If music is your life, chances are that you are familiar with SoundCloud and Spotify. The two gigantic streaming platforms have been around for a while, each of which has loyal fans throughout the world. It cannot be denied that SoundCloud and Spotify are excellent. But when you have to choose one, you need to know SoundCloud vs Spotify comparison.
It might be a little difficult to say that one platform is better than another. Each platform comes with a different experience and you may have different preferences of a good music streaming platform. But head-to-head comparison helps you make a decision so that it will be easier to choose one for your daily dose of music.
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More about SoundCloud
SoundCloud is an audio platform that accommodates artists and musicians to keep up with their music and tracks. This open platform is where creators and listeners are connected by music. SoundCloud has more than 190 million tracks. There are also 20 million creators coming from 190 countries.
To enjoy the features, you can sign up to SoundCloud. Download the app and sign up from your mobile phone by providing email address and password. Once you sign up, there are some features to enjoy such as listening to playlists whenever and wherever you want. You can also reply to other’s comments about your music after uploading a track.
There are several subscription types on SoundCloud. While listeners can enjoy the tracks for free, you can also upgrade to SoundCloud Go that enables you to get full SoundCloud catalog. This subscription also lets you listen to the music offline and ad-free.
More about Spotify
Spotify is a music streaming platform that has been launched since 2008. The music platform provides you with millions of tracks from major and minor record labels and lets you stream the music anywhere and anytime. In addition, Spotify also allows you to consume podcasts.
The music streaming activity is completely legal so that you don’t need to worry about the rights. Spotify has licensed tracks to its music library so that the users can stream and enjoy the tracks available in the library. You may choose either to listen to the entire albums or curated playlists.
About subscription, Spotify comes with Spotify Free and Premium. The free version allows you to enjoy streaming music without being charged. But if you want to improve your experience when using this platform, you can migrate to Spotify Premium and enjoy the features.
Comparing SoundCloud vs Spotify Head-to-Head
When it comes to comparing two music streaming platforms, there should be several determining aspects. Here, we are going to compare the audio quality and music library, platform, music discoverability, and some other aspects. Be sure you read the whole comparison below so that you really know which platform is better for you.
1. Audio Quality and Library
Music library refers to track collections owned by each platform. The more music library it has, the more you can enjoy. Currently, SoundCloud has over 125 million songs uploaded by its users. The track uploaded by the artists will be converted to 128kbps to enable the streaming system. Compared to other platforms, this is considered low.
Currently, the platform also launched SoundCloud Go which aims to compete with other music streaming apps such as Spotify and Apple Music. The users can enjoy the service for free, or they can cost $10 per month if you want to upgrade to Premium account.
On the other hand, Spotify offers 30 million music in its library. Premium account users who pay $9.99 per month can enjoy unlimited access to this library as well as listen to the albums even before they are launched. Premium account also enables you to cache songs to play offline. While Spotify free delivers audio at 160Kbps, Premium account users can enjoy audio quality up to 320Kbps.
2. Music Discoverability
A good music platform must offer easy music discoverability. SoundCloud which comes with user-generated content enables you to sort out music by the artists. You can easily hear music, remixes, or podcasts from independent artists. You can easily discover talented indie artists in SoundCloud, a feature that is hardly found in Spotify.
Meanwhile, Spotify comes with a wide range of curated playlists which are sorted by popularity, genre, mood, and others. The feature lets you listen to playlists according to your favorite genre and it will collect songs with the meant genre. If you don’t want them to be in your playlist, simply remove the songs from it. You can also add any song to the library.
Spotify also offers Discover Weekly playlist, in which it contains any music of your favorite. Spotify will figure out your taste and give you 30 fresh songs every week. This is surely a feature you can enjoy in Spotify.
3. Platform
Both Spotify and SoundCloud are available for smartphone and desktop. SoundCloud delivers 2 mobile apps, namely SoundCloud and SoundCloud Pulse. The first mentioned is intended for music streaming while the second one is released for creators.
Spotify is also available on Android and iOS mobile phones. But you can easily access this application on PC, Mac, game console, as well as a web browser.
4. Sharing feature
In general, SoundCloud is a music streaming platform that enables you to share your own track or audio content with listeners. To help you get engaging experience, SoundCloud offers likes, comments, and reposts on its platform.
Meanwhile, Spotify combines music streaming platforms and playlist creation. It also enables you to share with other social networks. Spotify lets you discover playlists and tracks in their library. In other words, Spotify focuses on music streaming instead of sharing your own tracks.
Which one is better? It depends on your preferences. If you love to listen to the tracks and discover new playlists, then Spotify is much more recommended. But if you are an independent artist who needs to share your audio content or want to discover unique songs, SoundCloud is the one to go. Now that you know SoundCloud vs Spotify comparison, it is easier to choose one that suits you best.
