Music streaming is a highly competitive business. There are multiple new names making their way to the list while some of the established names are finding it difficult to keep their users intact in the wake of growing competition such as Google Play Music vs Spotify.
Spotify is one such service. It has been around for a few years now and ran without much competition for a long time. But that changed significantly over the past few years with the arrival of services like Google Play Music. But despite the arrival of Google’s own streaming service, Spotify still remains the king of the music streaming industry, and with good reason.
But you, as the user, have a lot to think about before joining a music streaming service. What features do they offer? How are they different from the rivals, and much more. We’re going to answer a few of those questions in this comparison today while also discussing what Google Play Music brings to the table. At the end of the day, the choice might not be as easy as simply picking one service as you’re expected to spend a significant amount of time with it.
Google Play Music vs Spotify – Best Music Streaming Services For Android Comparison
1. Spotify
Spotify Features
One of the best music streaming services of our time, Spotify comes with a massive collection of music in its library. It offers all the latest music, and some of the older ones seamlessly, while also giving you access to standalone desktop and mobile apps. There a wide range of stations to choose from, depending on your favorite genre or current mood. Curated playlists are one of the biggest bonuses with Spotify, as its algorithms can create the perfect playlists meant for any situation. The tech is getting better with each day, so customers can only expect better predictions and music recommendations in the future.
Spotify actually does some really neat curated playlists. As you know, they get better as Spotify learns your listening habits, but on top of that, similar to Apple Music, they even create playlists for you based on activities. For example, if you listen to country music a lot, you might come across a playlist that was curated perfectly for driving. You might see things like Rodney Atkin’s “Concrete Jungle” or Willie Nelson’s “On The Road Again.” Spotify is extremely smart in this area, and as the platform grows, the tech only gets better.
One of the other neat features that comes with Spotify is Alexa integration. Now, with an Amazon Echo device, you can tell it to play Spotify and your favorite playlists instead of Amazon Music. The neat thing about is that, if you have multiple Echo devices in your home, you’ll be able to walk in each and every room, hearing your Spotify music wherever you go.
Spotify also integrates with a lot of platforms available today. You can very easily show people what you’re listening to on Facebook, share songs on Slack, and more.
Spotify Pros and Cons
In addition to the features mentioned above, Spotify has a few more. You will be able to use a Chromecast to cast your music to other devices near you, letting your friends know what you’re listening to. The addition of features like these makes Spotify a tough service to beat. In addition to creating awesome playlists for you, Spotify can also improve music discovery significantly. If you’re a user of the service, the chances are that you might have encountered a bunch of new music within the first week of usage. Not to mention the fact that Spotify is constantly updating its library with the latest tracks.
The user interface is easy to use, and the all black + green background is a personal favorite of mine. Another plus here is that since it doesn’t belong to any major company (like Play Music or Apple Music), you’re going to find it on pretty much every mobile and desktop platform. The chances are that if you use Spotify, you aren’t going to use any other streaming service. Spotify even has integration with PlayStation Music now, allowing you to listen to your favorite music while gaming on the PS4.
Now for the cons, and there are a few. Firstly, Spotify doesn’t offer a comprehensive audio library overseas due to licensing issues. However, this can be easily countered by saving songs for offline playback and listening to them at your convenience.
Spotify Pricing
The pricing of Spotify is pretty much the same as Play Music. $9.99 for individual accounts and $14.99 for a family account which covers six members. There is a free version as well, which comes with ads and minimal skips.
Download it now: here
2. Google Play Music
Google Play Music Features
The relatively newer service on the block, Play Music offers a comprehensive music experience for the customers. What I personally love about Play Music is that it offers a vast number of songs to choose from. This, in addition to the fact that it has a dedicated podcasts section on the app makes for a thoroughly enjoyable experience for all. When there’s a new podcast uploaded, you can quickly share them on social media for your friends.
The other cool feature about Google Play Music is its awesome integration with platforms like Amazon’s Alexa, as well as Google’s own Chromecast. With a Chromecast or Chromecast Audio device, you can play music from Google Play Music from your phone to whatever device your Chromecast is hooked up to, and from anywhere in your home, too! There’s a similar amount of seamlessness and connectivity found with the Amazon Echo as well.
Google Play Music might not provide you access to tons of content (more on that later), but one of the highlights of Google Play Music is that you can very easily add your own library to the service. If you have existing albums already on your computer or phone, they can be added to Google Play Music for free, where you can construct playlists, easily share songs, and more. Play Music does have a limit on this — 50,000 songs — but very few people will break that limit.
The limit in place is because you’re essentially uploading your music to the Play Music Cloud, which you cannot take too much space of. The added bonus here is that, so long as your logged into your Google account, you can play your own songs from anywhere in the world on any device, so long as there’s an Internet connection.
Google Play Music Pros and Cons
In addition to the podcasts feature, the user interface and the fact that it comes by default on most Android phones is a big plus. This means you don’t even have to download the app separately from the Play Store. Users will also get to store nearly 50,000 of their songs on Play Music at no additional cost. This is a feature that Spotify doesn’t offer, so we’ll consider that a plus here.
A Google Play Music subscription also gives you complete access to YouTube Red, which offers an ad-free YouTube experience, along with giving you the ability to play YouTube content offline. The “con” here is that, if you have a Play Music subscription and not directly a YouTube Red/Premium subscription, you don’t get that ad-free YouTube experience, but you do get everything else! However, if you do love that ad-free experience, you can add it to your subscription for another $2 per month (making the total price $12 per month).
