Which streaming music service would fit your needs, or as well as your family needs? For example, it must meet some major requirements, including the large music library filled with all genres, better sound quality, offline mode, or the ability to stream on various devices and share an account with different family members. Congratulations, there are numerous options you can choose from Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal, Deezer, Pandora, Amazon Music, Google Play Music...
Now that we have reviewed the detailed comparison between Spotify and Apple Music, Spotify and Deezer, Spotify and Tidal, today we will make a further comparison between Apple Music and Amazon Music from various aspect: price, library features, audio quality, exclusives, so that you can choose the right one.
To know how Apple Music compares to Amazon Music, you can see the breakdown for a rough overview.
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| Monthly fee | $10.99, £10.99 | $10.99, £10.99 |
| Family plan | $16.99 for up to 6 family members | $16.99 for up to 6 family members |
| Student plan | $5.99 for eligible students | $5.99 for eligible students |
| Free trial | 3 months | 3 months |
| Number of users | 101 million users | 220 millions, but includes Prime members |
| Music library | over 100 million licensed tracks | over 100 million licensed tracks |
| Sound quality | 256 kbps in AAC/ 1,411 kbps in ALAC | 256 kbps in MP3/ 3730kbps FLAC |
| Offline listening | Yes, with a paid subscription | Yes, with a paid subscription |
| Supported devices | iOS or Android devices, computers, Apple TV, Apple Watch, HomePod, Sonos speakers | Android and iOS devices, computers, Amazon FireTV, Fire tablets, Alexa-powered smart speakers like Echo |
| Web player | Yes | Yes |
| Availability | over 167 countries (April 2021) | over 50 countries (April 21, 2023) |
Apple Music
Apple Music offers 3 tiers: $10.99 per month for an individual, $5.99 per month for the student, and $16.99 per month for up to 6 family members. This is a standard price among the music streaming area, and it is acceptable compared with spending money on purchasing albums or singles from iTunes.
If you still hesitate to choose your subscription among various services, you might try Apple Music 3-month free trial to fully enjoy all features of Apple Music. If you are not down with it, you can cancel the free trial at any time without wasting a penny.
Amazon Music
If you want to sign up for Amazon Music (Amazon Music Unlimited in this article), it costs $10.99 per month for an individual, $16.99 per month for a family package (share with up to 6 family members), and $5.99 per month for eligible students.
If you are a Prime member, you will need to pay $9.99 per month to sign up for Amazon Music Unlimited standard tier.
The big difference between Amazon Music and Apple Music is that you just need to pay $5.99 per month for use on one Echo device (Echo Show, Echo Look, Echo Dot, Echo Spot, Echo Plus, or Amazon Tap) powered by Amazon's own Alexa AI assistant. But if you want to use Amazon Music more than one Echo or other devices, you will need to pay $10.99 per month ($9.99 per month for Prime members).
Apple Music
The Apple Music interface looks different compared to its rivals: simple layout of the main features. The tabs along the above (bottom on the mobile app) offer pretty straightforward navigation: Library, For You, Browser and Radio. For You is a selection of curated playlists, albums, artists tailored to your taste and the music/album you recently played. Though the desktop app often crashes, but the mobile app is more smoothly.
Amazon Music
The user interface looks a little bit similar to the main music streaming services in the market. The navy blue-glazed interface looks very intuitive, clean and orderly than Spotify and Apple Music, but a little bit painfully slow and clunky. It’s split into four main sections: Browse, Recents, My Music and Store (the mobile app swaps this for an Alexa), and four sub-sections beneath: Home, Recommended, Stations, and Playlists. You can minimize or open the right panel to hide or show your created playlist. The search bar can specifically search across your music library, Unlimited service and store. I love the artist page: after you locate your favorite artist, you will see a big and beautiful image in the top, then his popular songs, albums, related playlists or artist below. And if you scroll down the mouse, you will see the full image.
Actually, the Amazon Music UI is more attractive at first look, but I prefer Apple Music, the lily-white background makes the contents more conspicuous and easy to find what I want, especially the beautiful interface for specific artists and albums.
