Dumping Spotify? Where Can You go?

While Spotify is definitely the most popular music streaming service in the Irish market, it is not the only show in town. There are a lot of different music services that are available, though many might not cater for the mainstream.

So which other services are available and how much do they charge?

For the purposes of this article the services need to have:

• Mobile app for IoS and Android
• Catalogue featuring mainstream artists (think Taylor Swift, Adele etc.)
• Available to Irish users (without using VPNs or other jiggery pokery)
• Work with 3rd party hardware and apps (think smart speakers and other apps)

There are other music streaming services out there that target specific niches, but they are not viable “drop in” replacements for people who want to switch away from Spotify.

Several of the services offer a simple way to move your favourite artists, albums and playlists between them. For those that don’t there are services and apps out there that can take the pain away. Some free, some paid or with paid upgrades.

If there are any music services that fit the bill which I’ve overlooked please let me know via the comments!

So what’s out there?

Deezer offers both free and paid accounts. The main difference being that the free ones are ad supported, like the way Spotify’s are. Paid accounts start at €8.99 / month (when paid annually). They also offer a “family” account which allows up to 6 devices to stream at once. They also offer an easy playlist import feature so you can move to them and keep your favourite artists and tracks! There’s desktop and mobile apps, as well as a web player. You can add Deezer to various 3rd party hardware and software services like Sonos speakers and Amazon Alexa.

Tidal – Tidal markets itself as providing high quality audio and that it gives a better share of its revenue to artists. At present they offer two plans. HiFI is €9.99 / month, while HiFi Plus is €19.99 / month. They often do special introductory offers where you can get 2 or 3 months at a low price. Importing playlists from competing services supported. Works with Sonos speaker. Does NOT work with Amazon Alexa in Ireland

Apple Music – €9.99 / month. They offer a number of introductory offers – at the moment I can see a 3 month free trial. Works with Sonos and Alexa.

Amazon Music – Getting pricing for this is far from easy. Amazon seem to have multiple ways of packaging their music services. As best as I can tell you get access to part of the catalogue if you have Amazon Prime (around 2 million tracks) . If you don’t have Prime and want to signup for the music service you can and pricing starts at £7.99 / month. You will have access to around 75 million tracks. Obviously this works with Amazon Alexa. Unfortunately Amazon Music is not available on Sonos in Ireland.

YouTube Music – Google’s ad-free music streaming. Pricing from €9.99 / month. Discounts for students available. Family plans also available. You can choose to disable the videos and just have audio. They have apps for Android and Apple iPhone. Available on Sonos.

Some of the music streaming services might support other features outside the Irish market, however in order to access them you either need to use a VPN or provide a non-Irish address to access them.

If there are any other music streaming services you’d recommend let us know via the comments.