Best Spotify Alternatives – Spotify is a very popular audio streaming and media service provider that allows its users to create playlists and listen to music. on-line. Daniel Ek and Martin Lorenzton founded this company in 2006 with the aim of fighting against the challenge of music piracy.
Spotify is now available in more than 180 countries around the world. Users can access copyright-restricted music and podcasts along with more than 82 million tracks on Spotify. The company currently has 15 offices around the world and is headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden.
Spotify offers two types of plans, Spotify Free (ad-supported) and Spotify Premium services. To get access to everything Spotify has to offer, users need to subscribe to its premium plan.
As of 2022, Spotify has almost 433 million active users, of which 188 million users are Spotify premium subscribers.
In the first quarter of 2022, the company managed to generate revenue of 2,661 million euros.
From all this information, it is quite evident that Spotify is a big name in the streaming audio industry. However, Spotify still faces stiff competition from other tech giants and music streaming services like Amazon, Apple, Google, Pandora, etc. if you want to Cancel Spotify Premium on Android and iPhone
Best Spotify Alternatives
In this article, you will find a comprehensive analysis of Spotify’s competitors and alternatives.
Apple Music
In 2015, the founders of Apple created Apple Music in Cupertino, California, United States. The iPod was one of the best sellers of its time, and with iTunes, Apple allowed users to download the songs of their choice.
It offers more than 90 million songs and is now available in more than 180 countries around the world. As of June 2019, it has over 60 million registered paying users.
Amazon Music
Amazon Music is another tech giant that offers a music streaming service, which includes more than 90 million songs. Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, launched Amazon Music very recently in the year 2016. He is based in Seattle, United States.
He has a huge subscriber list. Membership is usually free for people with an Amazon Prime subscription. It also offers many discounts; therefore, the price is much less than Spotify or other music streaming platforms.
In 2020, Amazon stated that it had surpassed 55 million registered paying users. According to recent reports, Amazon Music will beat out Pandora, the second most famous streaming service in the United States.
Pandora
Pandora is another music streaming platform similar to Spotify. It was founded by Doug Barry, Jon Kraft, Tim Westergren and Will Glaser together in 2000 and is based in Oakland, United States. SiriusXM owned Pandora in 2019 for $3.5 billion. It has a podcasting feature and also works with TikTok to help creators.
As of 2021, Pandora has around 55.9 million active monthly users and 6.4 million subscribers. The main source of their earnings comes from advertising. As of fiscal 2020, it has earned $1.2 billion of advertising revenue. However, Amazon will take over Pandora at the end of 2022.
YouTube Music
YouTube Music is a popular music streaming platform developed by YouTube in 2015. The platform is based in San Bruno, California, United States. This music streaming platform allows users to listen to various music genres in both audio and video.
Google Play Music has been replaced by YouTube Music. With over 70 million songs on the interface, you can stream music for free or with a subscription. In 2021 it exceeded 50 million subscriptions.
Sound cloud
SoundCloud, with its 175 million users, is headquartered in Berlin, Germany. It was founded by Eric Quidenus-Wahlforss and Alexander Ljung in 2007. It established itself as a platform on which individual artists could develop their careers.
SoundCloud allows users to upload, promote, share and stream music. Famous artists like Billie Elish and Post Malone started their music careers on this platform.
As of November 2021, SoundCloud has over 76 million active monthly users and has over 175 million global audiences. This platform offers more than 300 million tracks and free and paid membership.
It has gross revenue of more than $200 million and has about 425 employees. Rapper Future has recently become the first to earn 10 million followers on SoundCloud.
Deezer Music
Deezer is a music streaming service similar to Spotify that allows its users to listen to songs, music, and podcasts. Music tracks like major record labels like UMG (Universal Music Group), WMG (Warner Music Group) and SME (Sony Music Entertainment) are available on Deezer.
As of now, the company has 881 employees and earned a revenue of $219.6 million. Deezer’s unique features like providing high-quality audio files are what can even attract Spotify users. Deezer Music currently has 16 million users from 180 countries.
Napster
Napster was co-founded by Sean Parker, Shawn Fanning, and John Fanning in the year 1999. It is mainly located in California, United States.