Music catalog is another important feature for a music streaming service. Apple Music has over 100 million licensed tracks and is good at curation: you will be asked to select your favorite genres, and artists, then you will get the recommendations tailed to your tastes, playlist or album whatever. Sometimes, you also can find some exclusives on particular albums. My own personal feeling: the Euro and American artist and albums are reasonably complete, but lacking of the localized contents in some countries.
Amazon Music has over 100 million licensed tracks and dozens of stations, and the home page will direct you to find new releases, popular and recommended music, playlist, or album, which is similar to Apple Music. Actually, you will find that both Apple Music and Amazon Music have approximately the same offers: featured artists like Taylor Swift, Drake, and more. Personally, I do not like the playlists on Apple Music, though it is organized and varied every day, I think it is worse than Amazon Music or Spotify. Amazon Music Unlimited gives you the option to purchase the song or albums from its Digital Store and lists all genres of music including relaxing, party, Indie rock, workout, country, classic, pop, R&B music in the bottom of browse section.
Apple Music and Amazon Music have the same catalog in which you will find most of the tracks from big labels or records, but the exclusive may differ. Apple has taken steps to secure more exclusives to increase subscriber numbers, including the albums of Drake, Taylor Swift, Frank Ocean, etc. And Garth Brooks, the most popular and famous country singer in America, was a big exclusive for Amazon Music Unlimited.
If you have no idea about which one you should pay for, you can think about your main tastes. If you are a massive fan of Drake or Taylor Swift, Apple Music is your right choice.
Lyrics: Amazon Music has the best uses of lyrics in streaming music services. Instead of offering a static page like Apple Music (you will need to tap on the music you are listening to, then tap on the three-dots icon and select "Lyrics" to view the lyrics). Amazon Music has scrolling music that moves in time with lyrical performance. I am really impressed with this cool feature.
Device Compatibility: Amazon is more easy-going to cooperate with other companies' platforms, while Apple has its own eco-system. Apple Music works on iPhone, iPad and Mac, later on Android phones or tablets. It also works on Apple Watch, HomePod, in CarPlay-compatible vehicles, or Sonos speakers. But Apple Music will not officially work with Amazon's various Alexa-powered smart speakers, such as the Echo or Dot, though you can stream it on iPhone via Bluetooth, but lacks of the voice control.
Amazon Music works on nearly all smart phones, tablets and smart speakers in the market. What's more, if you have Amazon's Alexa-powered smart speakers, like Echo, Amazon Music undoubtedly the best option. Amazon Echo, Echo Dot, and Amazon Tap owners only pay just $5.99 per month to subscribe to Amazon Music Unlimited. If you want to stream on multiple smart speakers, you need to pay the regular $10.99 per month fee.
Voice Control: Voice commands have become quite common in our daily life. Now, Amazon applies Alexa voice control to its Music app. That means you can command Alexa to do things like play or pause music, move back and forth between songs, and create playlists by asking, as well as take advantage of Alexa’s more innovative features around playing music by mood, activity, genre, lyrics, artist or song title. As for Apple Music, you can also ask Siri to play, skip, shuffle or dismiss specific tracks.
You might be quickly attracted by Amazon Music Unlimited's varied pricing scheme, library, and Amazon Echo compatibility. Though Amazon Music doesn't change the game fundamentally in this domain, it does offer standout features as good as Apple Music or Spotify, especially if you have one of Amazon's Alexa-powered smart speakers.
Apple Music is a good streaming service with a different approach to curation than Spotify. And I like the way that Apple Music organizes its songs, albums, artists and playlist. If you are a big Apple fan who has a bunch of Apple devices already, particularly the HomePod or Apple Watch, subscribing to Apple Music will make life easier.
Although we can freely enjoy our favorite music after subscribed to Apple Music, once the subscription expired, the downloads for offline listening will no longer exist. Now, there is still a way to save your favorite Apple Music songs forever on computer. Here we will share with you a way on how to download songs from Apple Music songs and save them on your computer with Sidify Apple Music Converter.
>> Learn more about how to save Apple Music to Computer Forever >>
If you are looking for a tool to convert any streaming music (such as Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, Tidal, Deezer, YouTube, YouTube Music, SoundCloud, DailyMotion …) to MP3, Sidify All-In-One is the go-to choice.
