What's the Best Music Streaming Service of 2022? (It Depends on You)

The easiest and most convenient way to listen to music is to stream it. You can open an app or use your voice (via a smart assistant like Alexa, Google Home or Siri) to play basically any song by any artist, ever. It's really quite amazing.

There are quite a few music streaming services to choose from in 2022. Spotify and Apple Music continue to be the most popular, but there are other options like Pandora, Amazon Music, Tidal and Deezer (and that's just naming a few) that are excellent, too. So, if you haven't yet subscribed to a service (or if you're considering switching to a new one), how do you choose?

In the past, you could more easily separate music streaming services by superlatives — for example, Spotify had the biggest library of songs, Amazon Music was the most affordable (especially if bundled with Prime) and Tidal had by far the best selection of high-resolution tracks — but the truth is that these days most music streaming services are a lot more alike than they are different.

They all require a subscription fee to listen to ad-free music, but all these fees are now roughly the same (about $10/month). If you're willing to pay a little more, some of these streaming services now offer a lossless tier (which again are all priced similarly). Every service now has a vast catalog of music, so you'll likely find the songs you're looking for. And they all have pretty great apps, so the user experience won't be that much different between services.

That said, there still definitely are reasons to choose one music streaming service over another. In 2022, those reasons can be mostly narrowed down to these things:

The Factors to Consider

How will you listen to your music? You want to make sure that the hardware you already have — smartphone, headphones, speakers, wireless receivers — work well with the music streaming service you subscribe to. For example, you want to make sure your wireless speakers support Spotify Connect or AirPlay if you plan on subscribing to Spotify or Apple Music, respectively. Also, many of Apple's products work best with Apple Music; for example, you need an Apple Music subscription to use "Hey Siri" voice commands with a HomePod. And finally, for those considering a lossless streaming service, you also want to make sure that the headphones or speakers that you have are capable of playing those high-bitrate tracks properly.

Podcasts. If you plan on listening to a lot of podcasts then the music streaming service you subscribe to is vitally important for two reasons. First, not every music streaming service has podcasts; Apple Music doesn't have podcasts as Apple has designated a separate app, Apple Podcasts (no subscription required), for people to listen and discover podcasts. And second, not every podcast is available everywhere as some music streaming services have signed exclusive deals so that podcasts only appear on its platform. (This is the case with Spotify for popular podcasts like The Joe Rogan Experience, Armchair Expert and Call Her Daddy.

Family plan? It makes sense to use a music streaming service that your family (or friends) use as it makes sharing music more streamline and if somebody has a question or issue it's easier to solve. Also, if you and multiple family members go in on a family plan it can save you all money. Most services make it pretty easy for subscribers to upgrade plans and add family members. (However, many services have also added extra verification and security measures to make it more difficult to beat the system with a group of friends.)

Lossless and Master Quality tracks. And finally, not every music streaming service has lossless tracks. Spotify still doesn't support lossless tracks (but it eventually will when it launches Spotify HiFi) and neither does Pandora. And not every lossless streaming service has the same number (or same quality) of lossless tracks. For example, lossless audio is generally referred to as CD-quality audio (up to 1411kbps), but several services like Tidal HiFi have a large library Master Quality Authenticated certified tracks (up to 24bit/96kHz) that are much higher quality.

Free trial: If you're curious about a music streaming service, the best way to see if you actually like (or can notice the bump in sound quality) is to try it — and pretty much every streaming service offers a free trial. These free trials vary in length, from a week to a month, or sometimes you can get a really good deal for a small fee; Tidal is currently offering three months of its HiFi service for $1.

Why You Should Trust Us

We've been writing about and reviewing audio products — including speakers, headphones, earbuds and other audio components that run the gamut from consumer to hi-fi — for near-on a decade. We also have experience with all the below music streaming services as well as testing them on a wide variety of wireless speakers and headphones.

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