can also get Hulu added on for an extra $3 USD so it might be worth checking that out too if you want to bundle your music and video services together. YouTube Music also has their own version of a bundle, and I bet you can guess what video service gets bundled here. If you sign up for YouTube Premium ($12.99 USD/month) which lets you watch YouTube Videos ad-free you’ll get access to YouTube Music thrown in. So if you’re looking for which service is going to give you the best bang for your buck this is something to keep in mind.
Which has better sound quality, YouTube Music or Spotify?
The YouTube Music interface is a weird mashup of YouTube and Spotify.
As these are both music streaming services, it’s only right that we talk about the sound quality. As I mentioned above neither of these are known for their superior sound quality. For that you’ll need to look at Tidal, Amazon Music HD, or Deezer. That’s not to say that either of these services sound bad, they’re fine.
| Streaming Service | Max streaming quality | Supported Formats |
|---|---|---|
| Qobuz | 24bit / 192kHz | AIFF, ALAC, FLAC, WAV, WMA Lossless |
| Amazon Music HD | 24bit /192kHz | FLAC |
| Tidal HiFi | 24bit / 96kHz | AAC, ALAC, FLAC |
| Deezer HiFi | 16bit / 44.1kHz | FLAC |
| Google Play Music | 320kbps | AAC, ALAC, FLAC, MP3, Ogg Vorbis, WMA |
| Deezer Premium | 320kbps | MP3 |
| Spotify Premium | 320kbps | AAC, Ogg Vorbis |
| Apple Music | 256kbps | AAC |
| YouTube Music Premium | 256kbps | AAC |
| SoundCloud Go+ | 256kbps | AAC |
| Slacker Radio | 320kbps | MP3 |
| Pandora | 192kbps | AAC |
| Spotify Free | 160kbps | AAC |
| Deezer Free | 128kbps | MP3 |
Choosing the highest quality on Spotify will get you a stream of 320kb/s using AAC, while YouTube Music maxes out at 256 kb/s and also uses AAC. Technically Spotify wins out here, but it’s worth mentioning though that the actual number fluctuates depending on your connection so you might be kicked down to a lower quality if you have a poor connection. Plus, unless you have some seriously good equipment to A/B test on you likely won’t be able to hear the minute differences here.
Music Spotify App
Other features you should pay attention to
I’ve gone over some of the more important similarities and differences between the two services but there are plenty of other smaller differences that might matter to you as well. For example, the design of the UI might be enough to draw you to one or the other but that’s something you’re going to have to try out for yourself. I can say in my experience neither service is what I’d call intuitive. Searching on Spotify rarely gives me what I want without a few extra clicks and while the filters on the YouTube Music search is cool, I’m sure there is a better way to display the results than a just a list.
Spotify and YouTube Music both have the option to cast, but they’re not compatible with everything.
Each service also has its own Cast functionality so if you want to play your music on something like your surround sound system at home you can do so just by clicking on the Google Cast button or on the Spotify Connect in their respective apps. In my experience I found that I prefer to use Spotify Connect as it doesn’t forget that it’s connected to someway halfway through a song like Google Cast constantly does. But again, which one is best for you really depends on your particular setup. Some receivers and speakers might be compatible with just one or the other (or neither). So make sure to check whether the service you choose plays nice with your existing hardware.
So which one is right for you?
Download The Spotify App
I usually recommend people to just go with Spotify, as I find it the safer bet for most people. Unless you have very particular preferences, chances are that you’ll be happy with Spotify. But if you can’t tell by now, picking between Spotify and YouTube Music really depends on what you’re looking for in a streaming service. If you value podcasts then you’re probably better off using Spotify, but in my time using YouTube Music I found that it excels at more of the random finds that make music fun in the first place. They’re also both priced similarly so you’re not missing out on much there, and while Spotify technically has a higher bitrate you likely won’t be able to tell the difference unless you find a particularly bad upload of a song on YouTube Music.