If you in the midst of choosing which music streaming service is best for you, when comparing Spotify and Tidal, price is an important, but not the only, factor to consider. Spotify stands out with its flexible subscription options, offering individual, family, and student plans, each with its own unique benefits. In contrast, Tidal offers various subscription plans, too, but Tidal’s calling card is that it includes premium and hi-fi options, with the hi-fi plan providing access to lossless, hi-res audio. Spotify does not offer this … yet.
Spotify uses the Ogg Vorbis and AAC audio formats for streaming, delivering audio at varying bitrates. At the same time, Tidal’s hi-fi subscription offers lossless, CD-quality audio and hi-res audio files in FLAC and HiRes FLAC formats.
Supported devices also play a significant role in the decision-making process. Spotify is compatible with various devices, including smartphones, tablets, desktops, smart speakers, and gaming consoles. On the other hand, Tidal is also available on numerous platforms and devices, ensuring broad accessibility for its users.
By comparing these factors, one can make an informed decision based on their preferences and requirements.
Price
Spotify has two tiers of service for individual users. The free, ad-supported tier gives access to the entire library of Spotify content, but has restrictions on how you can interact with it and also has ads. The full-featured Spotify Premium plan currently costs $12 per month for new customers. Spotify also offers plans for two individuals for $17 per month, called Spotify Premium Duo, and a six-person family plan (with parental controls) for $20 per month. There’s also a student plan at just $6 per month.
Students can get an outstanding deal; a student Spotify premium plan entitles them to a free, ad-supported Hulu account. If you’ve never signed up for Spotify before, you can try Spotify Premium free for 30 days. Its paid plans let you download up to 10,000 songs for offline listening on up to five different devices. These plans include audiobook access. If you only want audiobooks, the cost is $10 per month.
Last year, Tidal updated its subscription pricing to simplify its offerings and better compete with rivals. The company discontinued its long-running HiFi and HiFi Plus plans, replacing them with new options that provide lossless audio, high-resolution FLAC, and Dolby Atmos Music. Notably, there is no longer a free plan available.
The new subscription options include an Individual plan for $11 per month, a Family plan for $17 per month (covering up to six family members), and a Student plan for $5.49 per month. Additionally, Tidal for DJs is available as a $9 per month add-on to the Individual plan.
With any of these subscriptions, you’ll have access to more than 110 million tracks in lossless audio, high-resolution FLAC, and Dolby Atmos. The ad-free service offers offline listening, personalized mixes, editorial playlists, and live sessions.
New users can enjoy a 30-day free trial, during which they will have access to Tidal’s entire ad-free, lossless catalog and streaming features at no cost.
Tidal’s updated pricing aligns it more closely with Spotify. However, since it no longer offers a free plan, Spotify remains the more cost-effective option, even though they cater to different preferences and needs.
Winner: Spotify
Supported devices
Tidal has apps for all the big platforms, including Windows, MacOS, iOS, tvOS, Android, and Android TV. With an emphasis on the audiophile crowd, it also supports some very high-end streaming components from brands like Astell & Kern, Devialet, Denon, Harman Kardon, KEF, Martin Logan, and Meridian, to name a few.
However, some devices that previously supported Tidal no longer do. Tidal is not available in the Roku Channel Store, and support for Samsung TVs running Tizen OS has been discontinued.
Additionally, the integration between Tidal and Plex has ended, and Tidal has stopped supporting 1st and 2nd generation Amazon Fire TV devices.
Winner: Spotify
Music variety and catalog size
This might be the toughest category to judge. As of April 2024, Tidal claims a 110-million track library and 650,000 videos. Spotify claims it has over 100 million tracks, 5 million podcasts and 350,000 audiobooks. We have yet to find an independent source to verify these claims, so we’ll take them at their word for now.
