Amazon Music and Spotify are two of the most popular music services. Amazon’s music plans are under Amazon Music Unlimited while Spotify’s are under Spotify Premium. Both give listeners a wide range of music to listen to with multiple options for listening though they have different ways of marketing themselves to the public.

Amazon Music Unlimited, for instance, will have specials on family plans to bring in more listeners as well as customers to Amazon. It allows up to five family members to link their accounts together and each listen on multiple devices. Amazon Music Unlimited has a wide range of music though what is available is not always constant. It also has stations based on artist, genre, and time period. It constantly creates playlists for users as new music comes out. Amazon Music also emails subscribers with recommendations and news on what is new on the platform.

Spotify Premium right now is marketing itself with Hulu, offering the premium service of Spotify at the regular price combined with a free basic account on Hulu. Spotify has a wide range of music with stations based only on the artist, but the stations also act as a playlist as they change at various times and allow you to choose to skip multiple songs with a click. You can search for music by artist, genre, or time frame on Spotify as well. On top of all that, you are also able to listen to podcasts on Spotify. It isn’t as good of a financial option for someone with a big family that enjoys music, but for a single person or couple it is not a bad deal.

Each has its own perks as you can see. Amazon Music would probably be better for the listener who likes exploring new music and getting recommendations as well as exclusive albums while Spotify would be better for a listener who knows what they want to listen to and likes being able to listen to podcasts all on one app on multiple devices.

Spotify appears to be expanding while putting limits on itself, which Apple’s iTunes should have from the beginning. They give listeners all the listening they want in one place without clogging things up with videos and apps as iTunes has done over the years. Amazon Music, on the other hand, seems to be trying to be more specialized in music. This causes it to miss out on the growing podcast market.

Both services have high-quality audio, with the two being so close only someone with hypersensitive hearing could tell the difference. One could easily enjoy both without breaking the bank. Both are great whether used on a phone, a tablet, a computer, or a Smart TV. I would give either of them individually 4.5 out of 5 stars. But when comparing two services there can be only one.

And, no I’m not going to make them duel to the death like in the Highlandermovies. In the end, this comes down to personal preference. For me, Spotify slips ahead by a decibel for the reason it has everything I wanted out of iTunes when I first discovered it combined with being available on all the devices I have.

While Spotify wins in my books, I encourage you to let your ears be the judge. After all, it gives you the perfect excuse to listen to even more of your favorite music.