Streaming is quickly becoming the new way people consume music. Whether you want to listen to a specific song or discover music on-the-go music streaming services are the new go-to option for finding and listening to music. When it comes to streaming services there are many players, but 3 major names dominate the market: Grooveshark, Pandora, and Spotify.
There is a lot of misinformation flying around about which service is best, and what features each service offers, so I’m here to set the record straight. All information in this post applies to U.S. users only- beacuse I am in the U.S. I cannot accurately provide information on how these services do or don’t work in other countries. Another important note is that Spotify is not yet available in the U.S. (unless you use some trickery) but it is expected to launch in the U.S. within the next 3-6 momths.
Here is an infographic I put together outlining what each of these services have to offer. What prompted this was a post I read on Gizmodo (one of my favorite tech/gadget blogs) “Why It’s Worth Getting Excited For Spotify’s US Launch”. In the post they ooh and ahh over Spotify as if it’s some kind of game changer- when in reality, there are already better services offering more features for less money that are already live and operational in the U.S.
Let’s see how these 3 streaming titans stack up:
I have used all 3 services first hand. Here are some of my personal thoughts on each service:
Spotify – Generally over hyped. No web client, extremely annoying audio ads for free users. I am in the U.S. so I was only able to use the desktop client, thus I cannot comment on the mobile client. Was unable to listen to several recently released songs because the service didn’t have them available yet and there is no “upload your own” option. Subscription is very expensive relative to other services.
Pandora – Awesome discovery feature which uses the music genome project. Annoying audio ads. No way to play songs on-demand. Web client is fair, it gets the job done, but also looks somewhat outdated like it was made in 2000. The service has at its heart custom “radio stations” that you create yourself. In a nutshell you choose a collection of music, either by artist(s), song(s) or genre(s). You can add as many as you like to a radio station and you can have as many radio stations as you like. Pandora will then use the music genome project to give you an endless playlist based on your selections, the results are pretty awesome and it’s a great way to effortlessly find new music. You can also like/dislike music as it plays to further refine your stations. Limitations for free users are pretty lame though (40hrs a month and limited skips).
Grooveshark – The service I actually decided to pay for when they finally released their iPhone app. Web, desktop and mobile clients (for paying users- free users get only the web client). All their clients are extremely current and robust, giving you the option to build playlists, like/dislike music, favorite music, and share music on any platform. All their clients are extremely consistent as well, and support all the same feature sets with very similar UIs so there is no need to relearn the product on different platforms. From what I gather most the music on Grooveshark is user-uploaded. This means that there can be duplicates and songs of questionable quality at times, but for the most part the music is very high quality. Their discovery service (aka Grooveshark Radio) is pretty cool too. Unlike Pandora it uses songs already in your playlist, and the data it has based on your like/dislike history to find new music for you. Paying users also get access to new features before the general public (think of it as google labs). Some of their latest new features are radio-by-tag and last.fm scrobbling.
So there you have it. Hopefully this puts to rest some of the misinformation swirling around these streaming services and provides you with a clear picture of what each service offer sso that, if you so choose, you can pay for the service that gives you the most bang for your buck. I chose Grooveshark and haven’t looked back. Happy streaming!
