Best Music Streaming Service of 2023 – CNET [CNET]

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Ty Pendlebury is a journalism graduate of RMIT Melbourne, and has worked at CNET since 2006. He lives in New York City where he writes about streaming and home audio.

Expertise Ty has worked for radio, print, and online publications, and has been writing about home entertainment since 2004. He majored in Cinema Studies when studying at RMIT. He is an avid record collector and streaming music enthusiast. Credentials

• Ty was nominated for Best New Journalist at the Australian IT Journalism awards, but he has only ever won one thing. As a youth, he was awarded a free session for the photography studio at a local supermarket.

While it may not have lossless (yet), Spotify is great if you’re seeking a solid all-around service, especially one which lets you make, browse and share playlists for any occasion.

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See at Spotify

Best music streaming service overall

Spotify

Spotify is a pioneer in music streaming and is arguably the best-known service. It offers a number of curated music discovery services, including its Discover Weekly playlist, and is constantly implementing new ones, such as Stations and an AI DJ and podcasts, 

Pros

• Free version is robust
• Spotify Connect simplifies connection to devices
• Great playlist features including live “Jam”
• Artist bios and alerts

Cons

• Free service ads can be intrusive
• No lossless option (yet)
• Podcast integration is awkward

Spotify is a pioneer in music streaming and is arguably the best-known service. It offers a number of curated music discovery services, including its Discover Weekly playlist, and is constantly implementing new ones, such as Stations and an AI DJ and podcasts, 

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While it may not have lossless (yet), Spotify is great if you’re seeking a solid all-around service, especially one which lets you make, browse and share playlists for any occasion.

Best music streaming service overall

Spotify

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Pros

• Free version is robust
• Spotify Connect simplifies connection to devices
• Great playlist features including live “Jam”
• Artist bios and alerts

Cons

• Free service ads can be intrusive
• No lossless option (yet)
• Podcast integration is awkward

Spotify is a pioneer in music streaming and is arguably the best-known service. It offers a number of curated music discovery services, including its Discover Weekly playlist, and is constantly implementing new ones, such as Stations and an AI DJ and podcasts, 

While it may not have lossless (yet), Spotify is great if you’re seeking a solid all-around service, especially one which lets you make, browse and share playlists for any occasion.

While it makes the most sense if you’re an Apple user, Music is an option if you’re listening on a PC, or have invested in smart speakers, including those from Google. If you own an Apple HomePod, Mini or Nest device you can summon Apple Music tracks with your voice. There are also a ton of curated playlists, many handcrafted by musicians and tastemakers, though it lacks the robust sharing options (or some of the cool add-ons) available to Spotify. 

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See at Apple

Best alternative to Spotify

Apple Music

Despite a small price increase in 2022, Apple Music is still able to offer a lot for the money, including 100 million tracks and both iOS and Android compatibility. The service runs second to Spotify in terms of subscribers, but surpasses its rival in one key respect. Yes, it has hi-res lossless, spatial audio albums, plus a new classical music app at no extra charge.

Pros

• Spatial and hi-res music included
• Combines your iTunes library with music you don’t own, with a choice of music lockers
• Human music experts and algorithms help find music you’ll want to hear based on what you play
• Tight integration with Apple HomePod and iOS devices

Cons

• Not as fun for Android or PC users

Despite a small price increase in 2022, Apple Music is still able to offer a lot for the money, including 100 million tracks and both iOS and Android compatibility. The service runs second to Spotify in terms of subscribers, but surpasses its rival in one key respect. Yes, it has hi-res lossless, spatial audio albums, plus a new classical music app at no extra charge.

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While it makes the most sense if you’re an Apple user, Music is an option if you’re listening on a PC, or have invested in smart speakers, including those from Google. If you own an Apple HomePod, Mini or Nest device you can summon Apple Music tracks with your voice. There are also a ton of curated playlists, many handcrafted by musicians and tastemakers, though it lacks the robust sharing options (or some of the cool add-ons) available to Spotify. 

Best for audiophiles

Qobuz

The Qobuz service offers a wealth of music in hi-res and you don’t need a special hardware decoder to listen to it (unlike competitor Tidal). The service offers two plans — the hi-res Studio Premier ($13 monthly or $130 yearly) and the $180 annual Sublime Plus. Uniquely, the service offers its own hi-res download store, and if you sign up for Sublime you get a discount on purchases.

Pros

• The app is really clean and fun to use
• Ability to listen to 24-bit music without needing a specialized decoder
• One of the more affordable hi-res services
• Download store as well

The Qobuz service offers a wealth of music in hi-res and you don’t need a special hardware decoder to listen to it (unlike competitor Tidal). The service offers two plans — the hi-res Studio Premier ($13 monthly or $130 yearly) and the $180 annual Sublime Plus. Uniquely, the service offers its own hi-res download store, and if you sign up for Sublime you get a discount on purchases.

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At 100 million tracks, Qobuz’s streaming catalog rivals Tidal’s and Spotify’s in number, and based on our tests its catalog of more obscure artists is now pretty impressive. Excellent sound quality at a decent price? Qobuz is our favorite service for serious music lovers.

See at Tidal

Best for rock and urban fans

Tidal

Now partly owned by Jack Dorsey’s Block, Tidal has introduced some important changes recently: namely that it now has a free tier called, naturally, Tidal Free. The company also offers the $10 Tidal HiFi plan, which includes lossless playback, and the premium $20 Tidal HiFi Plus tier. It’s worth noting that most of the current hi-res catalog is in the proprietary MQA format, though the service also now offers hi-res FLAC as well. 

