Tidal vs Spotify: a music-lover's comparison

During the recent Joe Rogan backlash I decided to cast a vote with my wallet and end my Spotify subscription. This concluded a nearly decade-long relationship between Spotify and me; I was one of their first North American users. I vividly remember having to snipe an invite code from page 7 of a forum thread back in 2011 so I could join the U.S. beta.

2011-era Spotify was pretty fantastic. The UX was really smooth. There wasn’t a great way to “save” albums or tracks at first, which shifted my whole perspective on music streaming. They seemed to be saying we have everything—the whole world is your library. Just search for what you want to listen to. My previous streaming service had been Rhapsody, which was like a cursed, steam-powered iTunes, so just about anything was an improvement over that—and even Rhapsody was an improvement over ripping tracks from YouTube with sketchy freeware. Anyway, Spotify was the greatest thing I’d ever seen. I loved it. I told everyone about it. I gorged myself on music from every genre and culture.

In years since, Spotify has gone from a silky-smooth native app to an overengineered bundle of web-tech microservices that plays out for the user as a slower, blinkier version of what it used to be. It’s a shame, really. I guess if you go from 10 engineers to 1,000 you have to make some compromises. Still, I’ve greatly enjoyed using it. The novelty of having access to practically every song ever recorded has yet to totally wear off, and the algorithms that suggest new songs I might like occasionally spit out a solid-gold bop. So though I’ve been excited to test the waters and see what other services have to offer, I am sad to be leaving behind the Spotify era of my life.

After a brief and extremely unpleasant stint with Apple Music I finally signed up with Tidal, the service I now use. I’ve been with Tidal for a couple of months now. It’s an improvement over Spotify in some areas but has some catching up to do in others. That’s why you’re here. Let’s talk pros and cons.

User experience: Spotify wins

Spotify has the advantage of enormous market share in the streaming music space. It works with everything. Your car, your phone, your smart speaker, your smart fridge, your thermostat probably. If you get Spotify you won’t ever have to worry about which devices you can use it on.

Despite being noticeably more jittery than it used to be, Spotify still holds its own in the app usability category. Tidal’s interface is almost identical, though, so the transition isn’t hard.

Where Spotify really wins out is with Alexa-based smart speakers. You can’t ask Alexa to play your Tidal playlists. Period. Sorry. You’ve never been able to, and they don’t seem interested in fixing that. So if most of your music listening is mediated by an Amazon Echo, that’s something you’ll have to take into account. On the other hand, if your speaker supports Bluetooth or Airplay, you can cast whatever you like from your phone.

Anecdotally, Spotify is also better at understanding what you want from a voice command. Tidal is very insistent on not playing the Moana soundtrack for my kids when I ask it to.

Sound quality: Tidal wins (and it’s not close)

Blah blah blind test, most people can’t tell the difference between 320kbps and 1411kbps at a listen. But if you ask me, that’s not the point. No, I wouldn’t be able to tell you how many kilobits per second Soul Meets Body is playing at, even over relatively high-quality speakers. But the higher sound quality offered by Tidal, even just on the ten-dollar HiFi tier, makes a world of difference for ear fatigue over the course of an eight-hour workday. If you’ve always got music blasting like I do, your ears will thank you for the fourfold increase in quality.

I’m also getting more out of songs I thought I had used up. In re-listening to my library on Tidal I’ve noticed some brand-new details on several tracks, especially when high-tempo strums or out-of-phase soundwave interference are involved. It’s a small thing, but now I can’t imagine not having it.

Library: It’s a tie

Both Tidal and Spotify have 50+ million songs. It’d take you 300 years to listen to every song in either library. So, needless to say, getting your Taylor Swift fix won’t be a problem. But if your tastes run obscure and include a lot of remixes and B-sides, it might be worth scouting out each service before you sign up—some of the rarer stuff is liable to get left out on either side.

Both apps have mostly well-organized music libraries, though obscure artists with the same name sometimes get lumped together. My all-time favorite band Athlete has been broken up for years, yet both services have nearly given me a heart attack on separate occasions by announcing they’d released a new album. It’s not a new album from the real Athlete, it’s a new album from some Los Angeles alternative electro-folk producer who also calls themself Athlete. Yeah, I’m bitter. (Please come back, Athlete.)

Tidal may have some extra appeal for music nerds/historians, since it also tracks the producer, songwriter, mixing engineer, keyboardist, production team and so forth of each song. If you’re the kind of person who watches movie credits and says “Hey, that person also did lighting on Little Miss Sunshine,” you’ll have plenty of data to dig through on Tidal.

Recommendations: It’s a tie

Music recommendations aren’t great. This is an industry-wide malady. My standards are very low: I want to hear songs on my Discover playlist that are fun and good. And I never, ever want to hear a country song. Spotify’s Discover Weekly playlist used to be the highlight of my week, but it gradually devolved into samey alt-folk nonsense and tedious repetition week after week. Tidal’s been a modest improvement so far, but it also keeps pranking me with country songs. Hopefully it gets better over time.

Price: It’s a tie

Both apps have a free tier, so if you can’t be bothered to spend money on music you can get your ads from either. And the standard tier is 10 USD per month on either app, though Tidal also offers a $20 tier that purports to play authenticated master tracks at full quality. I haven’t tried the higher tier, but I’ve heard mixed reviews.

Tidal gives more of your subscription fee to the artists on their platform, though this really only matters for indie artists (and it’s still a pittance). Signed artists, with the exception of Grammy winners and Billboard Top 10 regulars, don’t see a cent of your money unless you go buy a T-shirt at one of their concerts. It’s not Tidal’s fault (or Spotify’s) though. Record labels are just parasites.

Overall: I’m liking Tidal, but you do you

As I’ve mentioned, I can’t imagine switching to a service that doesn’t offer lossless CD-quality audio. I listen to a lot of music. I want to feed my ears with the most nutritious, unprocessed tracks I can find. Still, there’s an argument to be made for Spotify if convenience is a bigger issue to you.

Switching from one service to another can take a few hours if you’ve built up a big library of playlists, like I have. But there are a few online services dedicated to transporting your saved tracks and playlists between any of 32 different streaming services, so if you can pony up a few bucks the process is pretty manageable.

There are other streaming services (Napster, Deezer, etc.) that I haven’t tried. If you have points to make in their favor, feel free to let me know. I won’t stand for any defenses of Apple Music, though. For the love of all that is good, protect your sanity and stay away from Apple Music.