If you love streaming songs, you’ve probably heard of Spotify before. While it is the largest music streaming service happening right now, it is yet to be launched in several countries. There are various reasons you could be looking for apps like Spotify, for instance:
It is not available for free, on top of that. Although a free edition is available, it’s just there to encourage you to purchase the premium services. The free edition, for example, does not make saves offline. There are also repeated ads in tracks, which can be distracting.
With so many new music sharing platforms coming up in recent years, it’s about time you’ve found any free and paid alternatives to Spotify.
Related: 10 Best Websites to Buy Spotify Plays and Streams
Here are the best Alternatives of Spotify:
YouTube Music
Some of the optional Spotify alternatives entries on this page are simply fewer than Spotify alternatives. YouTube’s new music feature, YouTube Music, is, in reality, a rival that could dethrone the biggest subscription company in the world.
It not only offers all of the same songs as you can find on Spotify (mostly), it also uses AI to dynamically customize the playlists to the taste. This helps that the new owner of the Earth, Google, owns YouTube.
Our favorite aspect is that it allows you access to ALL versions of the song on YouTube, like an amateur and many artists’ covers. There are advertisements in the free edition but they’re not worth it. There is also a variant that is based on the internet. You know when you cut off contact with your ex, and start a new dating? Yup, literally that’s what you are using YouTube Videos.
Pros and Cons
- AI-powered playlists
- Access to all of YouTube
- Huge library of song
Deezer
There is stuff like Pandora, and then there are applications that are practically the same as the free and not intrusive Pandora only. This is Deezer.
53 million songs, playlists made all over the world by trendy music producers, your own personal soundtrack – not bad for FREE (with the odd ad). The shuffle play is sort of distracting, but it’s certainly worth the music collection, personalized tips, and offline mode.
The best part about the app is that we also get pre-prepared playlists created by the editors.
Pros and Cons
- Editor teams make awesome playlists
- Awesome interface
- Only shuffle play
- Freemium features are limited
SoundCloud
Explore, download, and share music on one of the oldest sites on the Internet for free. Soundcloud is perfect for the singers, audiophiles, and partners themselves. It’s long regarded as the best place to find new and upcoming artists and is a perfect venue to film yourself and also get your profile out there.
Soundcloud has a massive music collection to listen to too. It’s heavily focused on the audience, and at the moment the home page will continuously bring you new music that the crowd is experiencing. It’s a big change of pace from the more traditional options Spotify we’ve suggested so far.
Pros and Cons
- Highly active community
- Great place to discover new artists
- Not the best for choosing tracks you want to listen to
Bandcamp
This one time …. at BandCamp … you met incredible rock bands and personally sponsored them even like they were your minstrel in the trial! Bandcamp is a website for artists, bands, and musicians.
As a fan, musician, or band, you can register for an account and then explore new music and musicians. You can use gift cards to help your favorite bands, and even run a blog highlighting popular musicians and musings from around the world of independent music.
Definitely, an amazing service if you’re trying to break into artists your mates have never heard of (and when they listen to commercial rock they’re obviously behaving smarter than them).
Pros and Cons
- The best place to discover indie artists
- Free but you can support artists directly if you love them
- Not many mainstream artists
Pandora
Pandora is the iPhone’s finest music software and is extremely skilled in downloading flawless songs. According to Statista in 2018 there were 75.9 million active users of Pandora in the US. It is one of the popular online listening music devices, too.
The user just has to add the name of the requested artist and Pandora will continue to suggest the appropriate playlist. As per song performance and streaming rate, users can also provide a ranking. If required, one could also save the track to the favorites and bookmark it for later listening. This free music app gives you the possibility of even saving your favorite radio stations.
The user can also view certain mp3 files from a wide variety of various platforms, including handheld computers, laptops, and desktops. To get going, you need to build a free account, then you need to get a Pandora Plus subscription for just $4.99 for a commercial-free experience.
Pros and Cons
- Users can search and play songs on-demand;
- Offline support;
- Unlimited skips and replays;
- Higher quality audio
Shazam
Shazam is among the best online Android and iPhone music applications, with the ability to view the artist’s name and title. It also offers users the option of posting the discovered song while viewing the very same YouTube music video.
Any song that Shazam is playing gets saved as a name. Additionally, consumers can get the lyrics for their songs so they can enjoy the songs more. For such reasons, the software is now one of the greatest for entertainment and a music app.
Pros and Cons
- Music lyrics and YouTube videos;
- Can add tracks to Apple Music and Spotify playlists;
- Sync with social media accounts;
- Support on the Apple Watch and more.
Amazon Music
The Amazon Music app offers the right to upload more than 250 tracks. This best digital music streaming app has a feature where you can stream digital online or offline music over a mobile device. It is useful in functions such as arranging the music in the music library, inserting playlist tracks, local songs, etc. As well, users can give Alexa the order to run their favorite songs from the Amazon Music app.
Superb quality sound. Amazon Music Unlimited makes industry-leading sound quality a reasonable alternative for the music purists out there who want the highest level of listening possible. Though, you’ll have to pay an additional $5 a month to switch from the Individual Program to Amazon Music Unlimited HD, to access it.
Pros and Cons
- Curated playlists and stations;
- Personalized recommendations;
- It can be integrated with Alexa;
- Support Amazon Music Unlimited and Prime Music songs.
Google Play Music
The Google Play Music software helps the user to access numerous music streaming channels that are selected by music experts in particular. Such radio stations can be grouped further according to the mood, habits, music styles, etc. of the consumers.
In addition, users also have the option to upload their songs and create a personalized music compilation folder with a maximum of 50,000 music tracks, making it one of the best free music apps. If the custom song selection is developed, the user can also access it from any device like iOS, Windows and Android for free later on.
