Streaming has become one of the most popular ways to listen to music or watch videos. These days, you can not only stream music but also stream movies, television shows, and videos of live concerts or events. Music streaming has changed the way you listen to music. Instead of buying CDs, you can stream your favorites and latest songs to your smartphones, iPod, and other devices. Spotify and Deezer are two of the most popular and widely used music streaming services out there.

What is Spotify?

Spotify is arguably one of the world’s most popular music streaming platforms out there. Spotify is a digital music and media services provider that gives you instant access to over 70 million songs which you can stream directly into your mobile devices. It is a fantastic platform for avid music lovers and casual listeners alike and on top of it, it nurtures lots of artists too. Spotify was the brainchild of Swedish entrepreneur Daniel Ek who partnered with Swedish engineer Martin Lorentzon to work on an idea which would become the world’s largest online source of music and podcasts. Today, Spotify commands roughly over fifty percent of the music streaming market. As of 2021, Spotify has over 365 million active monthly users including 165 million premium members.

What is Deezer?

Deezer is a French on-demand music streaming service that promotes playlists created by its own editors, outside labels including Sony Music, Universal Music Group, and others. Deezer was once the second biggest music streaming platform after Spotify but the service has started to lose significant market traction after the emergence of other players like Apple Music, Amazon Music, Tidal, YouTube Music, and so on. Deezer is a well-rounded on-demand music streaming service that gives access to a massive library of over 70 million licensed tracks and 30,000+ radio channels right at your fingertips. Like other major streaming services, Deezer is a subscription based service that offers multiple pricing plans that allow you to access CD-quality streams. Since it’s a French music streaming service, a lot of tracks from several albums cannot be played in the U.S. 

Difference between Spotify and Deezer

Music Discovery

 – Both the music streaming platforms are great for music discovery since they cover the same amount of services and include most of the songs you’re looking for. Spotify has this extremely popular Discover Weekly playlist that contains songs and tracks from your favorite artists and genres you usually listen to. Based on your listening habits, it created daily mixes for you. Deezer also has a Discovery playlist which is updated every Monday. So, Deezer does it well too but not at the same strength as Spotify.

Interface

– Spotify has kind of a dark mode by default which looks cooler compared to the Deezer’s white-themed interface. This is just a small thing which does not really affect the user experience of navigating around the app. When it comes to user interface, both are quite similar in many ways and they know what design works best with music listeners and they have similar navigations at the bottom. Spotify, however, is a little well organized and intuitive.

Audio Quality 

– The free tier of Spotify streams at a low bitrate of 96 kbps by default, but you can bump it up to a max 160 kbps, with each bit essentially a piece of the song. With the premium subscription, both the platforms ditch ads entirely and allow streaming up to 320 kbps. Both also allow you to stream at low bitrate to save data. Deezer, however, has the HiFi plan which offers CD-quality music at a bitrate of 1,411 kbps for high-quality FLAC audio files.

Spotify vs. Deezer: Comparison Chart

Summary

Well, when it comes to music discovery and you look at the free and premium offerings of both the streaming platforms, they are quite similar and you can discover as much music as you can with the free apps on each platform but you’re restricted by ads and skips. So, Spotify is a straight up winner when it comes to music and music discovery. However, when it comes to payout, Spotify has one of the lowest per stream royalty rates of all the major music streaming platforms out there. Deezer pays a little better though, but not significantly enough of what Spotify pays.

Does Deezer have better quality?

While the premium plan of Deezer maxes out at 320 kbps, same as Spotify, Deezer does have the HiFi plan which offers CD-quality music at 1,411 kbps. So, Deezer does have an edge over Spotify when it comes to streaming quality.

Which music streaming service is best?

Spotify is probably the world’s number one on-demand music streaming platform out there, but there are other major players that are thriving to take on the throne, like Apple Music, Tidal, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, and so on.

Which is best music app?

Overall, Spotify is the most popular and widely used music stream applications with the best music discovery algorithms and the slickest user interface.

How many songs does Deezer have?

Deezer gives access to a massive library of over 70 million licensed tracks and 30,000+ radio channels.

Is there anything better than Spotify?

Spotify has its downsides too – lowest per stream royalty rates, obnoxious ads, missing and unavailable albums, etc. Apple Music has the best per stream royalty rates compared to other major streaming services, including Spotify.

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