Overall, given the benefits here, Play Music is definitely worth trying, especially if you use YouTube for a majority of your audio playback. Play Music also has a web player where you can listen to your cloud-saved music, allowing you to simply fire up the browser and play the tunes you like.
Where it lags, however, is in terms of the number of content available. It’s nowhere near Spotify in terms of content, although it’s steadily getting there. The service is definitely worth a try, but if you’re switching from Spotify, you’re surely going to find it lacking in a couple of areas. The music recommendation can use a bit of work too. It’s a work in progress, and the folks at Google are hard at work to make sure Google Play Music stands on par with the contemporaries.
Google Play Music Pricing
An individual monthly subscription of Play Music will set you back by $9.99. However, getting a family subscription (up to six members) will cost you $14.99. Play Music can be used for free as well, although you will be limited to just the radio stations. If that’s not much of a caveat for you, and you simply want to give Play Music a try, be sure to check it out. The free radio also comes with a bunch of ads between playback.
Download it now: here
Spotify vs Google music – Best Music Streaming Services For Android Comparison Verdict
If you’re looking for a comprehensive music experience, you can’t do much better than Spotify right now. Given that it costs the same as Play Music, and with a bunch of nice perks, the service is rightly one of the best today. But this is only if you’re into music and only that. If you like standalone music as well as YouTube, Play Music is worth a try as well. The allure of storing up to 50,000 of your music files for free is pretty tough to beat.
Overall, Google Play Music vs Spotify, both services are pretty good, but it comes down to what you want from a streaming service.
Here is the real life comparison between the two services.I want to mention,the fact that,I have been using Spotify for at least 4 years and recently I wanted to try something new and fresh like GPM.
Now the first thing that I want to mention is that I am a Trance music fan,so I expect a paid streaming music service to acknowledge the existence of this style of music.Well,Google Play Music,does not know the fact that Trance is a separate music style from, Dance and EDM and still categorizes Trance melodies as generic Dance/EDM,which is simply dumb and ignorant,Spotify on the other hand,creates playlists curated by employees,that are specifically targeted towards Trance music fans,like for example:”Trace Mission” or “Night Rider”.
1) Spotify has a feature called “Daily Mix”,which consists in a couple different playlists that are automatically categorized by the genres that you normally listen to and are updated every day.For Example I listen to Trance,Dance,Pop and 80/90’s music,Spotify separates all these genres and creates separate playlists for each of them,which are really accurate in matching my tastes.Gpm has nothing to even compare to this automated feature.
3)Spotify has “Discover Weekly” feature, which is a endless playlist,that is made of new tracks or tracks which you have never heard about.GPM has nothing like this.GPM has a “Recommended new releases” feature,which includes 3 new tracks or albums,at best,which are not organized in a playlist and just randomly show up in the “Home” section.
2)Spotify has “New Release Radar”,which again,is a playlist,that is automatically created from 30 newest released tracks that correspond to the music taste of the listener.Well,GPM has a similar feature called “New Releases”,which includes ALL the new tracks recently released on the whole platform,that DO NOT correspond with the the music taste of the listener.For example I was suggested tracks from Lil Pump and other rappers,which have nothing to do with my own taste in music and are actually really offensive.All of this happened after I completed the “Improve your recommendations”,list of artists,that GPM,lets you choose from,which is supposed to help this platform in suggesting you new stuff.
3)The social interaction on Spotify is light years ahead of GPM.Every artist that you follow has his own playlist of his favourite tracks.You can simply add that playlist to your own library and even download it offline,with Spotify.Again GPM is well behind Spotify in terms of Playlist sharing because,it has this feature turned off,when you create a playlist.
4)Spotify has the “Crossfade” feature which lets you listen to the tracks you want,in a continuous mix,with combining two consecutive tracks,in a max. 12 seconds mash-up.GPM has nothing like that,even worse,when you listen to a continuous mix like a radio show (Ex:A state of Trance),you can hear a pause between two consecutive mixed tracks,which is really annoying.This feature is called “Gapless playback” which works on Spotify but not on GPM.
5)The Radio feature on Spotify,started from a specific track/artist/album,plays you tracks from all the Artists that match your taste,even those you have never heard about.Well,if you don’t complete the “Improve your recommendations” list from GPM,this service will start to randomly suggest all kinds of music from your YouTube history,or tacks that are completely random.So nothing intelligent or automated from GPM.
The only plus,GPM has,is the 50000 tracks you can upload to their servers,but I thought that someone who invests in a streaming service is supposed to find all their desired tracks already on the platform,to be able to save time.
So Google Play Music is WELL behind Spotify and saying that GPM is in any way comparable,is an insult to Spotify.You can clearly see,that Spotify has invested A LOT more money,than GPM,in tracking user’s specific music tastes,to be able to use that information in a practical manner.
GPM is only good if you are a generic music listener and you are fine with searching your desired tracks and are fine with being suggested tracks from all the genres in the world.Even if GPM knows the moment of the day,or where you are (Ex:At home/At work) and gives you recommendations based on that,if those tracks are not what you like,then the whole thing is in vain.
SO STOP comparing GPM and Spotify because it is a waste of time and you are really showing your lack of knowledge in the two music streaming services.
I really wanted to give GPM a chance,BUT Spotify is superior in every way.PERIOD.
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