If you are a total music buff and stream your music over the Internet, you would be familiar with Spotify and YouTube Music. Both these music streaming platforms debuted in India this year, bringing their huge pools of songs and playlists, along with their customised collections specially curated to suit the users in the country.
If you’re a Spotify user, chances are that you’ve considered switching recently. It’s not because it has lost its appeal, but because there are a bunch of new services to try.
One of these options is YouTube Music. It promises a wider library of music and intelligent features which can recommend new music based on your YouTube activity.
But does YouTube Music contain features which can dethrone Spotify?
Presenting — Spotify vs YouTube Music
Spotify actually houses over 40 million tracks from a vast gamut of artistes. YouTube, on the other hand, doesn’t reveal how many tracks are in the YouTube Music library. But given YouTube’s close partnerships with labels, you would certainly won’t face issues with locating a particular track on YouTube Music.
Also, YouTube Music lets you stream music or video from YouTube’s most extensive catalog of fan covers, mashups, and concert clips. YouTube is also the home to thousands of non-label tracks which you won’t get on any music streaming platform except for YouTube Music.
While Spotify won’t let you down if official songs are concerned. YouTube Music has won this due to its advanced YouTube integration. The possibilities with YouTube Music are completely endless and you will be able to hear music beyond and what everyone else is tuning in to.
Also Read: Dancing to your favourite music? This is why you do it
So here comes the clear winner as Spotify but there are some more wide arguments as which music streaming app is better. Let’s have a look at what these music streaming services are offering and how they compare with each other:
Pricing:
Spotify and YouTube Music, in their basic versions, offer free music streaming with support of advertisement. If you want to get rid of the ads, you will need to upgrade to their respective subscription-based premium editions. Spotify provides an option to choose between monthly and yearly subscriptions while YouTube Music offers only a monthly subscription plan. But as a part of introductory offer both will provide 3-month free subscription for an upgrade in premium.
Cross-platform support:
Not every user will listen to music on their smartphones. They can stream music on laptops, tablets, gaming consoles, and even wearable. Thus, it becomes imperative for new-age music streaming services to support cross-platform functionality.
YouTube Music is available as an app on Google Android and Apple iOS devices, so it becomes compatible with most smartphones and tablets running on these two operating systems. But, there is no dedicated application for desktop, so if you wish streaming music on a laptop or desktop running on Microsoft Windows or Linux Ubuntu, you have to use a web-based client.
But Spotify supports all major platforms. Besides being available as an app on iOS and Android devices, Spotify also has a dedicated application for Windows-based machines and supports multiple other clients that include PlayStation and Xbox.
Features:
Both Spotify and YouTube Music have intuitive apps with clear easy-to-use functionality. Both apps have a three-page layout. Both have a homepage that shows all available content from trending to playlists, new releases, and more. The library page on YouTube Music shows last played, downloads and playlists, while on Spotify lists saved music and podcasts. The last page on Spotify is a search page while on YouTube Music is a hotlist page showing trending tracks.
