Music is one of the most-used functions of Android phones, so use a music service that fits your music and your life.
Music is the heartbeat of our lives. It amps us up before a big test or a cardio workout. It soothes us through grief and loss. It lulls us to sleep at night, and it wakes us back up in the morning. Music is fundamental, and it is still one of the core functions of our phones, our smart speakers like , and our computers. And because we expect our music to follow us from device to device, from home to car to work to cafe, having a music streaming service that fits your life and your lifestyle is important.
We're here to help you make sure that the music service you give your money to is the best one for you.
There are several music streaming services out there, but we're going to focus on the five music streaming services that are available to much of the world. Because may replace down the line, it has been included so that we can measure the service and its features against the rest of the pack as it continues to develop and roll out to more regions, even though it's only available in right now.
Best for Students: Spotify
If you're a college student looking to make your dollar go further for streaming, it's damn near impossible to beat the $4.99/month bundle of Spotify Premium for Students and basic (commercial-supported) . Spotify is also easy to pull up on school computers via its web client, so that you can listen while you're coding in the lab or pretending to get an essay done in the library.
Best for music hoarders: Google Play Music
Google Play Music's subscription library might not be quite as big as Deezer or Tidal, but Google Play Music doesn't have a limit on how many songs from the subscription library you can add to your library. It also has a pocket ace in its music locker service: Google Play Music allows users to upload up to 50,000 songs — or 100,000 if you purchased a Samsung Galaxy S8 last year — and stream their songs back anywhere they can access their Google account for free.
Whether you've ripped that out-of-print, impossible-to-find concert album that beats the pants off the pale studio version offered in the subscription catalogs, remixed your own music, or gotten ahold of music that's not available commercially, the music locker on Google Play Music is invaluable. This is especially true for subscription users that can mix that uploaded music with subscription catalog songs and albums.
Google Play Music comes with YouTube Music for $9.99/month, but do yourself a favor and upgrade to . For $11.99/month, you get Google Play Music, and premium features on YouTube Music, YouTube, YouTube Kids, YouTube Gaming, and YouTube VR.
Best audio quality: Tidal
Tidal may seem a bit pretentious or downright snobby at times, but when it comes to quality music in a quality experience, Tidal's the service for you. It doesn't try to overload its service with bells and whistles, but that means the app is slimmer, smoother, and simpler.
Tidal having two tiers of premium service can be a little confusing for a service based around extreme audio quality, but it also offers the largest selection of discounts and is the only service to offer a military discount.
Best for device-hoppers: Spotify
may have a more clean handoff system between devices so that you can keep and manage a single queue while hopping from platform to platform, and it also allows you to easily play Spotify back on thousands of different connected devices and platforms using the same simple UI.
Spotify offers an easy-to-use web client that doesn't require any downloads or installations for you to easily use on a managed computer at work or school, but there's also a desktop client available for more intense library management and offline playback. While Spotify also doesn't have a device limit for streaming, its 3-device, 3,333-song limit on offline content can spell trouble for those who download larger sections of their library for long trips or mobile data saving.
Best value: YouTube Premium
Twelve bucks a month for a robust, stable music player with a built-in music locker service (Google Play Music), the best experience on the most popular video platform in the world (YouTube), and a brand-new but little bit buggy music service built atop the biggest music catalog in the world, including fan content and non-commercially-available music (YouTube Music)? Yeah, sign me up. YouTube Premium is a video subscription that removes ads and unlocks premium features on six apps: Google Play Music, YouTube, YouTube Music, YouTube Kids, YouTube Gaming, And YouTube VR. Name another subscription with that kind of value. No, really, I'll wait.
Once upon a time, you could subscribe to YouTube, YouTube Music, or Google Play Music and get access to premium service on all of them, but recent changes to Google's pricing policies have changed things. Pay for YouTube Music, and you just get YouTube Music. Pay for Google Play Music, you get Google Play Music and YouTube Music. Pay for YouTube Premium, and you still get everything.
What's your favorite?
Let us know what your favorite streaming music service is, and why!
Updated August 2018: This guide has been updated with the newest policy and pricing updates from YouTube Music.