Spotify vs Pandora: Which Music Streaming Platform Is Better?

Written By Robert Fabry Last updated: June 13, 2024

When it comes to music-streaming platforms, two of the most renowned options are Spotify and Pandora. Choosing between Spotify and Pandora can be challenging, given their wide range of features and extensive music libraries. Spotify vs Pandora, which service is better? Given that all of the services basically have the same libraries, we evaluated each one based on pricing, sound quality, compatibility, and additional features that can help you decide which is the better fit for your needs.

Contents Guide Spotify vs. Pandora: PriceSpotify vs. Pandora: Music LibrarySpotify vs. Pandora: Stream QualitySpotify vs. Pandora: CompatibilitySpotify vs. Pandora: Additional FeatureSpotify vs. Pandora: Offline DownloadsBonus: Download Spotify Music Without Subscription Is Spotify or Pandora Right for You?

Spotify vs. Pandora: Price

Spotify vs Pandora, which service provides a better deal? Both Spotify and Pandora offer free plans, offering access to their entire library without any fee. However, the free tiers on these two services come with certain limitations. With Spotify Free and Pandora Free, you will listen to music with ad interruptions. Also, their free plan imposes a hard limit on track skips, replays, and generally being able to choose what you want to play.

To get a better experience, you should upgrade to their paid plan. Spotify and Pandora have different pricing tiers. Here’s what they provide (the rates also vary depending on the country):

Pandora Vs Spotify Price

Related Topics: As of June 2024, Spotify increased the price of almost all of its service tiers. You might already have subscriptions to Spotify, if you're considering switching to Spotify Free to save money, we're here to list a comparison: Spotify Free vs Premium: Should You Pay To Upgrade >>>>

Spotify offers more value despite being pricier. If you are attending a US Title IV accredited college or university student in the United States, you are eligible to get Hulu (ad-supported) as part of your Student plan. Spotify Premium Family includes child-friendly content through Spotify Kids. Pandora’s plans don’t provide extras like these.

Winner: Tie

The paying tier of Spotify and Pandora offer a free trial to new customers, but it won’t last. The pricing only has slight differences. This means that you should base your selection on other features, which we’ll discuss next.

Spotify vs. Pandora: Music Library

Spotify vs Pandora, which provides better content? According to Spotify, there are more than 100 million songs and 6 million podcast titles in its catalog. Its vast library covers all genres in billions of playlists. And thanks to popular playlists like Today’s Top Hits, RapCaviar, and Essential Indie, which garner 900k to 34M followers, finding your favorite mainstream and indie songs is easy. Beyond music and podcast, Spotify also offers diverse audio content, which includes audiobooks, concerts, global music charts, story-telling, language learning, ambient sound playlists, and more.

Pandora, like Spotify, holds licenses with major and indie labels, though its music library size remains undisclosed. It features 26 music categories, fewer than Spotify’s 60 genres. In addition, Pandora has also inked a deal with independent music licensing company. Thanks to this, you can expect a similarly comprehensive Indie music offering from Pandora. As many as 25 different podcast categories can be found on Pandora, covering pretty much everything under the sun. So it isn’t really a surprise to cite it as one of the top podcast platforms in the US. In addition to music and podcasts, listeners can also enjoy ambient non-music tracks, spoken word tracks, and live sessions taken from Pandora Live.

Pandora Music Library

Winner: Spotify

Spotify and Pandora are equal in terms of the amount of music content. So the good news is that you definitely aren’t going to have any problems finding your music on either platform. That said, Pandora doesn't have audiobooks. Spotify is superior in that regard.

Spotify vs. Pandora: Stream Quality

Spotify vs Pandora, which has better audio quality? Spotify's free 160Kbps and Premium 320Kbps streams sound good. If you aren't an audiophile, you'll find the sound quality satisfactory. While Spotify announced a HiFi feature in 2021, as of 2024, it had not been released.

Spotify Stream Quality

Like Spotify, Pandora also lacks Hi-Res Audio. Pandora only offers 64 kbps streaming at its free tier. On the other hand, Pandora Premium offers 3 levels of audio quality. At its highest audio setting, Pandora Premium streams music at 192 kbps.

Winner: Spotify

Your audio experience depends on your equipment. However, Pandora’s stream quality does fall behind Spotify's 320 kbps. People with more discerning ears should look elsewhere for their tunes. Only a handful of streaming music services, including Amazon Music Unlimited, Apple Music, and Tidal, carry Hi-Res Audio catalogs

Spotify vs. Pandora: Compatibility

Spotify is available on nearly everything under the sun. There are mobile apps for Android and iOS, desktop apps for Mac and Windows, and a web player on major web browsers. That’s only the beginning, though, as you can play Spotify on a host of different devices for mainstream users, including Amazon Echo, Apple Watch, Fitbit Sense, Google Home, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, Xbox One, smart TVs, and much more.

Spotify Compatibility

You may be interested: How To Play Spotify On Sonos Speaker >>>>

For Pandora, you can access its music library by launching the web player, downloading the desktop apps (available for Mac and Windows), or installing the mobile app (available for Android and iOS). You can also find Pandora on Apple Watch and Wear OS smartwatches. Integrations have also been offered with smart speakers. You can also expand your Pandora Premium experience with Chromecast, Apple AirPlay, some in-car audio systems, Amazon Fire TV, Kindle and Alexa devices, Sonos devices, Xbox One, XFINITY X1, etc.

