Alternatives to Pandora
A music and podcast streaming service with radio-style stations, plus on-demand listening on paid plans. The listings below can replace it for an important use case. Each note says what changes if you switch.
The original
Pandora
A music and podcast streaming service with radio-style stations, plus on-demand listening on paid plans.
Replacements
Listings that take over the same core job as Pandora.
Spotify
A music streaming service with a web player and lossless audio for Premium subscribers.
Spotify is a freemium streaming service with a browser web player that works on many devices, and adds lossless audio for Premium subscribers.
Apple Music
Apple's ad-free music streaming subscription with lossless audio and Spatial Audio in Dolby Atmos.
Apple Music is subscription only, always ad-free, and includes lossless audio and Dolby Atmos, with apps for Windows, macOS and iOS and a family plan.
Amazon Music Unlimited
Amazon's paid music streaming subscription with HD, Ultra HD and spatial audio tracks.
Amazon Music Unlimited has no free tier and requires an Amazon account, offering HD, Ultra HD, Dolby Atmos and 360 Reality Audio tracks.
Deezer
A music streaming service with a free ad-supported tier and paid plans including FLAC quality.
Deezer keeps a free ad-supported tier and adds FLAC streaming on its HiFi plan, lyrics translation, song identification and playlist transfer from other services.
Tidal
A paid music streaming service offering lossless FLAC stereo and Dolby Atmos on supported tracks.
Tidal requires a paid subscription and focuses on lossless FLAC stereo and Dolby Atmos on supported tracks, with no free ad-supported tier.
TuneIn
An internet radio app for live AM/FM stations, news, sports, podcasts and audiobooks.
TuneIn centres on over 100,000 live AM and FM stations plus news, sports and podcasts, with a free ad-supported tier and Premium for sports and audiobooks.
SoundCloud
A music streaming and audio sharing platform where independent artists upload tracks and listeners discover them.
SoundCloud offers free browser listening focused on independent uploads, remixes and DJ sets, and lets anyone publish audio, with paid Go+ for extra features.
Qobuz
A hi-res music streaming service with a store for buying lossless and Hi-Res album downloads.
Qobuz is subscription only and offers Hi-Res streaming plus a store for buying lossless and Hi-Res album downloads, with editorial reviews and liner notes.
Similar software
Related functionality, not a direct replacement.
Last.fm
Music tracking service that records your listening history and recommends music and events.
Radio Garden
A web app for finding and listening to live radio stations by rotating a globe.
IDAGIO
A classical music streaming app with search built for classical works and lossless sound.
Pear Desktop
An open-source desktop app for YouTube Music with a plugin system, formerly th-ch/youtube-music.
