Apple Music, Amazon Music, and Spotify are becoming increasingly popular for people to enjoy high-quality online music streaming services. When you are facing the dilemma of picking a more suitable one for yourself, you will start making comparisons between them.

Amazon Music was first launched in 2007 in the United States and has steadily made its way to Europe, South America, and Japan. Nowadays, Amazon Music is available in 50 territories and has a subscriber accumulation of more than 55 million.

Spotify was officially launched in 2008 in Europe and landed in the US in the following years. It is now one of the most popular streaming services worldwide and is available in 178 countries. Furthermore, according to the second quarter earnings of this streaming service giant in 2021, it boasts 2021 million paying subscribers and 165 million monthly active users.

So when Amazon Music competes with Spotify, which would be better?

Price plan

Amazon Music offers 4 subscription plans, including Amazon Music Free (ad-supported), Amazon Music Prime, Unlimited, Unlimited Family, and Single Device. If you’re an Amazon Prime member, you can access 2 million songs ad-free. But this free option doesn’t let you listen to specific songs on demand. You’ll need to subscribe to Amazon Music Unlimited to access the entire music catalog.

Spotify offers 4 subscription plans: Free, Premium, Premium Duo, Premium Family, and Premium Student. You can access the entire music catalog without ads during the free trial month. However, you can only skip 6 songs per hour.

You can check out the pricing plan comparison between Amazon Music and Spotify below. Find out how much Amazon Music and Spotify cost.

Music catalog

As mentioned above, Spotify owns 70 million songs, while Amazon Music has over 75 million. It seems that Amazon Music is slightly better than Spotify in this section. However, the indisputable fact that Spotify adds more than 60,000 new songs daily makes your ears not even know what to do.

And remember that in the free version of Amazon Music, you only get access to 2 million ad-supported songs. During the Spotify free trial, you get access to the entire catalog of 70 million pieces of music.

Another difference between Apple Music music catalog and Amazon Music is that Amazon Music provides you access to buy albums from a digital store. On the other hand, Apple Music has also taken steps to save private collections only for its stores, such as albums by Taylor Swift, Frank Ocean, and rap duo PNL, which can increase subscriber numbers.

Also, mood playlists of different mood categories are one of the coolest features of Spotify. For example, playlists with “joyful” in the title have increased 100 percent in the past year, and over a million “joyful” playlists have been created to date. In addition, I also recently fell in love with the functional music he recommended, among which the Sleep genre is a great help because there was such a visible boom in white noise, ocean sounds, etc.

Conversely, Amazon Music is likely to be straightforward in music discovery, and even some users have complained that they cannot choose a favorite from 10 songs.

Musical quality

Amazon Music has improved a lot in terms of music quality, with all songs played in CD quality. Therefore, all Amazon Music Unlimited subscribers could benefit from this audio upgrade. Amazon Music offers HD lossless audio in two quality ranges: HD and Ultra HD, allowing music fans to stream HD (850 Kbps) and Ultra HD (3,730 Kbps) audio. In contrast, most streaming services offer standard definition (SD) bitrates up to 320 kbps.

This dramatic music quality upgrade will be noticeable to some users. However, to fully advantage of this boost in audio performance, you’ll want to equip yourself with high-end speakers or headphones.

Spotify’s audio quality remains highly uncompetitive with Amazon Music because it doesn’t offer any CD-quality plans. Even though it was rumored in February 2021 that it would release Spotify Hi-Fi by the end of 2021 or the beginning of 2022, Spotify fans are still waiting.

Social Features

One of the reasons Spotify maintains strong customer stickiness would have to attribute to the social features it builds. Through the desktop program, you can easily find what your friends are listening to through ” Friend’s Activity. ” And if you click through to their profiles, you might even review they’re recently listened to playlists or artists. This is one of the easiest ways to get rid of the usual flavor of your past and find something new, as long as you trust the music has your friend’s tastes.

Source: Spotify Community

Amazon Music has not launched any social services among users. It offers a way to share the link of the song you’re listening to via messages, but it’s not available to directly see the playlists your friends are listening to.

Compatibility

Spotify Music is also known for its wide compatibility across multiple devices. This means that you will never have any problems with the type of device you will use to access your favorite Spotify songs. It has now created versions for Windows, iPhone, Android, iOS, Linux, MeeGo, Open Pandora, OS X, Roku, Sonos, PlayStation 3 and 4, etc. Spotify also allows users to connect the program with entertainment systems such as cars, smart watches, speakers, receivers, TVs, etc. In other words, you can stream any music you like on any device.

Amazon Music Unlimited is available on macOS, IOS, Windows, Android, FireOS, Alexa, and select cars and TVs. You can also access it through its web player and some car entertainment systems like BMW and Mini. The brightest feature might be that it is compatible with Amazon Echo. Also, in late 2017, it updated the multi-room music feature that lets you play music from multiple speakers in your home. This makes sense when you have a big house party and want to sync all your music devices.

Exclusive features

Amazon Music and Spotify Music both offer many similar features. For example, the catalog of songs available for listening has hardly changed, and any exclusive songs are almost negligible. However, some key differences can affect how users view your services.

The Alexa voice assistant built into the mobile app for Amazon Music Unlimited could help you get hands-free commands to control all Amazon music. Meanwhile, it is highly praised for the X-Ray Lyrics feature that allows fans to follow time-synced scrolling lyrics to enjoy a karaoke-like experience. Besides, there is still an obvious stunt: when you buy a CD or vinyl record from Amazon Music, you will also get the MP3 version and sync it with your Amazon account.

Spotify provides the Hey Spotify feature that lets users search for artists and songs via their voice, but it needs to be more powerful than Alexa. However, some users might keep in mind that the recommendation algorithm it possesses is still impressive and unforgettable. Also, in the Family plan, family members can join the Family Mix to regularly update and share their listening history. It also supports members to leave this feature via “settings” anytime.

Verdict: Is Spotify Better Than Amazon Music?

After comparing these two music streaming services, which one would you choose? Honestly, it would be an easy question whether you should choose Spotify or Amazon Music a few years ago. Now it becomes a challenge. If you are a Prime member, you can easily choose Amazon Music based on cost performance. Besides, Amazon Music will also be your best choice when you have a higher requirement for music quality.

On the other hand, if you prefer a more professional music streaming platform that would provide better music recommendations, Spotify is undoubtedly an expert here. Meanwhile, it lets you access its entire 70 million music catalog during its free trial, which is good news before you subscribe. For some music fans who like to share music with friends, Spotify is the best tool.