Best free music apps: gratuitous music on Android and iPhone

Included in this guide:

All-time gratuitous music apps: Welcome to What Hi-Fi?'s round-upward of the all-time free music apps you tin can get in 2022.

Millions of songs in the palm of your hand, no storage woes and you don't fifty-fifty have to pay – that'southward the promise of the all-time complimentary music apps. The only tricky function is deciding which streaming service to go for. Just don't fret, we're here to aid.

Nearly major music streaming services have a gratis tier, barring Tidal (unless yous're lucky enough to alive in the US), Qobuz and Apple Music, and while these free services inevitably include adverts and have more than express functionality and audio quality than their paid-for stablemates, they're still pretty tempting. Keep your ear to the ground and you'll often detect one, two, three or even four calendar month gratuitous (or almost free) deals on your chosen streaming service's paid-for tiers to try the sonic goods before yous buy, likewise.

While we would e'er nudge you towards meliorate quality streams (for which you'll pay a fee), if you're only an occasional listener, free streaming services also make more sense than paying for something you barely use.

We've rounded upward the best free options around so you lot can meet which suits you. All the same looking for a worthy culling following the news of Google Play Music's death on 24th February this year? Here you go.

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Best free music apps: listen on the move for free

(Paradigm credit: Spotify)

1. Spotify

Even so summit of the game, though there's plenty of hi-res competition effectually.

Specifications

Quality of complimentary tier: Upward to 160kbps

Library size: 70 one thousand thousand+

Platforms: iOS and Android apps, desktop app, web actor, smart Tv set apps, connected speaker support, cars

Reasons to purchase

+

Plenty of ways to find new music

+

Like shooting fish in a barrel to use

+

Works on lots of platforms

Reasons to avoid

-

Not the best sounding

-

No lossless audio

The all-time-known free streaming service is also one of the all-time. Y'all will have to put upwardly with ads if you don't desire to pay and yous will also have to listen to most playlists on shuffle way, merely there'due south even so plenty to like: decent audio quality, effectually 75 million songs (a predicted xc million by the cease of 2021 if its library keeps growing at the same charge per unit), offline listening, bags of podcasts, new features arriving daily and it all works on almost any device imaginable. If y'all desire free music streaming, Spotify should be your first port of phone call.

Read the full review: Spotify

Best free music apps: listen on the move for free

(Paradigm credit: Amazon)

2. Amazon Prime Music

The best streaming service you didn't know yous had.

Specifications

Quality: 256kbps

Library size: 2 million

Platforms: iOS and Android apps, Echo and Fire Television devices

Reasons to buy

+

2 million songs for free

+

No adverts

+

Works with Alexa

Reasons to avoid

-

Only free to Prime subscribers

You might non know it, but if you have Amazon Prime then you lot can access Amazon'southward entry-level music streaming service. That'southward right, as well as free ane-twenty-four hour period delivery and Amazon Prime Video, Amazon Prime number entitles you to Amazon Prime number Music, which gives you lot over two million songs to stream on-demand at no additional toll. And the best fleck? They're advertising-free.

As you would wait, the choice is pretty mainstream, and the sound quality isn't going to blow you away, only Prime customers tin't really complain. And if you're non happy, you lot can always footstep up to Amazon Music Unlimited, which costs £9.99/$9.99(or £vii.99/$7.99 with Prime) a month and now includes HD, its howdy-res tier, for free!

Read more: Amazon Prime Music

Best free music apps: listen on the move for free

(Paradigm credit: Hereafter)

3. Deezer

An extensive catalogue makes this gratuitous service a compelling prospect.

Specifications

Quality of free tier: 128kbps

Library size: 56 million

Platforms: iOS and Android apps, desktop app, web player

Reasons to buy

+

Lots of option

+

Adept podcasts

+

Simple to use

Reasons to avoid

-

Not groovy for discovery

Deezer's complimentary tier ways you lot accept to suffer ads, and the rails quality is just 128kbps. The mobile app for this tier is besides a little limited, though no more then than any of its rivals. Withal, when it comes to what to heed to, there'southward a ton of selection, and the layout is pleasingly elementary to navigate. In that location are also lots of podcasts and other non-music content to go your ears into. A cracking choice for anyone looking beyond simply music. If you exercise sign-up for the full service, y'all can savour lossless (though note, CD-quality, not hi-res) sound, too.

Read the full review: Deezer

Best free music apps: listen on the move for free

(Image credit: Future)

4. YouTube Music

The video-sharing giant's free music streaming service is surprisingly decent.

Specifications

Quality of costless tier: 128kbps

Library size: North/A

Platforms: iOS and Android apps, web actor

Reasons to purchase

+

Uncluttered

+

Enough of rareties

+

Lots of videos

Reasons to avoid

-

Iffy audio quality

-

Discovery could exist improved

YouTube isn't just for videos. Launched back in 2015, YouTube Music is the video-sharing site's endeavor to accept on Spotify et al. And, merely like Spotify, it offers a gratuitous tier. Certain, there are adverts, as you lot would await, but not equally many as you would fearfulness.

Extras like downloading for offline listening are pay-only, so you lot're limited to streaming the service's selection, but there'due south a considerable catalogue to choose from, the layout is nice and clean, and its option of music videos is, of course, unrivalled. Well worth a heed.

