Which One Is Better: Spotify or Pandora

Pandora and Spotify both are trending music streaming platforms and are similar in many ways. With these trending applications, anyone can listen to plenty of music. Both these applications have been around for a long time and are popular platforms for streaming music services. However, there is Spotify vs Pandora battle going on. Being a Swedish music company, Spotify has gained significant popularity throughout the world, with approximately 381 million active users as of the third quarter of 2021.

Pandora is not anyway behind in this competition because this streaming service has 55.9 million active users. However, Pandora is only available in the United States, Australia, and New Zealand. For music lovers, both services might be worth it, but if you compare them, there are a lot of differences. That is one identical feature, both premium versions do not offer high-quality music streaming. On comparing the two, we may find out some more differences which can help you to decide the right one for you. Let’s get started with comparisons to understand which one is better, Spotify or Pandora?

• Part 1. Music Discovery and Library: Spotify and Pandora
• Part 2. Podcasts Availability: Spotify and Pandora
• Part 3. Pandora vs Spotify: UI and UX
• Part 4. Comparison of the Free and Paid Version

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Part 1. Music Discovery and Library: Spotify and Pandora

Spotify is taking the lead by having a library containing 70 million tracks. Whereas Pandora is not last on the list, it has also millions of tracks available. A music enthusiast can make a radio station by choosing these songs. The algorithms of the platforms help users in picking the songs as per their choices. Pandora’s bars are high as it has set a standard because of its Music Genome Project. Both these platforms help the users with finding new tunes and the backbone of Pandora is music discoverability.

The above-mentioned Music Genome Project is the engine that provides the listeners with new songs. Spotify music library is famous for a weekly playlist of 30 songs, and it automatically shows up on Monday. Everyone can discover new music on Spotify, and on the other hand, you can limit the music streaming options if you are a parent. When you compare Spotify and Pandora on basis of the music library, then Spotify wins.

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Part 2. Podcasts Availability: Spotify and Pandora

Podcast listeners will not face any issue in any of the two applications because these both have podcast libraries, and you can have a collection of them. If you love listening to podcasts, then you can find the most popular podcasts on both platforms. However, Spotify has dominated the market with its status and thus its logo is famous and spotted various times in top music streaming services. Due to this advantage of dominating market presence, Spotify wins the battle in this case.

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Part 3. Pandora vs Spotify: UI and UX

Considering the user experience and interface, then it is difficult to point out anyone. Both are mobile-friendly, responsive, and look great on tablets, IOS, android, and all devices. Both Pandora and Spotify provide downloadable desktop programs, android applications, IOS applications, and browser players. Pandora can be controlled with voice controls such as Alexa, Google Assistant. Both provide the users with a polished user interface that attracts and guides them to take the next step. Some people favor Pandora and some favor Spotify.

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Part 4. Comparison of the Free and Paid Version

Whether you talk about Pandora or Spotify, both offer limited free services. If you use any of these platforms or both, you might be aware that it is essential to take the premium plan to enjoy access to all the services. In Pandora, the users get limited access to the radio functionality and lower audio quality. You can hit the thumbs up if you liked the song and can do vice versa if you did not like it. Users may even find untimely advertisements that can bother a lot. On the other hand, the free version of Spotify is much better than Pandora.

If you use Spotify, you might have experienced the advantages of its free version. Even Spotify’s free version has ads, and it also lowers the audio quality. But you can still listen to on-demand music.  Both services provide their user’s ad-free services for a few days. The standard trial time of Pandora is 60 days at $10 and $5 for 30 days.  In Spotify, users can have a 30-day trial at $10.  As users go for yearly membership there is always a discount on it.

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Conclusion

It is still hard to predict which one is better, Spotify or Pandora? In many cases, Spotify gives you advantages over Pandora, and somewhere it gains margin over the other. Pandora is popular in a few countries whereas, Spotify is more famous. However, the monthly fee of Pandora is cheaper than Spotify. There are a lot of things, and this can be a never-ending discussion.

Both curate exception playlists, so it is difficult to judge. Spotify’s home page offers editorial playlists on the things you like and Pandora also recommends featured podcasts depending on your preferences. But listeners can find out the middle way. If you are a music enthusiast, you can listen to music by downloading it using an AudBite converter.

Extra Tip

As mentioned, you can use AudBite Spotify Music Converter to convert Spotify playlists to MP3 and listen to these songs offline. It is a professional-grade music converter and can download Spotify music in six different open formats. You can choose your preferred output format based on your need. If you are interested in AudBite, you can download the trial version from its official website.