Now partly owned by Jack Dorsey’s Block, Tidal has introduced some important changes recently: namely that it now has a free tier called, naturally, Tidal Free. The company also offers the $10 Tidal HiFi plan, which includes lossless playback, and the premium $20 Tidal HiFi Plus tier. It’s worth noting that most of the current hi-res catalog is in the proprietary MQA format, though the service also now offers hi-res FLAC as well. 

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Until recently, the service justified its higher prices with the Direct Artist Payouts (DAP) program which paid your top streamed artist each month a 10% cut of your subscription fee, but that was scrapped. Meanwhile, Qobuz may not have Tidal’s Atmos library but it has caught up by promising a cheaper price and recent improvements in its catalog. Even so, if you’re an audiophile, a fan of urban music or a mix of both, then Tidal still holds plenty of appeal. 

See at Amazon

Best for Prime members

Amazon Music Unlimited

Amazon Prime Music comes “free” as part of a Prime membership, but users can choose to upgrade to Music Unlimited. At $10 for Prime members, or $11 if you don’t have Prime, Unlimited offers an expanded catalog as well as over 1,000 “spatial” remixes. These 360 audio mixes can be played on Dolby Atmos soundbars, Android or iOS devices and the Amazon Echo Studio. In terms of usability, the Music Unlimited interface is also more powerful than before with playlists, genres and podcasts all accessible from the main page.

Amazon Prime Music comes “free” as part of a Prime membership, but users can choose to upgrade to Music Unlimited. At $10 for Prime members, or $11 if you don’t have Prime, Unlimited offers an expanded catalog as well as over 1,000 “spatial” remixes. These 360 audio mixes can be played on Dolby Atmos soundbars, Android or iOS devices and the Amazon Echo Studio. In terms of usability, the Music Unlimited interface is also more powerful than before with playlists, genres and podcasts all accessible from the main page.

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See at

Best for Android users

YouTube Music

YouTube Music is the successor to Google Play Music, and if you sign up for the ad-free YouTube Premium at $14 per month, you get YouTube Music for free. The good news is that YouTube Music is a mostly impressive service (the lower bit-rate of 256Kbps is mildly annoying), but Google has retained the predecessor’s music locker system enabling users to upload new tracks. In even better news, YouTube Music offers a clean interface plus 100 million tracks to choose from. Instead of playlists, YouTube Music offers well-curated radio stations that play endlessly and are updated often. The added ability to make playlists out of YouTube music clips also makes it a worthy option. See it at YouTube Music.

YouTube Music is the successor to Google Play Music, and if you sign up for the ad-free YouTube Premium at $14 per month, you get YouTube Music for free. The good news is that YouTube Music is a mostly impressive service (the lower bit-rate of 256Kbps is mildly annoying), but Google has retained the predecessor’s music locker system enabling users to upload new tracks. In even better news, YouTube Music offers a clean interface plus 100 million tracks to choose from. Instead of playlists, YouTube Music offers well-curated radio stations that play endlessly and are updated often. The added ability to make playlists out of YouTube music clips also makes it a worthy option. See it at YouTube Music.

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How do I listen to free music?

Most of the streaming music services offer free tiers — including Spotify, Pandora, Amazon and YouTube — but they do come with a number of caveats. Firstly, these are usually playlist services, in that you pick a song and the rest of the tunes auto-generate — you can’t pick exactly what you want to play. The other potential downside is that they come with ads, and sometimes it’s the same ad for every break.

How do you transfer your library between services?

Without contracts it’s pretty easy to cancel one service and start with another. That said, swapping between music services isn’t as straightforward as swapping between movie locker services using Movies Anywhere for example. If you don’t want to have to rebuild your playlists and library from scratch when you switch, you have two main options — a music locker service such as YouTube Music (but this implies you have a library of ripped or bought MP3s), or a library import tool such as Soundiiz. The latter is a service that lets you import the songs from each of your music services and transfer them, and while there’s a $4.50 monthly charge, you can always cancel once you’ve converted your library. Recently, Deezer has offered the ability for new users to convert their libraries from other services for free (via another service called Tune My Music). 

Do I need spatial or Atmos audio?

The short answer is “no” and the long answer is “sort of, maybe.” Stereo music has been around since the ’50s and its worldwide catalog simply crushes the handful of Atmos audio tracks by comparison. Apple may rave about how “magical” spatial music is, but unless you have an expensive Dolby Atmos system, you may not be able to hear the differences anyway.
In our own tests, we’ve found that a well-mixed Atmos track on a dedicated setup can be fun — it’s like a rollercoaster, it’s enjoyable but you wouldn’t want to use it as your sole form of transport. By comparison, using a pair of compatible AirPods we found the tracking to be laggy when attempting to move our heads around. On the other hand, spatial audio does make sense if you’re watching a movie because you’re not moving your head that much. The music industry tries unsuccessfully to push surround music every 20 years or so — Quadraphonic in the 1970s, DVD-Audio in the 2000s — but good old stereo will never go out of favor.

Which music streaming service has the biggest catalog?

At the time of writing, all of the services are able to offer at least 100 million tracks each, But that’s not the end of the story: The number of songs offered by a music service used to be the main differentiator, but as always, it’s quality over quantity that counts — and particularly if you’re looking for more obscure tracks. Depending on your favorite genre, some of the services may offer a better catalog for under-the-radar (Spotify), indie (Apple) or hip-hop artists (Tidal). Users who are less ambitious about expanding their musical taste should be satisfied with the catalogs that all the services offer. 

Which services include music lockers?

Amazon was one of the first services to offer uploading your MP3 collection into the cloud, but this was officially discontinued in 2018. Meanwhile, both the Apple and YouTube services allow you to combine your personal music collection with the streaming catalog, though tagging and organization can be a time-consuming challenge (your myriad live Phish tracks won’t organize themselves). Still, if you’ve invested money in digital music over the years, those two services offer a patch to continue enjoying that music online.