Spotify vs Pandora: Free and Premium Versions

Spotify vs Pandora

People listen to music for various reasons. It is a massive part of human life, and most people view music as a cure or relief for depression. The most outstanding music streaming services globally are Pandora and Spotify. These two streaming services function differently to give you a remarkable music experience.

Both Spotify and Pandora offer music streaming at your convenience. When using Spotify, you can choose the specific music you want to play at any given time. Pandora, on the other hand, gives you a different musical experience where you create radio stations. A radio station consists of chosen artists, music types, or songs. Pandora will then automatically detect your preferred music using their music genome project.

Therefore, it would be best to use Pandora to discover new music that fits your taste. Spotify is useful when you want to stream the music that you already know. Read on to find an in-depth comparison between these music streaming services. 

Features of Pandora Music Streaming Service

Pandora is the oldest of the two streaming services. It has been popular among people because of its ability to mimic radio stations. Using Pandora is also very simple. You create a radio station, depending on your likes. You can use the type of artist you love listening to or the types of music you love to put on the genome project. Isn’t that nice?

The music genome project will search for information on your preferred song types and compile them. The music is categorized according to the genre, instruments used, artist, tone, and rhythm. The search is automated, and you are not required to fill in any more information.

You can further customize your music search on Pandora by liking or disliking the songs that the genome project recommends to you. This feedback is collected, and a more individualized search of music is recommended. Pandora also allows you to share your radio stations with your friends. The radio sharing is possible without necessarily sending the specific links of the songs.

You create your playlist on Pandora that suits your needs. Building a playlist is very easy. You can base your favorite music choices, friends' shared playlists, or the available playlists on Pandora. They have their playlist that has been developed for different types of music genres. You are not allowed to add your songs or albums to the playlists.

You also get various ways to listen to your music with Pandora app on android phones and apple music on IOS. The app is also supported on more devices such as Windows and Blackberries. You can install the Pandora app using your account to link it to your chosen playlists and listen to music anytime.
By 2011 Pandora currently has over 900,000 songs available for its users worldwide. Now, the figure has gone way above a million pieces. Pandora always looks for independent artists and adds their songs. It is also effortless to find new music being uploaded to Pandora's catalog fast after its release.

You can share your playlist links by several platforms such as email addresses or social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. There are also links to individual tracks that you can share with your friends. However, the link will give your recipient general information on the track and provide them with a link to create a new station with similar information on the link you provided.

Pandora also gives you various ways to choose and organize your music as a parent concerned with the type of music the children listen to. Several options will enable your service to play censored versions of songs. People directly analyze the songs; hence you are assured of good moral songs.

Currently, Pandora has more users than you can find in Spotify. Pandora mainly serves in the U.S., Australia, and New Zealand.

Pandora offers both free version and Pandora premium to its users.

Pandora free version

The free version has a lot of restrictions. However, the limits are dynamic and keep changing over time.

The limitations here include:

  • You will get interruptions from audio ads. These ads last about fifteen to thirty seconds. However, the number of interruptions differs from the device you are using for streaming.
  •  You have some skips you can make in a day. Pandora only allows up to six skips per hour in one playlist. After your number of skips elapses, you will be forced to listen to all the next songs on the queue.
  •  There is a reduction of audio quality when using free trial. Free members listen to audios at 64 kbps.
  •  You will experience some timeouts when using the free trial. Pandora will time you out from time to time when you quit using the service for some time.

Pandora premium version

The paid members enjoy Pandora premium, which has fantastic benefits. They include:

  • There are no more ads in the premium membership.
  •  There is a very high audio quality up to about 192 kbps.
  •  You can download the desktop app.
  •  You will get custom skin when you are using a web app.
  •  There are very few time outs.

Features of Spotify music streaming service

Spotify allows you to choose the specific music you want to listen to. It is more of a music discovery service than a music player. It currently has an extensive library of songs of about twenty million songs. Once you create an account with Spotify, you can access any song from any artist you may like. You can stream the music live or download it for offline listening.

In Spotify, you can manually add or remove music from your playlist. You can also share the playlist with your friends. It is trendy for a free and affordable choice for sharing artists and songs. You can create an unlimited number of playlists with Spotify.

Spotify has applications for mobiles available on several devices. You can get the app for devices using Android, IOS, blackberry, and windows.

As mentioned earlier, Spotify is in high demand for numerous songs. They are very aggressive in making deals with significant and individual labels to increase the number of music in their library. However, their music library may vary from one location to another due to issues of licensing.

Spotify allows you to share both individual songs, albums, and playlists. You can share them using links that will direct the recipient to the Spotify app. It has increased the number of people using Spotify since it is secure and legal.

Spotify does not provide the ability to discriminate their music content. You may find explicit and uncensored music on the playlist. It would help if you were very keen on how your children use the service.

You can download Spotify when you are using the Spotify premium membership. You can also integrate it with mobile devices and music players for better performance. Spotify services are available worldwide. You can also get their free sign up and the Spotify premium service.

Spotify Free Version

You can sign up for Spotify for free. However, there are several restrictions that you will get for using free trials. They include:

  •  You will get interruptions from audio ads that last about 15 to 30 seconds.
  • There is a reduced quality of audio.
  • You are not able to download the desktop app for Spotify.

Spotify Premium Version

You will relish several benefits of the free versions. They include:

  •  Permanent removal of ads.
  • You can download audio music for offline listening.
  • There is a very high quality of audio up to 320 kbps.
  • You can use Spotify Connect to integrate it with other music players you can get from the apple store or google play.

Wrap Up

Music entertains, sooths and heals the soul. Pandora and Spotify are unique and fantastic music streaming services. You can get Pandora premium service at $4.99/month. Spotify gives you a 3-month trial at $1 and an individual membership at $9.99/month.

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published.