If you're an early Spotify user, you may be looking for a new, free music-streaming service as Spotify's six months of free listening comes to an end.
Trendsetting music lovers who signed up for Spotify when it first hit the U.S. on July 14, 2011 will soon encounter roadblocks. For instance, come the six-month deadline to switch to Spotify Unlimited ($4.99 per month) or Spotify Premium ($9.99 per month), Spotify users will only be able to play their favorite songs a maximum of five times, and free streaming will cap at 10 hours per month.
It's no doubt the unlimited access to a huge library of music — about 15 million tracks — is one of the features that loyal Spotify users love.
Other features include the ability to make playlists of favorite songs (up to 10,000 tracks per list) and social integration to Facebook. Songs you play automatically display on your Facebook Timeline and desktop sidebar. Plus, access content via share buttons and a convenient search bar. With Spotify Premium, users enjoy an offline mode, which means they can listen to playlists on the plane, train or beach. Finally, radio stations specifically tailor to a user's specific artist or genre preferences.
As fun and convenient as Spotify is, for many, the honeymoon phase is over with the service's free music cutoff. Here are five free music-streaming websites and applications that act as alternatives to Spotify.
1. Grooveshark
Grooveshark is a comparable service that provides free on-demand music streaming with ads. Over 30 million people use Grooveshark globally.
Spotify allows you to stream unlimited music for free from your desktop, albeit with ads occasionally interrupting you. Beats Music has no free version to speak of. Spotify has a 30 day free trial. Speaking of Spotify music, we know that Spotify has both Free and Premium plans. You could listen to Spotify music of all types with a Spotify free plan, which comes with ads. The Spotify Premium plan provides ads-free music listening and offline mode for Spotify music listening on up to 3 devices but costs $9.99 per month.
How it compares to Spotify: Comparable features include the option to share songs or playlists with friends on Facebook, Twitter, Reddit and other social networking platforms. Like Spotify, Grooveshark offers a downloadable desktop application. Other capabilities include radio-streaming and uploading your own music. Grooveshark also offers song and artist suggestions related to your listening habits.
Differences: Since anyone can upload music to Grooveshark, audio quality of tracks may vary. With Grooveshark, there is no monthly limit for free accounts, as opposed to the 10-hour cap soon to occur on Spotify. However, ads play on both systems.
Spotify’s plan for students gives them access to Hulu TV’s ad-supported plan and unlimited access to Showtime streaming service. Pandora also offers a free plan with ads, similar to that of Spotify. However, the free plan restricts users to only radio and streams music only in low-quality. Jukestar, the social jukebox app that lets party guests request, vote and veto. The good songs get played, the bad stuff gets skipped and no one can hog the playlist! Start the music democracy at your party and let everyone get involved in the music with this party jukebox.
Size of Music Library: Over 7 Million Songs
Paid Options: Grooveshark-Plus ($6 per month) provides unlimited, ad-free listening. New application Grooveshark-Anywhere offers to-go music streaming at $9 per month.
Mobile Availability: Free radio streaming or on-demand access to music with paid subscription for Android, Nokia, Palm, Blackberry and 'jailbroken iPhones,' as listed on Grooveshark's website.
2. Pandora
Pandora's desktop and mobile free radio-style music-streaming service provides tailored sets of tunes based on the artist or track you input.
How it compares to Spotify: Pandora allows users to easily listen without having to search for tracks or create a playlist. 'The Music Genome Project' behind Pandora generates music related to your search terms. The radio will tweak itself according to your thumbs-up or thumbs-down ratings. However, there are limits to songs skipped per hour. Pandora's social sharing capabilities are pretty weak compared to Spotify's wide range of Facebook, Twitter and Messenger capabilities.
Differences: Spotify is clearly better if you want a wide selection of on-demand music streaming. Pandora Internet radio plays from a smaller collection of 700,000 songs, compared to Spotify's 15 million-song vault.
Size of Music Library: 700,000 tracks
Paid Options: Pandora One ($36 per year) comes with unlimited music play, higher-quality audio, unlimited song skips and no advertisements.
Mobile Availability: Free radio streaming and premium listening via Pandora One options are available on Android 1.6 and later, BlackBerry, iPhone, iPod touch and Palm Pre devices.
