5 Best Pandora Alternative in 2024

Pandora is a music streaming service that takes on a radio centric style, where users create their own stations based on their music interests. One could search for the “country” genre, and get a station with all of today’s top hits in the country genre. Users can further customize that stations but hitting Thumbs Down and Thumbs Up buttons to indicate what songs they like and don’t like.

But, not everyone likes that radio style, and would rather have something where they could select specific songs and create their own playlists. While you can do this with Pandora, it requires a really expensive subscription. So, if you’re looking to ditch Pandora in favor of another music streaming service, be sure to follow along below. We’ll show you the best pandora alternative. Here are our top picks.

Best Pandora Alternative

pandora alternative

1. YouTube Music

First, we’re looking at the infamous YouTube Music. Google launched this service a couple of years ago to answer some demands from the YouTube community. One of the neat things that YouTube Music does is, with a subscription, you can listen to your favorite music with YouTube minimized in the background — you don’t have to have the app front and center to listen to music anymore. Not only that, but YouTube Music allows you to listen to live performances as well.

Download it now: Google Play

pandora alternative

2. Spotify

Spotify has been around for a long time. They’ve done an excellent job at creating a seamless streaming experience that just works. With Spotify, you can create your own playlists, listen to any song you’d like, and for free if you’d like. If you use the free version, it is ad supported, but you can pay for Spotify Premium to get rid of those ads, and even open up the ability to stream high quality music.

Download it now: Google Play

pandora alternative

3. Apple Music

Apple Music is easily one of our favorite music streaming platforms, largely because of how they personalize the service to every individual. Once you sign up for a subscription, Apple Music will have a bunch of questions and prompts for you to follow — they gather what your taste in music looks like, genres you’re interested in, favorite artists, and more.

After filling this all out, Apple Music caters your experience to those genres. They’ll recommend playlists you’ll like, and will even help you discover new artists. The neat thing about Apple Music is that it is a try before you buy model, with Apple giving you a 1-month subscription before any commitments are necessary.

Included in your subscription is an ad-free experience, with the ability to download songs and playlists for offline listening.

Download it now: Google Play

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4. Google Play Music

Google Play Music is probably the service that is similar to Apple Music the most. They try to personalize your listening experience as well, but don’t have nearly as many songs in their library — still, a Google Play Music subscription allows you to find specific songs and play the ones that you like. You can even create playlists with these songs, which you can download for offline listening later. One of the neat things about Google Play Music is that they take things a step further and allow you to listen to audiobooks and podcasts as well.

Download it now: Google Play

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5. iHeartRadio

iHeartRadio is similar to Pandora in a lot of ways, largely because of its radio-like style. However, it works a lot better with more content available. You can tune into stations with your favorite genres and artists — there’s no problem connecting up to iHeartRadio’s Country station, or really, any other genre that you like.

But on top of playing your favorite music, iHeartRadio supports things like talk radio and commentary. You can even listen to your favorite media personalities on iHeartRadio, including Dave Ramsey, Ken Coleman, and Joe Rogan. If you don’t mind that radio-like style, iHeartRadio puts tons of content right at your fingertips.

iHeartRadio is free to use, and as such, it is supported by advertisements. But, you can get rid of those with a premium subscription.

Download it now: Google Play

Best Pandora Alternative Verdict

As you can see, there are a lot of great alternatives to Pandora on the market right now. If you’re looking for something similar, but with a little more content available, iHeartRadio is definitely the way to go.

But, if you’re looking for a straight up streaming service, you can’t go wrong with Spotify, Apple Music, or Google Play Music. If you’re finding that none of these are really like Pandora, you might want to consider a premium subscription to Pandora, where a lot of new features open up to you.


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