Spotify, Musi, Pandora, Apple Music, SoundCloud; there’s a never-ending list of apps to stream your music from. Personally, I regularly use Musi and Spotify. I’ve been using these two platforms since middle school, and still use them both. I use each for a different reason, but my preference still lies with Spotify.

Spotify is a digital music, podcast, and video service including a variety of features. You can make playlists, including collaborative playlists that you can develop with your friends. Spotify is a more social music-streaming platform. The social aspects of the app makes it even more enjoyable. You can follow your friends, and make collaborative playlists with them. Also, you can see what your friends are listening to. A bit creepy, but still a cool feature. 

Through Spotify, you can view and listen to all public playlists. The differently-themed playlists people make on Spotify make it quite a unique platform. By ‘liking’ these playlists, they are saved to your library. The creator of the playlist can see how many likes their playlist gets, but not who likes them. Personally, I think it’s really validating to have likes on your playlists.

If you pay for Spotify Premium, which is $9.99 a month, you get the full version of Spotify. Spotify Premium allows you to download music, listen without ads, play any song, and have unlimited skips. With Premium, you can also enjoy a Group Session. This allows you to simultaneously listen to music with other Spotify Premium users. I’ve never had Spotify premium, but it seems like a great deal. 

Spotify, especially Spotify Premium, has a great amount of fun features. But, arguably the best features of Spotify are found on third-party websites. These websites connect to your account and do everything from roasting your Spotify (Judge my Spotify), to showing you a mesmerising kaleidoscope show that plays along with your music (Kaleidosync).

Unfortunately, the free version of Spotify isn’t all that great.

“With the Spotify free plan, you can access all playlists, discover new music and share tunes with friends. You can also play any playlist, album, or artist but only while in Shuffle Play mode,” said Adrian Willings.

The free version of Spotify inserts advertisements between songs. Some days it seems like after every single song there’s 30 minutes of ads, some days it seems like I go hours without one advertisement. I don’t really mind advertisements, but I do mind when the same ad plays over, and over again, which is what usually happens. Usually after a couple songs I can always count on hearing the same string of advertisements forcing me to listen to snippets of Ed Sheeran’s new music.

Another aspect of the free version that bothers me is the forced shuffle-play. It’s not nearly as aggravating as the repetitious advertisements, but sometimes I just want to hear a specific song. When I just can’t wait to listen to a certain song, I use Musi.

“Musi lets you bookmark and organize your favourite music videos, build playlists, share with friends, and more.” says their page on the Apple App Store.  “Musi can also stream onto any AirPlay enabled device. Best of all? IT’S FREE!” 

Musi basically allows you to make playlists from videos available on YouTube. I think of it as the same as listening to music on YouTube. The only difference is you don’t have to wait for the “Skip Ad” button, and you can turn off your phone while the video plays. There are advertisements, but they play on your screen. You can easily avoid them by exiting the app. 

With Musi, you can choose any song you want on mobile, and there’s an unlimited number of skips. You can also share playlists with friends through a link. Unfortunately, it doesn’t include many of the features that make me an avid Spotify user, which is why it’s my second choice. 

Though I get much less annoyed with Musi, I still prefer Spotify over Musi. The layout of Spotify is much more visually appealing, and it’s easier to use. Spotify also makes playlists for you; I can listen to my “On Repeat” anytime. Plus, the repetitive advertisements are always worth it when Spotify wrapped season comes around.  

With Musi, the only social features are sharing playlist links with your friends. Spotify allows you to see what your friends are listening to, while they’re listening to it. Again, creepy, but it’s fun to check up on your friends. 

Musi is appealing for its functionality and lack of advertisements between songs, but Spotify is just a better app.