Spotify vs Tidal: Which Music Streaming Service is Best?
The music streaming services have brought revolution in the music industry. They changed the way of music listening. Now, we don’t need to buy CDs to listen to music. Instead, we can pay a monthly fee to music streaming platforms and unlock music ocean.
Spotify is one of the earliest music streaming services to be launched. Spotify is famous for its advanced and social friendly features. After Spotify, other music streaming services also launched and started competing with Spotify, and Tidal is one of them.
Tidal was launched six years after Spotify. Although it comes after Spotify, it proves itself to be a tough competitor of Spotify because of its lossless audio quality and a large music library.
Both music streaming apps are best in their way, but which one is better? In this article, we’ll debate Spotify vs Tidal. We’ll compare them in different aspects like price, audio quality, advanced features, music library, and more. So, stay tuned. Also Read Spotify vs Pandora Comparison.
Spotify vs Tidal Overview
Features
Spotify
Tidal
| Free Plan | Available | Available in the US |
| Sound Quality | 320 kbps | 1411 (HiFi) 9216 Kbps (HiFi Plus) |
| Individual Plan | $10.99 | $10.99 (HiFi) $19.99 (HiFi Plus) |
| Free Trial | 30 Days | 30 Days |
| Offline Listening | For Premium Users | For Premium Users |
| Availability | 184 Countries | 61 Countries |
| Podcasts | 5 Million | Only 25 |
| Audiobooks | 350,000+ | Not Available |
| Artist Payout | $0.0033 Per Stream | $0.12 Per Stream |
Spotify vs Tidal: In-Depth Comparison
Spotify was launched in 2006, and since then, it has been improving its platform to improve the user experience. Tidal launched in 2014 and has introduced lossless audio quality earlier than Spotify. Both music streaming platforms have their strengths and weaknesses.
Spotify vs Tidal Comparison will help you choose the right service for you according to your preferences. So, let’s begin:
Spotify vs Tidal: Music Discovery
Today, everybody wants to discover something new and different. Sometimes, you don’t know what to play next, and at that time music discovery features play their role. So, music discovery must be a part and parcel of each music streaming app.
Spotify
Spotify is good at music discovery and making curated playlists. It helps you discover new music through its music discovery tools. Spotify uses machine learning algorithms that analyze your music listening activities on the platforms and suggest songs accordingly.
Spotify offers Discover Weekly, a list of 30 songs every week. It provides you with Release Radar, which consists of a playlist of newly released songs from your favorite artists and the artists you might like. Fans Also Like feature suggests other artists that you might like.
Tidal
Tidal also suggests songs, but its algorithms are less advanced than those of Spotify. It prefers human-created playlists and offers different playlists like My Mix and My Daily Discovery. These playlists are fewer in number and consist of smaller numbers of songs than Spotify.
Winner: Spotify
Spotify is the winner because it gives you more curated playlists than Tidal.
Spotify vs Tidal: User Interface
The user interface is critical in making the musical experience better. Both platforms have a good interface and navigation system.
Spotify
Spotify has a dark theme with splashes of neon green color. Its visually appealing interface is easy to use and user-friendly. The navigation bar is available at the bottom of the mobile apps and on the left sidebar of desktop apps and web versions. Navigation through Spotify is like a breeze.
It has three main sections: Home, Search and Library. The Home tab feature recently played songs and other recommendations. The Search tab lets you search songs, podcasts, artists, and albums in different categories. The Library tab organizes your favorite content and downloaded material.
Tidal
Tidal’s user interface is known for its modern and visually appealing design. It offers an easy navigation system, allowing you to explore collections of songs effortlessly. Playback controls are prominently displayed, allowing you to control your music playback easily.
Its interface allows you to adjust audio quality through the Audio Quality Button on the Now Playing bar without navigating to settings. It offers different search filters which helps you quickly find your favorite tracks, artists or albums.
Winner: Spotify
Both apps have a good and user-friendly interface, but I found Spotify’s interface better than Tidal’s. So, Spotify is the winner.
Spotify vs Tidal: Social Friendly
In today’s world, everybody wants to share what they do in real-time on Social Media. Keeping this in mind, music streaming apps also include social-friendly features to improve the user experience.
