Spotify and YouTube Music have changed a lot since we last compared them in 2020.
I’ve spent the past six months comparing both of these services, and I am going to
break down for you what differentiates them, what features have really been worth it,
and then ultimately which one I think most people should subscribe to first.
Let's look at Spotify and its advantages. The first advantage that Spotify has,
I would argue, is network effects. Spotify has the largest user base of
any music service. So it is more likely that your friends and family are using it today,
which can make sharing music and creating playlists together much easier.
And at the end of the year, you will get the coveted Spotify Wrapped, a celebration of the
year gone by that shows you your top artists and the things you listened to most throughout the
year. It is so popular that YouTube Music copied it and actually gives you not only a recap,
but a recap playlist for every season, which I actually like a lot better now.
Another advantage that Spotify has over YouTube Music is Spotify Connect. Spotify
Connect allows you to control and listen to your music on different types of devices,
such as computers, phones, smart TVs, speakers, game consoles, cars, and other devices. You can
use your Spotify app on any device, including the Spotify web player, as a remote control.
So, say you ask your Sonos voice control on your Sonos Arc to play some music. The big deal with
this feature is that after you have done that, you can now control that music from any device
that is linked to your Spotify account or on any local device on your Wi-Fi. You can choose
a different song or move the music to another speaker that is linked to your Spotify account.
No other streaming service can match the ubiquity that you get with Spotify Connect
simply because Spotify is just supported on so many different types of devices.
Now, the next advantage that Spotify has over YouTube Music is its new DJ feature. "Hey,
what's going on? I'm your DJ X. Hope you're feeling good. I know what you listen to. I
see you've been listening to The Weeknd." Spotify rolled this feature out in 2023,
and it uses an AI voice, plus your Spotify listening history, and all of the great
recommendation technology that Spotify has to give you your own personal DJ. It plays
the music that Spotify knows you like, plus it will mix in a couple of new things that Spotify
thinks you will like. It will also reach back into your music listening history and pull out
things that you used to listen to. It's a great tool for background listening throughout the
workday. And while it doesn't always know exactly what I want to listen to at any given moment,
Overall, I found its recommendations generally to be pretty good. Now, the next thing to talk
about with Spotify is music quality. While this has not been released at the time of recording,
Spotify has finally confirmed that high-fidelity quality streaming is coming.
But at an additional cost, unlike Apple Music and Amazon Music.
This now leaves YouTube Music as the only major music streaming service at
the time of recording without an announced or launched higher quality music tier. However,
it's not like Spotify has everything in this newly announced tier either. There's
been no mention that I could find of Spotify supporting Dolby Atmos at the time of recording.
So for now, it looks like both of these services are still going to ignore that format. And this
is the point in the video where I tell you not to bother with Atmos on headphones or earbuds.
This was mainly a gimmick that didn't make a difference, but I can't do that anymore.
Recent Atmos mixes have actually gotten pretty good when I listen to them on my AirPods Max,
which I've reviewed. Atmos just adds this extra layer of immersion to the music you listen to. And
paired with the Era 300, which is a speaker that was built from the ground up for spatial audio
(and I've got a review coming out on that speaker very soon), it can make it sound like the artist
is in the room with you. That extra level of immersion for me has meant that I felt
more emotionally tied to the music I was listening to, more moved by it as well.
So not having the Atmos format available with both of these services,
at least for me going forward, is going to be a bigger problem.
The next advantage Spotify has over YouTube Music is dedicated apps for Windows and Mac.
Google continues to believe that web apps are superior to native apps for some reason. And
I don't know what to tell you, they're just wrong. The Spotify app just feels
more complete. It has more features, it's more polished. And if you switch from your
personal YouTube account to your business one in Chrome, your music won't stop playing like
it does with the YouTube Music Chrome app, which I found to be incredibly frustrating.
Because of that, the next advantage Spotify has is that, at least for students in the US,
they bundle Hulu in with the student plan at the time of recording, where YouTube Music doesn't
come with anything bundled. However, there is a student plan for what's called YouTube Premium,
which gets you YouTube Music plus an ad-free experience on YouTube
for just one US dollar more a month, which is actually a pretty great deal.
The last advantage Spotify has over YouTube Music, which I hinted at earlier,
is the sheer number of devices that support Spotify compared to YouTube Music,
such as Amazon speakers, Sonos speakers, gaming consoles, and many other devices.
So, those are Spotify's main advantages. Now let's look at YouTube Music's advantages. The first
of which is music track availability. Because YouTube Music leans on videos uploaded to YouTube,
as well as the official versions of songs, you'll find way more covers,
live recordings, and indie bands on the service.
A silly example of this that I found in my own personal life is the track
"All I Want for Christmas Is You." A few years back, Michael Bublé and Mariah Carey
actually did a duet of this song, but it doesn't exist on most streaming services
because it was only recorded live for an NBC Christmas special in the US.
But thanks to those brave accounts willing to risk a copyright strike,
that song is available on YouTube and therefore, it is available on YouTube
Music. And if you've experienced being able to find tracks on YouTube Music that you couldn't
find on any other streaming service, make sure you let me know down in the comments.