Pandora On Apple Watch App

Winner: Spotify

Pandora is a bit more limited. Its support for more common devices like game consoles is more feeble. Spotify has the major platforms covered, and there are also very few connected audio devices the service doesn’t support.

Spotify vs. Pandora: Additional Feature

Spotify vs Pandora, what extra features does each service provide? Everyone wants to get value for money on buying music services. Here are some notable ones to help you decide if they justify the cost:

Spotify

  • Spotify Connect: Available for both Free and Premium subscribers. This lets you play music on compatible devices using the Spotify app as a remote.
  • Spotify Wrapped: Available for both Free and Premium subscribers. This annual feature offers a personalized summary of their music listening habits, including top songs, artists, and genres, for the year.
  • Spotify Lyrics: Available for both Free and Premium subscribers. This provides real-time song lyrics while listening to music.
  • Spotify Recommendation Algorithms: The Spotify recommender system is an extremely complex and intricate system, with dozens (if not hundreds) of algorithms and ML models employed across various levels, all working together to create one of the most advanced recommendation experiences in the music streaming market.
  • AI DJ: Available for Premium subscribers only. This newly introduced feature is like live radio but more personalized.
  • Smart Shuffle: Available for Premium subscribers only. This feature enhances playlists with personalized song recommendations that match your current playlist’s vibe.
  • Spotify for Artists: It is Spotify’s dedicated creator app. The idea is to attract users through your profile, and then use your stats to guide you in promoting yourself.

Pandora

  • Pandora Stories: It includes insightful Voice Tracks from artists explaining their songs or creative process.
  • Artist Takeovers: Featuring top musicians guest DJing select playlists, offering insights into their musical preferences.

Winner: Spotify

Both have their own unique features. Which one you choose depends on which feature you prefer. But Spotify’s additions are a treat for listeners.

Spotify vs. Pandora: Offline Downloads

Pandora vs Spotify, which is best for offline listening? You can download music from Pandora and Spotify and listen to it later when you have no internet access or don't want to use your cellular data to stream audio, as long as you have upgraded to their paid plan.

For Pandora, there are still slight differences in the download content on its paying plans. Pandora Plus users can download up to three most-listened-to stations and Thumbprint Radio for offline listening, while Premium users can download as much content as they want. The offline feature is only available to current Pandora Plus, Premium, or Premium Family subscribers, and only for iOS or Android mobile devices, and Apple Watches. Keep in mind that you'll lose access to offline content if your subscription is interrupted.

With any Spotify Premium, you can download playlists, albums, and podcasts for offline listening on up to five different devices. However, there's no option to download a single song even in Premium. You need to go online at least once every 30 days to keep your downloads, otherwise, you will lose all downloads. Also, Spotify downloads can only be played on the Spotify app and authorized devices and players due to DRM protection. This means that if you want to save your favorite Spotify songs on a device that is not authorized, such as an MP3 player or a USB driver, you may fail.

Spotify Offline Downloads

Winner: Spotify

The offline feature on Spotify is available for its mobile app and desktop app, while Pandora is available for the mobile app only.

Bonus: Download Spotify Music Without Subscription

Have you found out the differences in Spotify vs Pandora comparison? Which streaming service should you use? It depends on what you’re looking for in a streaming service. Here, we want to share a bonus tip if you choose Spotify. If you want to keep Spotify downloads after canceling a subscription, you can go for AMusicSoft Spotify Music Converter.

AMusicSoft Spotify Music Converter is available to both Spotify Free and Spotify Premium accounts. This professional converter removes the DRM from Spotify, enabling higher compatibility. AMusicSoft can convert Spotify songs, playlists, and podcasts to MP3, WAV, FLAC, AAC, M4A, and FLAC at 5X faster speed. The good thing about these formats is that they are all accessible on most devices, which makes it possible for you to use any device you prefer for streaming music.

You are also guaranteed that high-quality audio can be heard from the output songs. AMusicSoft Spotify Music Converter will still have its metadata information and ID3 tags. Thus, they will be organized and ensured that they have the right information about them. The software can be used on both Windows PCs and Mac computers. Plus, it offers a free trial for you to check out its features.

Free Download Free Download

Step 1. Open AMusicSoft software, enter the built-in web player and sign in with your account. Then you can search for the song you want to play offline. Simply by dragging them to the "+" button, the software will fetch data from Spotify.

Add Spotify Music To AMusicSoft

Step 2. Click on the Output Format dropdown to select MP3 or other formats as your output format, as well as the folder according to your requirements.

Choose MP3 As The Output Format

Step 3. Click the Convert button to start the conversion process, and the software will remove DRM protection and convert the files to the chosen format.

Convert Spotify Music To MP3

Is Spotify or Pandora Right for You?

We ran a Spotify vs Pandora comparison, and Spotify comfortably won, on the back of its curated content, value for money, and wealth of supported hardware. Additionally, try AMusicSoft Spotify Music Converter if you decide to choose Spotify. This best partner with Spotify allows you to download any content for free. On the other hand, Pandora is still a great service. It may appeal more to budget-conscious users who enjoy continuous, radio-style music streaming.

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