Music streaming on iPhone and Android? There is not only Spotify: here are the 7 best alternatives to listen to playlists on smartphones (even without advertising and limits).
Since Spotify has blocked the cracked versions with which Premium could be used at no cost, the hunt has started for the best free apps to listen to music in streaming or locally.
Despite Spotify Premium costs only $9.99 a month and includes several offers, not everyone is willing to pay to listen to their favorite songs without advertising and without limitations. However in the panorama of streaming music services there is not only Spotify, and there are many other apps that offer identical or similar functions. We have selected 8 of them: here are the best free Spotify alternatives currently on the market.
1. YouTube Music
Finally, YouTube Music is also available with its free and premium plans. It is the “Google Spotify”: it allows you to listen to songs by searching for them from the search bar or by selecting them from playlists divided by genre, artists and categories. However, YouTube Music does not allow you to listen to the tracks in the background, so if you want to go to WhatsApp or on Facebook during playback, the music will stop. Despite these limitations it is a quite enjoyable app.
To take advantage of listening to the screen off or while doing something else, you need to switch to YouTube Music Premium, which has no advertising and allows you to set only the audio mode (without video).
2. Apple Music
The biggest competitor of Spotify is surely Apple Music, which offers 3 months of free trial of the Premium version.
The Apple Music catalog contains more than 45 million songs that you can listen to both online and offline and with the paid version you have access to many services. Among the most interesting is the possibility to interact on Connect, the special social network, and access all the exclusive contents.
After the three-month free trial Apple Music will cost $9.99 and $14.99 for those who choose the family plan ( for students it’s half price ). Alternatively you can use the free plan of the service which will however prevent you from accessing the special contents of Connect and interacting.
Also, if you do the free trial and then decide not to renew the subscription, you will no longer have access to the music you uploaded to the library in the previous months.
The free version, however, offers a wide variety of music despite the pauses for advertising.
3. MFlow
MFlow is an excellent alternative to Spotify: it offers 5 million songs, it has no advertising and also integrates a social network through which you can discover new songs.
The quality of reproduction is very good and the catalog is vast: you can find many different genres.
4. Last.fm
Last.fm is very useful for discovering new songs: it analyzes and stores everything that is listened to and then proposes its suggestions. Its major flaw is that many of the tracks in the catalog are just previews. The radio streaming service is chargeable in some countries.
Last.fm does not allow you to create playlists, but you can put “like” and “do not like” and you can choose the artists you want to listen to and those to avoid. The quality of the music is very good and the catalog is rather large.
5. SoundCloud
Two years ago Spotify was about to appear SoundCloud but then gave up. We are talking about a site specifically designed to upload and share original and independent music. It is available in both mobile and desktop app versions and contains both known songs and emerging artists.
The desktop app is easy to use, but loading the songs is a little too cumbersome.
6. Pandora Radio
Pandora is a site and contains over a million songs. It allows you to create custom playlists and skip songs you don’t want to hear. However, the skip is limited to a certain number of times.
You can access the paid service or, as for Spotify, have the free version which however forces users to listen to the advertisement every so often.
Pandora is also available in the mobile app version, but not for desktops.
7. Stereomood
Stereomood offers a service entirely based on people’s mood. For example, if you tell the site to feel sad, you will be offered a playlist full of songs that are ideal for your mood.
Stereomood does not offer the maximum of personalization: it is not possible to create your own playlists, what you can do is label the songs according to the mood for which they are suitable. The service is totally free and free of advertising.