Pandora is free to use, but users can upgrade to Pandora Plus or Pandora Premium for ad-free listening. With Pandora Plus, users can enjoy unlimited skips and some offline listening for $4.99 a month. Only Youtube pays artists less than Pandora. Spotify has been under fire for not paying artists enough, at $0.0044 / play (as of march 2018). Well, Pandora pays less than 3 times that! Tidal pays artists roughly 10 times more ($0.0125).
Spotify vs Pandora is a hard comparison! Most of the time, people love to listen to Pandora. But now a day the music industry has become more advanced and modified.
The music lover prefers Spotify; however, both applications have their pros and cons. In comparison, Spotify wins!
Several features differ between both applications. Pandora is the application that allows us to enjoy radio services. On the other hand, Spotify enables you to listen to any of your favourite songs.
The main difference between Spotify Vs Pandora!!
In Pandora, you have to choose a playlist of your own choice. Create your own “radio station,” afterwards; the app will select the songs that are musically similar to your songs list. The songs are chosen under the Music Genome Project. It discovers the music according to your taste and demand.
If you flip the side of the coin, Spotify works in a different manner. It searches the same song you love to listen to. As soon as you add the title of the song, the search results are according to your concern.
Let’s have a look at the major differences in detail!
Paid Versions of the Apps
If we compare the paid versions of both applications, the Pandora premium version is available at $4.99 per month. In the paid version, you will get the songs free form ads and limitations.
On the other hand, Spotify offers you the premium version for $14.99/mo. If you get the shared account, you have to pay $5/month for an account.
In this regard, Spotify wins, and it offers more in the paid version than Pandora. You will enjoy the free music skipping, unlimited downloading, no ads, and much more.
Music Collection
According to an estimate, in 2011, the music library of the Pandora consists of 900,000 songs. Over recent years, the statics have been changed.
There is no proper counting of the existing list. However, there are millions of songs according to the database of 2014.
In addition,
Pandora allows hidden artists to add their good track record. This is an unbeatable and must-to-consider feature of the app!
On the other hand,
Spotify touches nearly 20 million songs according to the catalog of 2012. The catalog varies area to area due to the license limitations.
The company is dedicated to making deals with new labels and artists. Therefore, the playlist of the songs never ends!
Social Sharing Features
The social sharing feature of music applications is praiseworthy. There are several ways in both applications to share music with your friends. But, in general, Spotify offers a vast range in terms of social sharing.
Let’s have a look separately
Using Pandora, you can share your current status via email or Facebook or Twitter. There is no way to share the song individually in this application.
If we have a look at Spotify
Using Spotify, you can share the songs individually with your friends and family. You can either share the complete album, the playlist, or single songs.
Children Security
In this regard, Pandora provides the option to the parents to have a look at the songs. They can control the songs individually from their side.
Spotify Free Vs Pandora Free
In Spotify
Spotify does not allow any of these options to the parents. They cannot analyze the activity of the kids in this app.
Additional features
Other than these, the general features include the music skipping option.
In the paid version of Spotify, there is unlimited music skipping allowed. But, in Pandora, you can do it up to six times after a period. This is permitted for a single station per hour.
On the negative side, your song will be interrupted form the ads of 15 to 30 seconds periodically. The number of ads depends on the operating device.
What’s more?
The audio quality is not up to the mark. You will love to listen to the same song on Spotify. The sound quality of Pandora is only 64 kbps. However, the audio quality is enhanced up to 192 kbps in the premium version.
On the other hand, the music quality of the Spotify application is 128 kbps. The paid version offers up to 320 kbps.
Furthermore, you can skip the ads in the paid version of Spotify. You can also download the songs to your device in order to listen to them offline.
Conclusive Words
In the comparison of Spotify vs Pandora, there is no definite winner. However, both of the applications have their own specific features.
The more advanced option for the users is Spotify. However, the classic music lovers will prefer the Spotify music application.