Spotify or YouTube Music? The Pros & Cons You Need to Know

With each of the four major music streaming apps—Spotify, SoundCloud, Apple Music, and YouTube Music—having solid user bases, each comes with its own set of pros and cons. I’ve made it my mission to test each one and compare them. After already comparing Spotify and SoundCloud, I decided to pivot from SoundCloud to YouTube Music, and I was pleasantly surprised by the pros and cons I discovered, having never used YouTube Music before. I hope you enjoy this review and feel inspired to check out YouTube Music yourself.

Spotify is undoubtedly the king of user experience. Its layout, playlist functionality, and user interface are beautiful and highly intuitive, making it a big plus. Anecdotally, most of my friends use Spotify, so the convenience of being on the same platform is another pro that can’t be overlooked. However, Spotify does have its downsides, starting with its recommended algorithm, which can be hit or miss at times. Another major negative for me is the lack of full DJ sets. Due to licensing and copyright laws, it’s not worth the hassle for artists to upload full sets that feature a significant amount of other artists’ songs. While you might find a few, they are so rare that it’s fair to say Spotify essentially doesn’t offer them.

YouTube Music, on the other hand, is an extension of YouTube, which already hosts many full DJ sets that are officially published. In the past year, more and more artists have been uploading their live sets to YouTube, and I expect that trend to continue. YouTube Music allows you to create playlists of these sets, making it easier to navigate and organize your favorites. It also lets you download videos for offline listening and lock your phone while playing the video, which is a fantastic feature. The playlisting capabilities are great, though the overall interface is a step down from Spotify. Lastly, YouTube Music comes with YouTube Premium, meaning all these features also apply to any video on YouTube, which is a huge bonus for a heavy YouTube user like myself.

Ultimately, the best streaming platform depends on what’s most important to you. For me, full DJ sets are key—I love experiencing the journey an artist has carefully curated—so YouTube Music wins this comparison. The ability to listen to entire sets offline is incredible and highly valuable. YouTube is also a treasure trove of unreleased songs, which can be added to playlists and downloaded for offline listening. In the end, the choice is yours, and I hope you learned something new from this review!