Nora Kurtz, Editor-in-Chief

When it comes to music streaming, two platforms clearly dominate: Spotify and Apple Music, which are also the most used streaming services globally. According to Soundcharts, Spotify holds a commanding 31% share of music subscribers, compared to Apple Music’s 15%. Although both are great options, Spotify consistently comes out on top. 

One of Spotify’s biggest strengths is personalization. The platform analyzes your listening habits and puts together dynamic playlists such as “Daily Mix,” combining songs you already love with new music that perfectly matches your taste. Apple Music lacks this feature, focusing more on curated playlists. 

Spotify also excels at fostering a social listening experience. Collaborative playlists allow multiple users to build playlists together, which is perfect for parties, road trips or simply sharing music tastes with friends. A newer addition to Spotify is the Jam feature, which users have grown to love. It allows two or more people to listen to music simultaneously and add to a live shared playlist, enhancing listening in a group setting. In comparison, Apple Music’s social features are much more limited and less interactive. Users can follow friends and view what they are listening to, but the experience lacks real-time playlist collaboration.

In addition to being a great platform for music lovers, Spotify also delivers for audio and podcast enthusiasts alike. Spotify offers podcasts, audiobooks and a vast selection of music available for streaming all in the app. Apple Music, on the other hand, separates audiobooks and podcasts into a different application, Audible, making the user experience less streamlined and straightforward. 

You can’t talk about Spotify without mentioning the highly anticipated Spotify Wrapped. Every December, Instagram and Snapchat stories are flooded with Spotify Wrapped recaps, showcasing users’ top artists, songs and their overall listening habits from the past year. Frankly, there’s no more embarrassing time to be alive as an Apple Music user. While Apple Music has tried to keep up with its own version, Apple Music Replay, it falls short in comparison. It ultimately fails to provide the same depth, creativity and interactive flair that makes Spotify Wrapped such an iconic yearly event. This is mostly because Spotify Wrapped includes a whole visual experience with customized songs, and a perfect opportunity to screenshot your stats at the end, while Apple Music Replay is much more bland and less personal to your habits. 

Beyond all of this, however, Spotify is a much more budget-friendly streaming app than most competitors. Unlike Apple Music, which only offers a free trial, Spotify offers a free version that allows users to stream their favorite music for free with just a few ads. While the free version comes with some limitations such as a limited amount of skips, it gives all users the ability to explore the platform before committing to a Premium plan. Apple Music’s lack of an endless free option makes it inaccessible to more casual listeners.

Whether looking to discover new music, create collaborative playlists with friends or enjoy an extensive music, podcast and audiobook library, Spotify has your back. For anyone seeking the best music streaming service available, Spotify is undoubtedly the most sensible decision.

Grace Huggins, A&E Editor

As the two most popular music streaming platforms, Apple Music and Spotify dominate world culture today. But the debate among friends, colleagues and family of which one is better remains a constant battle. With so many features from both platforms, they are both great options when looking to escape into the world of music. However, Apple Music is undoubtedly the top contender between the two. 

While Spotify offers its free version of the app, it includes many ads that interrupt the listening experience. It also restricts the number of skips a listener can have and sometimes the ability to play certain songs without queuing up the whole playlist along with it. This seriously affects the overall listening experience. Even though Apple Music has no free option, it still remains more budget friendly compared to Spotify Premium. The individual plan for Apple Music is $10.99 per month while Spotify is $11.99 per month. Similarly, the Apple Music family plan costs $16.99 while the Spotify family plan costs $19.99 per month. Spotify does have a duo plan which comes in at $16.99, but when compared to the Apple Music family plan that can include up to six people, it falls incredibly short. 

The best feature of Apple Music, however, is making and editing playlists. It is extremely easy to create a playlist and add whatever songs interest you. You can also rearrange the order of the songs within the playlist once it is created along with changing the name and picture of the playlist. Making a playlist hidden is also an option if you are not interested in having other people listen to your recent music habits. I find that Spotify is hard to navigate leading Apple Music to be much simpler. 

The search feature allows listeners to browse through different genres of music that all have multiple playlists offering a large variety to choose from. With genres including pop, country, rock and many more, it is easy to pick your favorite and enjoy the new and old music from that genre or even adventure into new music taste. Each genre also includes the recent releases in their respective categories along with a playlist for the most popular artists during the time. There is also an option to search by decade if you prefer to listen to a certain period of music.  

Apple Music also offers the option to listen to radio stations along with their plentiful variety of artists and playlists. This feature allows the listeners to access most radio stations without a restriction on where they are located. This means that even when traveling away from the Boston area you still have access to your favorite local radio stations. 

While many people look forward to the Spotify Wrapped each year, there is also a similar experience on Apple Music called Apple Music Replay. Personally, I find that the Replay is better than Wrapped. On Apple Music Replay, listeners can view their top artists, top songs, top albums and top playlists. Apple Music also allows its listeners to view their past replays from the home page whenever whereas on Spotify, it is harder to relive the wrapped experience once the video leaves the homepage. Going back to past years and looking through your music taste is a fun way to reflect on your past music taste but with Spotify, you are no longer able to reflect in the same way. 

When it comes to the treatment of the artists, Apple Music pays their artists significantly better than Spotify does. Apple Music has an average of $0.01 per stream. Spotify only has an average of $0.003-$0.005 per stream. While that may not seem like a lot, when compared to the thousandth stream, Apple Music pays about $7.00 while Spotify only pays about $3.00. Using your scene of morals alone, Apple Music would obviously be the better choice if you want to support your favorite artist and allow them to get a fair cut when you listen to their music. 

Apple Music is the better option for anyone who is looking to stream music all the time and is worth every penny. The user friendly features make this app an effortless experience to drift away and enjoy a few hours of peaceful music to suit any mood you might be in.