Spotify
Spotify is more than a music streaming app because of its social-friendly features. Spotify allows you to share your favorite tracks and playlists with your friends through social media platforms. You can make Instagram stories of the songs you are currently listening to.
You can follow friends on Spotify and interact with them in different ways. You can invite up to 10 friends and make a collaborative playlist with them. You can set up a virtual music party on Spotify. You can see your friends’ activity in real-time through the Friends Activity Feature.
Tidal
Tidal also offers social-friendly features, but it is less advanced than Spotify. It allows you to share your songs or playlists on Facebook and Instagram. But like Spotify, you’re not able to see your friends’ activity on the platform and can’t make collaborative playlists.
Winner: Spotify
Spotify is the winner in this round.
Spotify vs Tidal: Prices and Plans
Price is one of the significant factors that help you decide if you’re short on budget. Spotify offers its free version, but Tidal doesn’t offer its free version except in the US.
Spotify
Spotify offers its free version with some limitations, such as limited skips and shuffle play. It also offers its premium version with different plans and prices. Prices of these plans vary from region to region. So, it is recommended that you check prices in your area. Here, we’ll consider the US region’s prices and plans.
Plans
Prices
| Individual | $10.99 |
| Duo | $15.99 |
| Student | $5.99 |
| Family | $16.99 |
In the premium version, you can skip unlimited times and enjoy a maximum sound quality of 320 kbps. The platform also offers mini-plans of one day and a week. Spotify also offers a free trial of 30 days.
Tidal
Tidal offers two types of plans: one is HiFi, and the second is HiFi Plus. The main difference between these two plans is sound quality. In the HiFi version, you can enjoy a maximum sound quality of 1411 Kbps, while the HiFi Plus version offers the highest audio quality of 9216 kbps and Sony 360 reality audio.
Plans
HiFi
HiFi Plus
| Individual | $10.99 | $19.99 |
| Student | $5.99 | $9.99 |
| Family | $16.99 | $29.99 |
| Military | $5.99 | $11.99 |
Prices of Spotify Premium and Tidal HiFi are the same, but the cost of the HiFi Plus plan is higher than Spotify Premium because of its lossless audio quality. Tidal also offers discounted plans like student and military plans and a free trial of 30 days, like Spotify.
Tie
This round is a tie.
Spotify vs Tidal: Content
Content is one of the main deciding factors in choosing any platform. Both music streaming apps have tons of songs in their libraries.
Spotify
With a large library, Spotify has been quenching the thirst of music lovers for years. It has a vast array of 100 million songs from almost 67 genres, including R&B, chill, party, jazz, and classical.
In addition to songs, Spotify also offers a treasure of 5 Million podcasts featuring famous personalities from around the globe and 350,000 different audiobooks.
Tidal
Tidal is also giving fierce competition to Spotify in terms of content availability. It offers a plethora of 110 million songs in 25 different categories. Tidal has all the favorite artists and their albums on its platform. Like Spotify, it also offers a tiny number of podcasts.
Tidal also focuses on video content, offering almost 650,000 music videos. It doesn’t offer audiobooks.
Winner: Spotify
Spotify is the winner in this round because it offers more variety of content than Tidal.
Spotify vs Tidal: Device Support
Device support is integral to seamless integration across a wide range of devices. It ensures that users get access to their favorite music streaming platform wherever they are.
Spotify
Spotify is compatible with a wide range of devices. Spotify has mobile apps for Android and iOS and desktop apps for Windows and macOS devices. Spotify also offers its web version which will be very helpful if you don’t want to install the Spotify app on your desktop.
Spotify offers its Lite version of Spotify Lite Mod Apk for older devices having low storage or device compatibility issues.
In addition, you can use the Connect feature to connect Spotify with Sonos speakers, Smart TVs, Smart Watches, and gaming consoles like PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Consoles. It can also be integrated with Alexa, Discord and Android Auto. In short, it is tough to find a device that is incompatible with Spotify.
Tidal
Tidal is also compatible with Android and iPhone devices, Smart TVs, and speakers. Tidal is also suitable with gaming consoles like PlayStation and Xbox, allowing you to enjoy music while playing games. You can connect it with a wide range of devices through the Tidal Connect feature.
It is also suitable with different media players such as Roku and Amazon Fire TV, giving you more options to enjoy music on Home entertainment systems. However, like Spotify, it doesn’t offer its lite version for older devices.