Pros and Cons
- Radio curated by experts;
- Option to store up to 50k songs;
- Smart recommendations;
- Multiple platforms to support and more.
Android | iOS
Wynk Music
The next app we’ve listed on our Best Free Music App list is Wynk Music. It’s the first online streaming music app providing unrestricted and uninterrupted music content to consumers on the go. According to recent figures, this best online music software for Android and iOS has over 12 million Smartphone users who enjoy its world-class streaming music services.
With the Wynk app, consumers can tap in for direct music listening through internet radio. This great music software also has versatile audio quality such as HD(320/256 kbps), High(128 kbps), Medium(64 kbps), and Regular(32 kbps).
Pros and Cons
- High-quality music streaming;
- Personalized track recommendations;
- Thousands of curated playlists;
- Support for Chromecast and more.
iHeartRadio- Free Music, Radio & Podcasts
For its flexible features, and non-commercial platform, iHeart Radio is chosen. The free song software makes podcasts easy for users to build their own music stations. It also features lyrics, artist biographies, and the chance to swap stations with a friend while you enjoy music over the web online.
Overall, iHeartRadio is the best completely free radio listening software I’ve ever seen. It takes some (but not all) of TuneIn Radio Pro’s best functions and blends them with one identical to Pandora. Ad-free custom stations, absolute top-notch programming skills and easy and cheap to use the app.
Pros and Cons
- Availability of live and local AM and FM radio stations;
- Option to stream popular podcasts;
- Offline support;
- Song on demand and more.
Mi Music
This official Xiaomi music player is by far one of the best music listening devices we have experienced. The greatest online Android music player allows users to download free songs, and also allows them to save tracks so they can listen to them later.
Mi Music offers a built-in radio, which can play music digitally 24 hours a day. Through searching the FM, the user can access more than a dozen different music stations for all kinds of tastes.
Pros and Cons
- A customized interface;
- Fully customizable/advanced music player options;
- Enhanced music downloading/streaming features;
- Lyrics sync and more.
Android
Free Music MP3 Player
Of the best online music applications, more than 80 million music fans from around the world enjoy this music app and more than 300 K users are now ranked 5-star. The free music software does not allow updates, which is well for those who normally struggle with available space for smartphones and other download issues. This software allows the user to download millions of songs anywhere, wherever.
Pros and Cons
- Sync with the music library;
- App customization options;
- Support for multiple platforms;
- Allows music & videos from YouTube & MP3s.
BlackPlayer Ex
BlackPlayer is an exquisite yet simple music player which puts almost nothing between you and your music. It runs on the framework of a tab so you can personalize the tabs to just use the ones you really want. This also has an equalizer, buttons, scrobbling, an ID3 tag editor, no ads, themes, and support for most widely used music formats. It’s happily easy and a perfect choice
The free version is a bit of a bare-bones with the paid version offering much more features. The pro edition is luckily not expensive. As of our update to July 2019, BlackPlayer ‘s free edition is lacking in practice. In a couple of months’ time, we’ll check in to see if it comes up.
Pros and Cons
- Plays standard locally stored music files, such as mp3, FLAC, and wav.
- Build-in Equalizer, BassBoost, Virtualizer, Left/Right sound balance.
- Lyrics viewing and editing. – Interchangeable fonts and themes.
MediaMonkey
MediaMonkey is something of a dark horse in the apps business of music players. It has a lot of apps, including organizing tools for items like audiobooks, interviews, and the ability to filter songs by stuff like composer (instead of merely artist). Even it has simple stuff like an equalizer
The ability to sync your music library from your computer to your phone (and back) over WiFi is what makes MediaMonkey a truly unique music player. It is a bit of a complicated setup, but it is almost a one-of-a-kind function. The smartphone and tablet models are among the strongest one-two combination given the learning curve, even though the web edition is a little expensive.
Pros and Cons
- Advanced features for power-users — see the comparison table.
- On the fly A/V conversion for device sync and DLNA sharing.
- Faster DVD/CD burning and professional-level CD ripping.
- Unlimited MP3 encoding.
- Get free upgrades for life
Musicolet
Musicolet is an app with no-BS music player. It has many attractive features including those that you also equate with applications for music players. That includes a completely offline experience, a lightweight user interface and a tiny APK. In addition, the app features multiple queues (another rareness), an equalizer, tag editor, embedded lyrics support, widgets, browsing folders, and more.
This is a great option for people just wanting to have a music player playing music without a ton of extra stuff. It’s also totally free with no in-app purchases and no advertising due to its lack of internet access.
Pros and Cons
- Folder browsing.
- Powerful equalizer.
- Sleep timer.
- Headset controls.
- Tag editor.
- Simple 1-Tap UI.
- Light and Dark Themes.
- Easy song sharing.
MusicUp
MusicUp is one of the easiest alternatives to Spotify and is incredibly convenient to use, even though it is a little slow. It’s a web-based site of radio “stations” in genre-style, which are essentially just different length playlists. But it has a karaoke variant, so no matter what anyone says, it stays on this list.
Another thing we particularly enjoy is the separation of the playlists into various things such as “open lane,” “work out,” “chill out and relax,” etc. You can also build your own interactive rooms and vote for the next song on the chart!
Pros and Cons
- Karaoke version
- Activity-tailored stations
- Limited stations
- Not many features
Conclusion
Apps to download music for free have been a big success around the world. When you download these devices, you’ll see some applications that don’t take up a lot of room on the computer and also minimize the need to look into copyright problems. The music apps do not only deliver standard tracks; many of the apps now support global radio stations.
Here’s a compilation of the best free music apps we’ve been curating after conducting comprehensive work on hundreds of the top online music streaming applications. These music listening devices will shake the life with a constant escapade of all-time classics and fresh songs.