Which Is the Best Music Streaming Service in India
Oct. 8, 2020We did apoll on our Twitterand it shows that users have started to shift to streaming services instead of downloading music locally, all thanks to a widespread and affordable Internet connection (read: Reliance Jio) now available across the country.
So, we thought it would be a great idea to see how all of the streaming services in India, including JioSaavn, Spotify, Gaana, Apple Music, Amazon Prime Music, YouTube Music, and Wynk Music compare against one another. We pit these streaming services based on five different criteria, so check it out:
List of Best Music Streaming Services in India
Recently, Spotifyresolved its dispute with Warner Music Group, Shemaroo, and one of the largest music labels in India, Saregama. As a result, Spotify has considerably closed the gap in India and now from Bollywood music to international tracks, almost everything is available. Spotify does not put a number to its catalog size in India, but going by the estimates, it’s roughly around 40-50 million songs.
Moving to the UI, I love the clean and modern interface of Spotify, which is regularly updated to include new features and elements. It features darker aesthetics,neatly laid out playlists, granular settings, and playback controls. The looping videos that appear in some tracks is cool but not favored by all.
Other than that, features like curated playlists, collaborative playlists, private listening mode, the ability tocast music on any device, view song credits, and a lot more. Last but not the least, Spotify has also signed up a ton of partners, making integrations for Instagram Stories, Google Maps, Samsung devices available to its users. You can check out thetop tips & tricks for Spotifyif you’ve recently made the switch right here.
Pros
Cons
Pricing:Ad-supported Free tier, Rs. 59/month for students, Rs. 119/month for individuals, Rs. 149/month for two accounts (Duo), Rs. 179/month for 6 accounts (Family plan)
Check Out Spotify
JioSaavn features aclean and likable user interface. It improves on Saavn’s previous UI and makes it simply better – with playlist, history, downloads, and everything else accessible easily. One of the biggest music streaming platforms in India, JioSaavn retains most of the features from Saavn and builds upon the same with new forms of content.
Pros
Cons
Pricing:Free, Rs. 99/month, Rs. 399/year (effectively Rs. 33/month)
Check Out JioSaavn
Apple Music does not figure in the market numbers, but it’s a solid music streaming service and one that’s constantly improving especially in India. Its personalized recommendations, classic Apple UI, and a huge catalog ofover 70 million songs(probably the largest) make Apple Music a strong contender on this list.
On top of that, Apple Music has started offering3 months free trial in Indiawhich is just amazing. Next, Apple Music offers up to 256 kbps streaming and its quality is quite comparable to other services.
As far as the UI is concerned, Apple Music boasts a completely all-white UI, with not much clutter and random options here and there. There’s anApple-like simplicity to the serviceand it’s the perfect app for both iOS and Android users. In the past few months, the Apple Music app on Android has significantly improved and now it also offers a web player toowhich is in beta.
Apart from the neat layout and massive music collection, Apple Music has been known to sport a myriad of cool features. Itsdaily recommendations, mixes, music video playlists, Beats 1 radio, along with news and sports content are surely some of the best. The service also offers Siri and Apple Watch integration for easier control over your playback.
Pros
Cons
Pricing:Free trial for 3 months, Rs. 49/month for students, Rs. 99/month for individuals, Rs. 149/month for six users (Family plan)
Check Out Apple Music
Coming to YouTube Music, itpossibly has the biggest music catalog& there’s a simple reason for it. The service not just brings along the entirety of Google Play Music’s over 35 million song collection, but also gives you the power of YouTube. You can search for and play live performances, remixes, covers, and other beautiful renditions of any song that you like.
I mean, YouTube is vast and it simply makes it difficult for us to put an exact number out there for its song collection but it’s huge. YouTube Music can be seen as a service mainly for users who love the energy oflive performances, coversby up-and-coming artists with originals also in tow.