Another recent addition to YouTube Music has been algorithmic choice. When you play a song,
you can bring up the recommended tab to see what songs YouTube Music has placed in your
"Up Next" queue. But importantly, you can fine-tune those recommendations with buttons
that appear. You can tune the recommendations to be more familiar to you or more slanted
towards discovering new music. Giving you more choice over your recommendations is
really smart on YouTube's part and just a really great user feature. And that's
why I think YouTube Music's recommendations, especially in that "Up Next" queue, are the best.
Now, another advantage YouTube has over Spotify is uploading to a cloud music library. Spotify
does allow you to upload music, but it only stores it locally. It does not upload it to
the cloud to make it accessible to listen to from your devices on the
go like YouTube Music does with their cloud library, which has a cap of 100,000 songs.
Another thing I like about YouTube Music is a feature called Quick Picks. It's very
prominent in YouTube Music's UI and makes it easy to jump into some music based off
the song you picked. YouTube Music also recently launched another feature to
help you get started listening to music faster, called Radio Tuner.
Your stations are based on specific artists and you can choose up to 30 of them. After
picking your artists, you can adjust settings like artist variety as well as song selection,
letting YouTube Music know if you want to discover more things or keep things more
familiar. And you can apply similar filters to your station that you'll see in the "Up
Next" recommendations, like "Popular," "Discover," "Deep Cuts," "Familiar," etc.
Another great feature you get with YouTube Music is called Offline Mixtape. This feature
automatically downloads a playlist locally on your device and bases
it on your recent and previous listening history. I use this feature all the time,
especially on road trips when I know I'll be in and out of cell coverage. And what's great
about the feature is it's automatic. You don't have to worry about remembering to download the
playlist before you hit the road or anything like that. That new song you can't get enough of is on
there along with your favorite songs and stuff you listened to a while ago that you still like.
Another cool exclusive feature to YouTube Music is how the app handles music videos
on mobile and tablet devices. It allows you to easily toggle between the audio and music
video version of a song. Now, originally, when YouTube Music rolled out this feature,
I noticed that when I requested a song from an assistant like the Google Assistant,
often they would actually play the music video version of the song, and not the just standard
track that I requested. But in the year since that, overall, in my experience has been fixed.
Though, there is still some cross between the same account you use on YouTube,
which can be somewhat annoying that they're not separate. For example,
if you subscribe to an artist on YouTube Music, what you've actually done is subscribed to that
artist on YouTube. You've subscribed to their YouTube channel, which I think should be separate.
The last major plus I found with using YouTube Music is actually the YouTube Premium subscription
bundle. If you're not a student, it's a bit more expensive, but still a great deal in my book for
an ad-free YouTube experience on all devices. Plus you get YouTube Music ad-free as well.
So, those are the things I like about both YouTube Music and Spotify.
Now, let's take a look at what's similar with both services. Both
have free versions of their service. Both have pretty similar recommendation engines.
And both YouTube Music and Spotify have added a TikTok-like feature for discovering new music,
where you can swipe through and get quick snippets of different songs playing.
YouTube Music has also really caught up with the amount of personalized playlists they offer,
and now both services are actually pretty similar in this area. Spotify has daily mixes,
a discover mix, genre, decade, and mood mixes that are all customized to you. YouTube Music doesn't
have the genre or decade mixes, but it does have daily mixes, a discover mix, and multiple
workout-focused, chill, and energy mixes. And of course, YouTube Music has that great offline
mixtape, which at the time of recording, Spotify does not have, but is rumored to be working on.
Spotify does have one unique playlist feature, though. It allows you to ignore
certain playlists for your recommendations. So, when you listen to those playlists,
they'll be ignored by Spotify's recommendation engine. Spotify also has another unique playlist
feature called Enhance. When you click this button on a playlist that you've built,
you'll see Spotify input suggested songs that are related to the songs you picked on the playlist.
The way you train both services to know what you like is also similar. It's based on the
artists you like, what's in your library, and then a like system. On both services,
in Spotify, you tap the heart button when you like something, and that song or album will be
added to your library and liked playlist. In YouTube Music, the same thing happens
when you hit the thumbs up button, which you can also do on YouTube videos as well.
YouTube Music does have a dislike button that is more prominent in its UI,
and I personally think it's a bit better.
So, that's everything I like and dislike about these services. But which one would I generally
recommend? In general, I recommend YouTube Music for most people. Its algorithms are great,
and while it doesn't have that cool DJ feature, the fact that you can fine-tune
your recommendation algorithm plus its innovative radio tuner feature push it over Spotify in terms
of its music listening experience, even when you consider Spotify's ubiquity and wider support.
So, that's my overall recommendation. If you think I got it wrong or you think I
got it right, let me know down in the comments. And for the speakers, phones,
and other devices that you saw me use, if you want to learn more about those,
check their price or purchase them. I've left links in the description below to all of those.
Consider giving this video a thumbs up if you liked it and found it helpful. That really helps
out the channel. And subscribe to the channel and our monthly newsletter for more comparison
videos for the major streaming services, like I've done on Apple Music versus YouTube Music
and Apple Music versus Spotify, which you can get to by clicking on the videos above.
For 6 Months Later, I'm Josh Teder. Thanks for watching.