Music variety can also be tricky to determine. The general sense is that Tidal’s catalog skews toward rap and hip-hop artists, especially young and relatively unknown ones. This is in keeping with Tidal’s original ownership structure, which largely consisted of successful musicians such as Jay-Z, who were interested in promoting other talents. However, this perception could be changing now that Block, formerly Square, owns Tidal.
For its part, Spotify’s catalog appears to be more balanced, though this might reflect how the service automatically starts to tune itself to listeners’ demonstrated musical interests. We do know that some artists have actively refused to let Spotify carry their music over concerns about inadequate royalty payments (most of which stem from its free, ad-supported tier). Taylor Swift famously boycotted the company in 2014, though she has since added some of her albums back.
With claimed catalog sizes that are among the biggest in the industry and no objective way to evaluate any of this, we’re calling this one a tie.
Winner: Draw
Sound quality
Spotify offers compressed 320kbps streaming quality, while Tidal offers lossless, CD-quality streams.
But things might change if Spotify ever catches up with its long-awaited hi-res audio option. Over the last few years, it’s had a few names, including Hi-Fi and Superpremium. The most recent tidbit of hope comes from some code sleuthing by Reddit user Hypixely, as reported by The Verge, which says that Spotify’s lossless might instead be an add-on called “Music Pro” and may support up to 24-bit/44.1kHz FLAC files. The new offering would finally see Spotify catching up to other services like Apple Music, Tidal, Qobuz, and Amazon Music in offering higher-quality tracks.
So, at least for now,Tidal wins when it comes to sound quality. There is a small caveat here: To get the most out of Tidal’s higherbandwidth streams, you’ll need a compatible device and, in some cases, a digital-to-analog converter (DAC). Virtually all of Tidal’s supported devices can handle its lossless CD-quality streams. But mobile users should take note: these streams will eat up your allotment of data at a much faster rate than non-hi-res tracks, so be sure to check your settings and choose the lower-quality mobile option if data consumption is a concern.
Speaking of hi-res, Tidal supports a variety of formats like Dolby Atmos Music, and FLAC. It used to support the MQA format, as well as the Sony 360 Reality Audio format, but that has ended. Regardless, keep in mind that some formats, such as FLAC, may need additional external devices like DACs in order to hear them at their maximum level of quality.
Winner: Tidal
Videos, podcasts, and more
These days, music streaming services are about more than just music. Videos, podcasts, interviews, and live concerts are all becoming important parts of the mix. Tidal has chosen to focus on videos and live concert recordings, some of which are exclusive to the service. It has a catalog of over 650,000 videos, some of which are portions of live concerts, live concerts in their entirety, or exclusive shows. For mobile users, the ability to download any of these videos for offline viewing is a big help in avoiding data charges.
Spotify has videos, too, but the company appears to be coy when promoting them. You won’t find a video category when you browse, and even the search filtering options, such as “see all artists,” lack a “see all videos” item. You have to search for a specific song or podcast, then check to see if there’s a video attached to the stream. If there is, you can press play and start watching it.
Some folks have also had issues accessing video content, even when it is available. If you’re trying to watch with the Spotify mobile app, you may have to go into the app settings and toggle off Audio Quality. For whatever reason, this seems to act as a remedy for missing videos.
As far as Spotify’s podcast content goes, the company boasts a catalog of over 5 million podcasts. Tidal had very few podcasts at the time this article was published.
As impressed as we are by Tidal’s video catalog, you subscribe to a music streaming service primarily because of audio. With the huge increase in the popularity of podcast listening, we’re giving this one to Spotify.
Winner: Spotify
Conclusion
For most people, Spotify’s vast music catalog, wide device compatibility, and range of both paid and free plans make it the clear choice for streaming music. It’s no surprise that it is the world’s most popular streaming service, which is why we are declaring it the overall winner.
On the other hand, Tidal offers packages that allow users to experience true high-fidelity music through an easily accessible subscription service. While newer platforms like Qobuz have emerged to challenge Tidal’s dominance, Tidal remains the go-to option for ultra-premium audio, and it shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon.
