Alternative to Spotify

Alternative to Spotify
Table of contents

We bring you a compilation of the best free and legal alternatives to Spotify, so you don’t have to spend money to listen to streaming music.

In this list, we will include a description for each service as well as a link to its official website. In almost all cases, you will also have the option to download mobile apps, so you can enjoy the music you want from anywhere.

We will start with websites that aim to be an alternative, although you will see that they are not complete streaming services and may have some limitations. But don’t worry, further down we have those that pull music from YouTube, which may be more interesting and similar.

And as we always say at Xataka Basics, this is our list, but if you think we have left out a service you consider important, we invite you to tell us your alternatives in the comments section. This way, the rest of the readers can benefit from the knowledge of our community.

YouTube Music

Just like Spotify, it has a free version with ads, YouTube Music also allows you to listen to music without a subscription.

However, the same formula applies: you will have to listen to ads and won’t have many of the paid version’s features.

YouTube Music with ads lets you listen to podcasts, songs, and music videos. Podcasts also have the option to play in the background. For music, you have queue, repeat, and limited skips. It’s a very good alternative, with both mobile apps and a web version.

Bandcamp

Bandcamp is slowly becoming one of the most important music platforms on the Internet, where musicians of all genres create profiles and upload their albums for the public.

On this site, you can buy albums from your favorite artists in physical or digital format, buy merchandise, and follow as many artists as you like.

However, the platform also allows you to listen to music for free from all artists. No, you won’t be able to stream entire albums for free — in many cases, you can only listen to two or three tracks from each release — but it is perfect for previews, full albums, and discovering artists of specific genres through its tagging system.

Last.fm

Although this platform is best known for letting you track all your streaming stats, it also allows you to listen to music. Its design is outdated and not very polished, but it’s an interesting option for casual listening, with a powerful artist database and recommendations.

Soundcloud

This is a platform with 200 million tracks and 20 million artists from all over the world. You can access millions of tracks for free, although there is also a paid version with extras such as downloading music to listen offline or accessing the full catalog.

In any case, SoundCloud is famous because it specializes in emerging artists. It’s not so much a place to listen to the latest international releases as it is to discover the first songs from new creators, remixes, improvisations, and all kinds of mixes. You can also leave comments on each track.

Internet Archive

This is a worldwide famous platform known for archiving website history and other applications so they are never lost. However, it also has other multimedia content, including music and videos.

The music you’ll find here is different, since it’s free and copyright-free, so you won’t find big-name artists. However, you can find live music, and all the content on the site is completely free and legal.

Harmony Music

An Android app that also has versions for Windows and GNU/Linux. It’s open source and offers a Spotify alternative using YouTube videos as its music source, but with an interface designed to look like a music streaming service.

You can’t install it from the app store, and you will have to download its APK from Github. However, being open source ensures it is safe. As for features, it offers song caching, radio options, background listening, playlist creation, song importing, sound quality control, and much more.

ViMusic

Another app that lets you listen to YouTube videos as if it were a Spotify-style music streaming app.

In this case, it is compatible with Android Auto, so you can use it while driving.

This is also an open-source and completely free app. It has features such as creating playlists, browsing by groups and songs, exploring available albums, its own search engine, and the ability to organize music as you like. You can even download music to listen offline.

Audiomack

This is a much less known free platform where artists can upload their music. Here you will mostly find hip-hop, electronic music, and other urban styles. The free plan is simple and ad-supported, and if you want high-quality audio, equalizers, downloads, or no ads, you will need the premium plan.

Despite its limits, the service offers interesting features such as playlists, trending lists, and a powerful search engine to find tracks of your interest. You can create playlists and check out profiles to discover emerging artists.

Idagio

A streaming service focused on classical music. It’s paid, but has a free version with 2 million tracks that can give you hours and hours of listening. This free plan also includes the latest releases by major artists, personal collection, full track metadata, and mood-based playlists.

Jamendo

This is a music streaming platform focused on Creative Commons licensed music. This means that artists upload their works so you can listen for free, with the only condition being that you cannot use them for commercial purposes.

The service has what you want: genre playlists like paid platforms, the ability to create your own lists, mark favorite songs, or download them to your device. Just keep in mind you won’t find commercial musicians or big names here, just an alternative subculture of artists with a different philosophy towards the industry.

Radio Garden

Another free option is to listen to radio stations with music. They are not direct competitors to Spotify, but there are music-focused radio stations that can brighten your afternoon, and Radio Garden lets you listen to any station on your phone, encouraging exploration and discovery.

This service offers a world map, and you can browse it to find stations from any country you hover over. Many are music stations, allowing you to explore what’s playing right now anywhere in the world.

TuneIn Radio

And since we are talking about radio services, this is one of the most important. You will find a huge number of stations here, and there is even a dedicated music section to find stations that play music all day.

Keep in mind that the free version of the service includes ads. Also, while you will be able to listen to most stations, some are only available in the paid version.

MixCloud

Another streaming service based on radio stations, but with the unique feature of focusing on mixes created by professional DJs.

This means that in this case, the music is not chosen by an algorithm or just any DJ, but by real professionals.

It has a free version with ads, and you can also subscribe to DJs. Plus, there are stations for practically any music genre. The downside is that you can’t play specific songs on demand, and you can’t skip the ones you don’t like.

Musify

Another open-source mobile app that pulls music from YouTube so you can listen wherever you want on your phone. It includes features like playlist creation, high-quality audio, lyrics sync, and much more—all without paying a subscription and without ads.

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