Initially, Napster was created for file sharing which eventually became a music platform due to legal battles.
It is the oldest of its kind and the first platform that has been founded, like Spotify. Currently, he has around 42 million songs on the platform with 5 million and more subscribers. Ownership is now owned by MelodyVR.
Tide
Aspiro, a Norwegian company, founded Tidal in 2014 as a music subscription service. A year later, Project Panther, led by Shawn Carter, paid $100 million for the deal. The app, which allows access to high-resolution music and videos, requires a subscription fee. It is not free, and you will not be able to purchase it.
The royalties from the platform are divided between the artists and the owners of the platform. Tidal has a variety of subscription plans, including Premium and HiFi. Artists from all walks of life are represented, including some just starting out. This product has 305 employees and annual revenue of $147.6 million.
Jio Saavn
In 2007, Anjali Naik, Anurag Gupta, and three others co-founded JioSaavn in Mumbai, India. Given the population of India, for a better presence in the economy, it included all the major languages in its list. The interface is very similar to Gaana and Spotify. It also has international charts. Currently, it has 60 million songs. While it took a while for Gaana to break the 100 million user mark, JioSaavn only covered it in a week.
Band Camp
Bandcamp is very similar to SoundCloud and has similar features. It was founded in 2008 with its headquarters in Oakland, California.
It allows individual artists to release music and reach listeners around the world. It currently has more than 5 million songs and 600,000 albums from 183 different countries. Both music pitchers and listeners can access the platform for free. The revenue it collects is around $7 million currently.
This platform is best for independent musicians who can easily promote themselves.
iHeart Radio
Based in New York City, United States, iHeart Media founded iHeart Music in 2008. As the name suggests, users can usually listen to live local radio stations on this platform.
Its services are primarily available in Canada, Australia, Mexico, New Zealand, and the United States. A total of 860 radio channels can be found on this platform.
Geographical limitations did not prevent it from gaining a huge number of users, that is, around 150 million. The podcasts on this platform have a monthly download record of 422 million.
Gaana
Gaana was founded in 2011 by Avinash Mudaliar in Uttar Pradesh, India. It is one of the largest music streaming platforms in India. The song list is over 45 million, with mainly Indian artists on it. Indian music catalog is fully present in 12 different languages.
With more than 200 million registered subscribers on the platform, there are more than 100 million monthly downloads. The app is available on iOS and Android software. A new podcast feature has also been introduced.
Anghami
Anghami is an Arabic music streaming service that has over 57 million podcasts and song playlists (Arabic and international). Compared to Spotify, Anghami is better positioned to take advantage of the tremendous expansion in the region.
As a result of a collaboration with the Abu Dhabi Investment Office, the company, founded in Lebanon, has relocated to the United Arab Emirates. The Anghami Research and Development Center in Abu Dhabi is part of ADIO’s $545 million Innovation Program. Thanks to the partnership, Anghami’s position in the industry has been strengthened.
Wink
Telecom Giant Airtel is the owner of Wynk, another music streaming platform. Users can browse, search, listen and download music on Wynk.
Wynk Music has more than 2.8 million songs in different genres and languages like English, Hindi, Telegu, Bengali, Punjabi etc. As of 2021, the company has around 72 million monthly active users. The revenue Wynk generates comes from ads and in-app purchases.
Mixed Cloud
Mixcloud, a British online music streaming and distribution service has made it to Spotify’s competitor list.
The Mixcloud user community creates content together. On average, four hours of new content is added to the site every minute, and the site can play over a thousand hours of music every day. As of now, the company has collected millions of dollars as revenue and the number of monthly active users is about 10 million.
Frequent Questions
What sets Spotify apart from its competitors?
When it comes to setting itself apart from the competition, Spotify does so by providing a wide variety of music that appeals to a wide spectrum of listeners, as well as offering users personalized playlists and music recommendations.
Conclusion
Now you know who are the main competitors or alternatives of Spotify. Even with such aggressive competitors available in the market, Spotify still manages to secure its position with its cheap subscriptions and unique features.