3. Rdio
Spotify offline mode free ios. Rdio is a desktop music streaming application that allows new users in the U.S. to access ad-free, on-demand music streaming for an undisclosed amount of time a month. From the co-creators of Skype, Rdio began to offer Rdio Free with a set amount of ad-free, free on-demand music with its Facebook integration in October 2011.
How it compares to Spotify: Both non-paying users of Rdio and Spotify can play music on-demand, share their playlists and favorite songs on numerous social networking websites, receive music recommendations and listen to artist-tailored radio stations. We like how Rdio and Spotify allow free users to browse and listen to top tracks lists, albums and new releases.
https://qaxavi.weebly.com/blog/spotify-vplaylist-download. Differences: Rdio Free comes ad-free and on-demand, whereas Spotify plays ads in between song sets. The company will not disclose how much time is free for users who opt out of the premium service. Rdio states, 'We’d rather do it this way than bombard people with ads…When you run out of free music in any given month, you can choose to upgrade to any of Rdio’s existing pricing plans or start free anew the following month.'
Free Media Player
Size of Music Library: 12 million songs
Paid Options: Rdio Web ($4.99 per month) offers unlimited web streaming from browser or desktop platforms. Rdio Unlimited ($9.99 a month) offers unlimited web streaming plus unlimited mobile streaming. Unlimited Family ($17.99) offers two unlimited web and phone subscriptions.
Mobile Availability: Available on iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, Android 1.6 or higher, Windows Phone 7 devices and Blackberry phones.
4. MOG FreePlay
Spotify premium free android with offline. MOG FreePlay is the free version of its original subscription-required application.
How it compares to Spotify: Like Spotify, MOG FreePlay offers free music streaming with ads. However, for 60 days, new users can listen to MOG FreePlay without ads. Similar to Spotify, MOG FreePlay logs users in through Facebook and shares music with friends. The service provides recommendations based on bands and artists you have Liked on Facebook. Both players have options to create playlists, favorite songs and much more.
Differences: MOG FreePlay also offers an undisclosed amount of play, like Rdio; however, this platform gives you a chance to earn more free music every month by earning points for inviting friends to join MOG.
Size of Music Library: 13 million songs
Paid Options: Paid options for unlimited music include a MOG Basic plan ($4.99 per month), which comes with unlimited, on-demand music for your computer, sans mobile access. The MOG Primo plan for $9.99 per month comes with computer and mobile access and unlimited streaming to your phone.
Spotify Web Player Free Download
Mobile Availability: Only available through Primo plan to iPhone, iPod Touch and Android phones.
5. YouTube
While YouTube is a video player, we recommend using YouTube for free, on-demand music streaming if you love listening to songs on-demand. You can use YouTube Disco to find songs by artist. A search for Beyonce turned up 100 videos, mostly from her official VEVO site.
Spotify Web Player Free Premium
How it compares to Spotify: Create playlists of your favorite songs for listening at work or play. You can also easily share YouTube videos on various social networking platforms.
Differences: Listening to music on-demand on YouTube may be more work — you will have to search for songs to listen to them. However, access plenty of playlists others have pre-packaged.
Mobile Availability: YouTube's pre-installed application works on Android and iOS devices. Downloads are also available on Windows Phones. Web-based versions are available for most smartphones.
![Spotify streaming player Spotify streaming player](/uploads/1/3/4/1/134140731/995668649.jpg)
What music streaming applications or services do you use? How do they compare with Spotify? Share your thoughts in the comments.
Image courtesy of Flickr, Andreas Blixt Do i need wifi to download songs on spotify.
Spotify sounds amazing with Premium.
- Unlimited high-quality streaming access to over 50 million songs.
- Travel abroad with no limitations.
- No ad interruption.
- Unlimited skips.
Tip: Check out how Premium compares to our other subscription options.
Get started
Go to www.spotify.com/premium to sign up.
If you’ve never had Premium before, try it for free!
![Free web mp3 player Free web mp3 player](/uploads/1/3/4/1/134140731/697302393.png)
Note: You can’t subscribe to Premium through the app for iPhone and iPad. For some background on that, check out timetoplayfair.com/facts.
FAQ
The price of Premium varies between countries and regions. Find out the price of Premium in your country.
You can pay for Spotify in lots of ways. Just go to www.spotify.com/premium and continue through to the checkout page to see which methods are available where you are.
If you pay for Premium but can’t use your Premium features, check out why isn’t my Premium subscription working?
You can cancel your Premium subscription any time.
Last updated: 05 November, 2020
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