Spotify leads in cross-platform compatibility, social features, and personalized discovery with 626 million users, while Apple Music offers superior audio quality (lossless at no extra cost), deeper iOS integration, and costs $2/month less for individual plans.
Spotify vs Apple Music — Side-by-side comparison on A Versus B
Choose Spotify if you want the best discovery algorithm, cross-platform flexibility, social features, and the largest user community to share music with—it's ideal for Android users, web listeners, and those who value personalized recommendations. Choose Apple Music if you're in the Apple ecosystem, prioritize lossless audio quality, want the lowest price, and prefer seamless Siri integration with your devices.
Freemium music streaming platform with 626M users and industry-leading personalization
Premium streaming service with lossless audio, 110M subscribers, deeply integrated into Apple ecosystem
Spotify vs Apple Music — Comparison Data
Structured comparison data for Spotify vs Apple Music with 172 attributes.
Monthly Subscription Cost (Premium Tier)
Artist Growth Multiplier (focused strategy)
Monthly Subscription Cost (Individual Plan)
Annual Subscription Cost (Individual Plan)
Discover Weekly Playlists Generated Weekly
User Satisfaction with Discovery (2024 survey)
Monthly Subscription Price (Standard Tier)
Spotify vs Apple Music — Attribute Category Vocabulary
Taxonomy of attribute categories used to classify comparison data for Spotify vs Apple Music.
No. Spotify's maximum bitrate is 320 kbps on Premium plans. Apple Music includes lossless audio (up to 24-bit/192 kHz) at no extra cost, making it the superior choice for audiophiles. Spotify has announced plans for hi-fi quality since 2021 but has not yet launched it.
Spotify has a significant advantage. Its Discover Weekly feature uses machine learning algorithms that achieve ~40% accuracy in predicting user preferences, earning it consistent praise in listener surveys. Apple Music's Listen Now feature relies more on editorial curation and is less sophisticated at algorithmic personalization.
Which streaming service works best with Android?
Spotify is optimized for Android with exclusive features like Spotify Car Thing (dedicated car controller) and native Android Auto integration. Apple Music works on Android but is clearly designed with iOS first in mind, lacking some platform-specific features Spotify offers.
Can I share playlists and collaborate with friends?
Spotify offers superior social features: real-time collaborative playlists where multiple users can add songs simultaneously, a friend activity feed, and the Blend feature (combines two users' taste into one playlist). Apple Music allows playlist sharing but lacks real-time collaboration tools.
Spotify offers a free ad-supported tier with unlimited skips and offline downloads unavailable. Apple Music does not offer a free tier but provides a 3-month free trial for new subscribers. Apple does offer Apple Music Classical as a free app with no ads for classical music specific content.