5 Downsides Of Choosing Spotify Over Apple Music

If you’d like to stream music online, you might consider Apple Music or Spotify. These two stand out as possible options because they’re among the major music streaming services available as of this writing. When comparing Apple Music and Spotify head-to-head, it’s a tight race as they offer nearly the same value proposition – a wide catalog of music, cross-platform support across mobile and desktop apps, music discovery features, and playlists, to name a few.

Spotify has built a massive fan base of over 700 million users, thanks to its free subscription tier, excellent music discovery, social features, and availability across practically every platform. In addition to that, Spotify offers plenty of features that enhance your listening experience. If you haven’t made up your mind yet, you might be leaning toward Spotify because of its free tier at a time when streaming services are hiking prices, or its handy features, like Spotify Connect and content variety, which includes audiobooks and podcasts.

But while Spotify has its advantages over Apple Music, the latter isn’t totally behind in all the areas that matter in a music streaming platform. By choosing Spotify over Apple Music, you should be ready to make certain compromises as a music listener. If you’re considering Spotify — or already use it as your go-to music streaming app and wonder what you might be missing — here are the biggest areas where Apple Music has the edge.

Although Spotify offers a free tier for those who don’t mind a limited version of the service, if you decide to upgrade, you’ll actually pay more money compared with Apple Music. Yes, while Apple is typically famous for its premium price tags on products, colloquially known as the Apple tax, the company’s flagship streaming service is actually cheaper than Spotify. As of this writing, a Spotify Premium plan costs $12.99 a month for an individual account.

In comparison, Apple Music’s Individual plan will set you back $11.99/month. That’s $1 cheaper than Spotify’s Premium Individual plan, which might not seem like much, but stretch that out over a year or two, and the savings add up. The Family plan on Apple Music will also save you some cash. An Apple Music Family plan costs $19.99/month, $2 less than Spotify’s Premium plan for family users. And since both platforms offer six seats per family plan, Apple Music is simply the better value across the board.

Beyond just the standalone plans, if you’re deep into Apple’s ecosystem, you can subscribe to Apple One, which includes Apple TV, Apple Music, iCloud+, and Apple Arcade. For just $19.95/month for an Individual plan or $27.95 for a Family plan, Apple One saves you more cash than subscribing to the mentioned services individually.

Another area where you’ll make a compromise if you choose Spotify over Apple Music is audio quality. This is still the case despite Spotify adding lossless streaming to its service in 2025. As they say, the devil is in the details, and that statement rings true for Spotify’s lossless streaming support. Spotify offers lossless streaming quality up to 24-bit/44.1 kHz, a massive improvement over the company’s previous 320 kbps limit.

Still, the new quality falls short of Apple Music’s lossless streaming playback, which offers up to 24-bit/192 kHz. Additionally, Apple Music offers two lossless streaming options: 24-bit Lossless and Hi-Res Lossless. The first option tops out at 24-bit/48 kHz, while the second offers Apple Music’s maximum 24-bit/192 kHz, and both are better than Spotify’s current 24-bit/44.1 kHz Lossless quality. To make it even worse, you might not yet have access to Spotify’s 24-bit/44.1 kHz Lossless quality, depending on where you live.

As of August 2026, lossless quality is available in only 50 markets, including the U.S., U.K., Australia, the Netherlands, Japan, and Portugal, while Spotify’s streaming service is available in 184 markets. In addition to higher streaming quality, Apple Music offers Spatial Audio with Dolby Atmos support on some tracks in its catalog for an immersive listening experience. In contrast, Spotify doesn’t support Dolby Atmos. But Spotify isn’t alone in missing out on Dolby Atmos. As of this writing, only a handful of streaming services do, including Tidal and Amazon Music.

Spotify’s app offers radio-style features, such as artist, song, and album radio. Apple Music also offers the same experience under the name “stations.” But one feature you’ll definitely miss out on when you switch from Apple Music to Spotify is traditional-style radio. On Apple Music, there are six live radio stations available. They include Apple Music 1, Apple Music Hits, Apple Music Chill, Apple Music Country, Apple Music Club, and Apple Música Uno.

These radio stations play a variety of music and are live 24/7, so if you’d like to listen to songs without any personalization or without the burden of selection, you can tune in at any time. The stations feature traditional-style radio with scheduled programming. If you head over to the Radio tab on mobile, you’ll see the stations under the On Air Now section, with a brief description of what’s currently playing.

Furthermore, there are live radio stations from local and international broadcasters on Apple Music that you can listen to, such as BBC Radio 1 and Radio Capital. If you love the old-school radio experience, you’ll have to go with Apple Music. Since live radio shows aren’t curated based on your taste, they can also be a great chance to discover new music.

Spotify started as a dedicated platform for music streaming. Don’t be mistaken, though; Spotify is still a music streaming service. However, in recent years, we’ve seen the platform evolve into more than just a music streaming service. Spotify has expanded its content to offer podcasts and audiobooks, which have become a bigger part of the platform. Now, its apps offer dedicated buttons on the homepage for audiobooks and podcasts, in addition to music, and you’ll also see that variety in other parts of the app, like search results.

That makes it great for someone who’d like everything in one place. But if your primary goal is streaming music, then you might find Spotify less focused and the interface cluttered with content you don’t need. If that’s you, then you’ll find Apple Music’s laser focus on music better. Apple Music has also gone the extra mile to offer a dedicated app for classical music, dubbed Apple Music Classical, which, if you’re a fan of the genre, you’ll appreciate even more.

And you don’t pay extra for Apple Music Classical as it’s included in your Apple Music subscription. Apple Music also hosts exclusive live performances featuring different artists and has music-dedicated shows featuring artists, producers, and other influential figures in the industry. It also offers DJ mixes, allowing you to enjoy curated sets from different DJs and discover new music.

Both Spotify and Apple Music let you play your local music files on their platforms, which is great if you have a library of music files you bought over the years. However, the experience isn’t the same on both platforms. Unfortunately, Spotify falls behind in this area, so if you decide to go with it over Apple Music, then you should be ready to make some compromises. With Spotify, you can only play local music files on the devices where they’re stored.

If you want to access those files on your other devices, you’ll need to store them locally on those devices as well, which is inconvenient. Spotify used to offer a way to sync local files across devices on the same network, but a Spotify Community FAQ states that the feature has been discontinued and may not work as expected. Apple Music offers a seamless experience, allowing you to upload local music files and sync them to your iCloud account, making them available to stream on all your devices without a fuss.