Winner: Spotify
Spotify is the winner because it has its lite version and is compatible with more devices than Tidal.
Spotify vs Tidal: Audio Quality
If you’re an audiophile and prefer high audio quality. Then, it is an essential factor that will help you find the right service. Both apps offer high sound quality in their premium versions.
Spotify
Spotify offers 160 kbps audio quality in the free version. In the paid version, Spotify offers you four different options.
Spotify offers its maximum sound quality of 320 kbps in Ogg Vorbis format, and it consumes almost 150 Mb per hour while streaming at its highest audio quality. In 2021, Spotify announced that they were launching their HiFi version, which comes with lossless audio, but now it is 2024, and they haven’t launched the lossless version yet.
Tidal
When it comes to Sound Quality, Tidal is one step ahead of Spotify. It offers lossless audio quality. In the free plans, you can enjoy 160 kbps audio quality. Tidal offers different audio options, which are given:
Tidal offers up to 1411 kbps sound quality in the HiFi version, and in the HiFi Plus version, It offers lossless high resolution sound quality of up to 9216 kbps using FLAC format. With the HiFi Plus, you can enjoy Song 360 reality audio and Dolby Atmos spatial audio quality.
At highest audio quality of 9216 kbps, Tidal consumes up to 18 GB per hour, and it may take some time to load songs. You need high-quality speakers to enjoy Tidal at its maximum sound quality.
Winner: Tidal
Tidal is the clear-cut winner in this round because of its audio quality.
Spotify vs Tidal: For Artists
Both music streaming apps welcome new artists to upload their songs and show their talent to the world.
Spotify
Spotify allows you to upload music on their platform and show your singing talent. You can upload your songs through distributors and gain fame through the platform. In return, Spotify also pays you $0.0033 on average per stream.
Spotify allows you to create an artist profile where you can share your bio, photos, and details of upcoming events and interact with the audience. Overall, it is a valuable platform for artists to share their music and grow their fanbase.
Tidal
Like Spotify, Tidal also greets new artists and enables them to reach audiences worldwide. It doesn’t allow direct submissions from independent artists. Instead, you need to upload your music through distributors.
Tidal also pays more than other music streaming services than others, making it an attractive option for artists who want to monetize their music and earn money. Tidal offers, on average, $0.012 per stream to its artists.
Tie
This round is a tie. Tidal offers more payouts than Spotify; however, Spotify has a bigger audience than Tidal. So it depends upon you which platform meets your requirements
Spotify vs Tidal: Additional Features
Despite providing basic features, music streaming apps also provide additional features that help in enhancing your listening experience. Both streaming apps offer some extra features.
Spotify
Spotify presents you with a plethora of additional features that makes your music experience beautiful. It offers a Sleep Timer feature that cuts off music after a certain period. It is beneficial for you if you used to listen to music before sleeping.
It presents a Lyrics option, enabling you to sing along with your favorite songs. You can listen to music while navigating through Google Maps and Waze. Its search system is very smart and shows results even when you search for any misspelled song.
Spotify’s Crossfade feature eliminates the annoying silence between the two songs, providing a seamless experience. Spotify offers a Wrapped feature every year that shows you a summary of your music listening activities on the platform for the past year.
Tidal
Tidal also offers additional features but less than Spotify. It provides a detailed description of songs, including artists’ names, background history, and other aspects. It also offers Tidal Magazine, where you’ll find articles and essays.
It offers you offline listening and lossless audio quality. It doesn’t provide a sleep timer, crossfade, or other features like Spotify. Like Spotify, it gives you the My Rewind feature, which shows a summary of music listening activities of the past year.
Its search system is less advanced than Spotify and won’t produce results if you misspell any song or artist. With Tidal, you can navigate through Waze but not Google Maps while listening to music.
Winner: Spotify
Spotify is the winner because it offers more features than Tidal.
Final Verdict
In short, as you can see, Spotify is the overall winner. If you’re a music enthusiast who prefers high-quality sound in music streaming apps, you can go with Tidal. Otherwise, Spotify is best in most aspects, such as advanced and social features.
In this article, I’ve deeply compared Spotify and Tidal. After reading this article, I hope you’ll be able to make your decision. Share this article with your friends if you find it helpful.
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