Buying CDs is now an obsolete activity. The music streaming services are growing more and more every day, monopolizing the market that during decades was controlled by other media products, but the new platforms are the favorite choice for the users now on. Of course, as every branch of products, even among the music streaming platforms are several competitors, so you probably are wondering, which one is the best music streaming service? Apple Music, known for its high-level exclusive releases, is hot on its heels. In our Apple Music vs Spotify review, we compared both. And that’s why we have made the next comparative review with four of the biggest and renowned brands from the music streaming industry: Apple Music, Spotify, Amazon Music, and Google Play Music.

The comparative review is made based on the next characteristics: the music catalog variety, the sound quality, the cost, the number of registered users, the available applications, compatibility with different devices and the music download option.

Music Catalog

In the Music Catalog category, all four services count with relatively similar amounts of music, but it is led by Amazon Music Unlimited. Of course, these amounts of available songs is permanently growing. Several songs are added daily to the catalog of every service, so there is not a precise cipher of songs, but this is the approximate count:

• Amazon Music: more than 50 million songs catalog.
• Apple Music: More than 45 million of songs catalog.
• Google Play Music: More than 40 million songs catalog.
• Spotify: More than 40 million of songs catalogue.

It is common that the four services go side by side on the available song numbers. Besides the different artists they include, also offer some enjoyable original content. Spotify has the famed “Spotify Sessions” feature, which is constantly inviting artists to record with them live versions of their songs which of course will not be available on other platforms, thus they gain ground over much exclusive music content.

Apple Music is the one that has grown up faster on its music catalog, and it’s still in continuous development. On the other hand, as for the numbers, Amazon Music leads the market with a wide unofficial margin of about 5 million songs.

Sound Quality

The sound quality varies depending on the device you are using. As for the computers, the difference is barely notable, but as for the cellphones, and other mobile devices, the four services offer practically the same sound quality which, by the way, is excellent.

• Amazon Music: 256 kbps AAC
• Apple Music: 256 kbps AAC
• Google Play Music: 320 kbps MP3
• Spotify: 320 OGG

There is a feature for the mobile devices apps to reduce the sound quality, so you can hear all the music you want but using less mobile data. Although this feature is available in all the four services, Spotify is the one which leads to it, offering a pretty good sound quality even on low settings.

The difference between the four brands is minimal if you listen to music at high-quality settings from a computer, but there is always a difference of thoughts between users, because in this case, the quality of sound depends on the characteristics of the computer you are using, the performance of the speakers and the music genre you choose.

Costs

On the costs category, a basic plan for the user has the same price on the four music streaming services:

• Amazon Music: $9.99/month
• Apple Music: $9.99/month
• Google Play Music: $9.99/month
• Spotify: $9.99/month

The important difference is in the varied features offered in each platform’s basic plan, with unique advantages and disadvantages. Spotify and Google Play Music stand out for their available free version, with the only disadvantage that they show plenty of ads. Another great feature of Google Play Music is the option to upload up to 50,000 songs to the cloud, from your computer or your mobile device, so you can hear them wherever and whenever you please with the app.

Amazon also offers a free service for users or a $2 discount on the monthly fees of the Streaming Service basic plan, but you need to have an Amazon Prime membership. Apple Music is the only one that doesn’t offer any kind of free version for its app. Besides, all of the platforms offer a “familiar plan”, with a cost of $14.99, perfect to use the app on several devices at the time.

Number of registered users

Spotify leads this category by far. Apple Music is in second place, and it’s the one that has grown most hastily, after spotify.

• Amazon Music: It is estimated that there are between 11 and 20 million active users. Amazon has not given an official figure.
• Apple Music: 38 million of Premium subscribers.
• Google Play Music: Google has not given an official number, so the number of active users is unknown.
• Spotify: More than 70 million users.

Spotify takes the crown by far surpassing its closest competitor, Apple Music, with a margin that exceeds the 30 million users. This, and also the considerable number of compatible devices, makes Spotify the most popular choice among users of music streaming platforms.

Available Apps and compatibility

The four platforms offer the corresponding apps for cell phones and mobile devices with iOS and Android operative systems, but Spotify stands out for offering the largest support today. As for the PC and Mac versions, all of them offer a good app service, available for all modern operative systems, but in this case, Apple Music restricts the music playback only to its own music player, the iTunes.

Spotify is again the King in this category because it includes apps for plenty of devices, such a PS3, PS4, Blackberry cell phones, Windows Phone, Smartwatch, among others.

Music Download

On this category, the four Music Streaming Brands allow to download the music you want to listen even if you are not connected to the internet, but some of them have certain limitations or advantages we explain next:

• Amazon Music: unlimited mobile downloads for up to 10 devices.
• Apple Music: Unlimited downloads on mobile devices.
• Google Play Music: Unlimited downloads on mobile devices.
• Spotify: Up to 3333 downloads per device, up to 3 devices. The advantage is that it allows the download of different playlists.

Spotify stays in the rear on this category, because it is the only platform that doesn’t allow the unlimited download of songs. Both Google Play Music and Apple Music allow you to upload your own music onto the cloud and listen to it from anywhere, but only Google Play Music is free.

Conclusion

It is not a simple task to determine which one is the best music streaming service. It depends on the needs of every user, so you have to evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of each, but we have no doubt that Spotify has plenty of reasons for being the most popular among all the Music Streaming Services users today. Even so, the other three Services are every day improving and offering new great features we cannot miss! Which one would you choose?