In terms of sound quality, YouTube Music offers up to256 kbps streamingwhich is pretty good. Other than that, YouTube Music has a major benefit when compared to all other music streaming platforms and it’s really underrated. We consume a lot of music on YouTube so the recommendations on there are already tweaked to our tastes.
This means when you power up YouTube Music, you don’t really need to provide it any info about which artists you like or not. Italready knows your preferencesand I love that. YouTube Music offers you the ability to switch between audio/video playback seamlessly, enjoy live concerts, remixes, and covers too. My favorite feature, however, will have to be the offline mixtape, which when activated, saves up to 100 tracks to the device based on your liking.
Pros
Cons
Check Out YouTube Music
That said, Gaana lags behind their fiercest rivals by a huge margin, with justover 35 million songsunder its catalog. A large chunk of their library, especially western music, is missing for this very reason. However, we played some top Billboard top 10 songs and it had all of them.
Coming to the UI and music-playing experience, I found the player screen looks a bit cluttered (even though it has lyrics upfront). Also, theapp is packed with featuresso one might feel overwhelmed. In addition, Gaana supports the highest music playback up to 320kbps which is pretty great.
To sum up, Gaana is the largest music streaming player in India and recently, it got a facelift withAI algorithms for better recommendations, as well as discovery. Gaana also packs features such as lyrics on screen (customizable), dark mode, voice search, and more for the ease of its users.
My favorite feature will, however, have to be the regularly updated ‘For You’ sectionthat extends your playlists based on your music taste. It’s quite resemblant to a feature I love Spotify for and that’s called Daily Mixes.
Pros
Cons
Pricing:Ad-supported Free tier, Rs. 149/year for students, Rs. 99/month for individuals, Rs. 199/month for three months, Rs. 399/year
Check Out Gaana
Similar to other music streaming services, Amazon Prime Music offers up to 256 kbps streaming and the sound quality is quite good. That said, I’m not the biggest fan of Amazon Prime Music’sold-ish and clunky design. It feels like you’re using an app developed in the last decade. Sure, there are plenty of modern features and has support for Alexa too, but the UI is generally ancient.
Pros
Cons
Check Out Amazon Prime Music
The Airtel-owned music streaming service, Wynk Music has steadily improved its services and now ranks at the 3rd spot in India with a 15% market share. Wynk Music houses over 10 million songs but you wouldfind almost all Bollywood and regional numbers. The app and the web player has been significantly improved since the last time I used the service.
That said, keep in mind, Wynk Music has a free tier, but it’s ad-supported, even for Airtel users. If you want no ads then you will have to subscribe to the premium plan which costsRs. 29 per month for Airtel usersand Rs. 99 for users from other carriers. In addition, you will also get an unlimited download option which is great.
As for the sound quality, Wynk Music offers a maximumbitrate of up to 320kbpswhich is on par with other top services. All in all, I would say, Wynk Music is a great music streaming service for users who love Bollywood and regional music in India.
Pros
Cons
Pricing:Ad-supported Free tier, Rs. 29/month and Rs. 299/year for Airtel users; Rs. 99/month for other users
Check Out Wynk Music
Having learned how all of the major music streaming services available in India compare, here’s a detailed roundup (with additional info) of their pricing, sound quality, and overall comparison.
If you are looking for a free music app in India then I would recommend Wynk Music because it offers offline listening too. Other good options are of course JioSaavn and Gaana.
If you are someone who wants to enjoy high-fidelity music without any compression then Tidal is far better than Spotify. It offers a maximum lossless bitrate of 1411kbps which is just out of the world. That said, keep in mind, Tidal is officially not available in India. Apart from that, in terms of song discovery, Apple Music is somewhat closer to Spotify.
Well, that’s about everything you need to know about some of the most popular music streaming services available in India. It’s really tough to pick the best of the lot, but I personally prefer Spotify for its massive music collection, podcasts, and smart playlists. And now that Spotify has resolved most of its issues in India, it has become the perfect music app for me.
So, which of the aforementioned music streaming services are you currently using and why? If you were to make a switch, which service would you pick? Do let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
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