Read the full review: YouTube Music

Best free music apps: listen on the move for free

(Image credit: Future)

5. TuneIn Radio

Radio lover? Tune in to TuneIn. You won't be disappointed.

Specifications

Quality of free tier: North/A

Library size: N/A

Platforms: iOS and Android apps, spider web player, smart speakers, cars, wearables, smart TVs, games consoles

Reasons to purchase

+

Broad spread of content

+

Big name stations

Reasons to avoid

-

Not music-focussed

This isn't a pure music streaming service – rather the focus is on radio stations, so recollect of information technology every bit getting your music fix that way. Information technology offers a range of stations, including some BBC Radio, NPR, All India Radio and C-SPAN, also as news from the likes of CNN and Fob News and a host of podcasts. There are even local and genre-specific radio stations to choose from, so there should exist something for anybody. Featuring a wide choice of radio apps, this is the best nosotros've encounter.

Best free music apps: listen on the move for free

(Image credit: BBC)

6. BBC Sounds

The new app to supercede iPlayer Radio.

Specifications

Quality of free tier: 48-320kbps

Library size: Northward/A

Platforms: iOS and Android apps, web actor, cyberspace radios, smart speakers, Virgin Media, YouView

Reasons to buy

+

Diverse content

+

Fantabulous radio stations

+

Useful features

Reasons to avoid

-

Buggy

-

Non music-axial

BBC Sounds has taken the place of the Beeb's iPlayer Radio app and it feels like a good determination. As well equally the usual BBC radio stations (Radio 1, Radio iv, 1Xtra, etc) which you tin listen to live or on-demand, it brings together all sorts of podcasts, music mixes, live sets and more.

You lot tin search by genre, download and heed on-the-get and go along listening where you left off on another device. The app had some teething problems, merely has blossomed into a suitably rich and slick home for the BBC's excellent sound output.

Best free music apps: listen on the move for free

(Paradigm credit: Future)

vii. SoundCloud

If your taste is more off the beaten track, SoundCloud could be for you...

Specifications

Quality of free tier: 64kbps

Library size: 200 million

Platforms: iOS and Android apps, web actor

Reasons to purchase

+

Great for emerging artists

+

120 meg+ tracks

+

Slap-up UI

Reasons to avoid

-

Some abrasive pop-ups

SoundCloud is known equally the home of emerging artists, and so if you want to bank check out acts and predict which bands are going to go far big, this is the place to do so. The free tier offers over 120 one thousand thousand tracks, mixes, podcasts and more, though nosotros tin can't vouch for the quality of each (that's the trouble with 'up-and-coming' artists).

The upside is you can connect with friends and even the artists directly on the platform, make playlists, and go curated tracklists based on your gustation. The downside is that, like many costless services, you do have to put upward with adverts.

If you lot tire of the mainstream, mayhap it's fourth dimension to accept a trip to SoundCloud.

Tidal

(Image credit: Apple / Tidal)

8. Tidal

What Hello-Fi? Awards 2021 winner, now with a gratis tier in the U.s.

Specifications

Quality of free tier: 160kbps

Library size: fourscore 1000000 tracks

Platforms: PC, desktop, iOS and Android apps, Apple tree and Android Boob tube apps, Apple tree CarPlay, Roon, Tidal Connect

Reasons to buy

+

Great audio quality

+

Hi-res Tidal Masters

+

Intuitive and expansive

Reasons to avoid

-

How-do-you-do-res tier undercut by Amazon, Apple

In the Us? Lucky you. US customers can now gain access to the service's first-always gratis plan, called (unsurprisingly) 'Tidal Free', which offers streams of the complete library of fourscore meg tracks at 160kbps with "limited interruptions". It launched in November 2021 and, at the fourth dimension of writing, we have not yet reviewed the dedicated Free program.

For anyone not domiciled in us, a fee is yet involved. The 'Tidal Premium' tier (£9.99, $ix.99, AU$11.99 per calendar month) that offered 320kbps quality has now been rebranded as 'Tidal HiFi' and gets you audio at upwards to 1411 kbps (i.east. CD quality), too as offline capabilities and access to features such as Tidal Connect, for that same monthly cost. Tidal'due south basic Family Tier has also seen the same increment in standard scrap rate streams.

The top tier, formerly 'Tidal HiFi', is at present known as 'Tidal HiFi Plus' and remains £nineteen.99 ($19.99, AU$23.99) per calendar month. It brings sound quality upward to 9216 kbps (i.e. hi-res) by supporting Tidal Masters via Master Quality Authenticated (MQA) technology. It is also the tier you have to subscribe to in order to heed to immersive music in Dolby Atmos Music and Sony 360 Sound.

This new subscription model puts Tidal's CD-quality offer more in line with the competition from Amazon and Apple, although its hullo-res streaming remains at a premium that might put some people off. That said, Tidal has ensured its HiFi Plus tier has extra appeal for audiophiles and, also, volition no dubiousness still appeal to those with MQA-supporting hardware.

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Becky has been a total-time staff writer at What Howdy-Fi? since March 2019. Prior to gaining her MA in Journalism in 2018, she freelanced as an arts critic alongside a 20-year career as a professional person dancer and aerialist – any beloved of dance is of course tethered to a love of music. Becky has previously contributed to Stuff, FourFourTwo, This is Cabaret and The Stage. When not writing, she dances, spins in the air, drinks java, watches football or surfs in Cornwall with her other half – a football game writer whose talent knows no bounds.

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