Alternatives to Spotify
A music streaming service with a web player and lossless audio for Premium subscribers. The listings below can replace it for an important use case. Each note says what changes if you switch.
The original
Spotify
A music streaming service with a web player and lossless audio for Premium subscribers.
Replacements
Listings that take over the same core job as Spotify.
Apple Music
Apple's ad-free music streaming subscription with lossless audio and Spatial Audio in Dolby Atmos.
Apple Music has no free tier but is always ad-free, with lossless and Dolby Atmos included, and works best on Apple devices.
Amazon Music Unlimited
Amazon's paid music streaming subscription with HD, Ultra HD and spatial audio tracks.
Amazon Music Unlimited is paid only, offers HD, Ultra HD and spatial audio tracks, and is tied to an Amazon account.
Deezer
A music streaming service with a free ad-supported tier and paid plans including FLAC quality.
Deezer also has a free ad-supported tier, adds FLAC on its HiFi plan, lyrics translation, 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 subscription and streams lossless FLAC plus Dolby Atmos on supported tracks and devices.
Qobuz
A hi-res music streaming service with a store for buying lossless and Hi-Res album downloads.
Qobuz requires a paid subscription for hi-res streaming and adds a store for buying lossless and Hi-Res album downloads.
IDAGIO
A classical music streaming app with search built for classical works and lossless sound.
IDAGIO streams only classical music in lossless quality, with search built for classical works and a smaller catalog.
Also worth comparing
These listings name Spotify as their own alternative, so the relationship runs both ways.
Pandora
A music and podcast streaming service with radio-style stations, plus on-demand listening on paid plans.
Spotify is a freemium streaming service with a browser web player that works on many devices, and adds lossless audio for Premium subscribers.
Pear Desktop
An open-source desktop app for YouTube Music with a plugin system, formerly th-ch/youtube-music.
Spotify replaces YouTube Music with an official freemium service and browser web player, adding lossless audio for Premium, but without a community plugin system.
SoundCloud
A music streaming and audio sharing platform where independent artists upload tracks and listeners discover them.
Spotify is a mainstream streaming service with lossless audio for Premium subscribers, but it lacks SoundCloud's open uploading for anyone to publish their own tracks.
Similar software
Related functionality, not a direct replacement.
Plexamp
A music player from Plex for listening to and exploring the music library on a Plex server.
Snipd
A podcast app that uses AI to save highlights, transcribe snippets and summarise episodes.
Apple Podcasts
Apple's podcast app for following, listening to and watching shows, with sync across Apple devices.
Cider
A community-run desktop client for Apple Music on Windows, macOS and Linux.
