What is Pandora?
If you’re familiar with music streaming apps, you’re probably familiar with Pandora. Pandora is one of the oldest and most popular music streaming services, and it’s available on desktop and mobile devices. The basis of Pandora is simple. The user selects an artist or genre, and then Pandora plays a personalized radio station of sorts, running through different songs that the app thinks that you would like based upon your initially selected station. Are you looking for an app that provides a service similar to Pandora? In this article, I’ll break down the top five best apps like Pandora. Without further ado, let’s get right into it.
5. SoundCloud
The only reason why I chose to rank SoundCloud on so lowly has less to do with the app itself, and more to do with the content library that the service has available. By its very nature, SoundCloud has a limited library of music compared to an app like Pandora. Not only that, but a lot of the music in this app trends towards newer or more independent material. For some people, this is a good thing. It helps you discover new and trending artists who you might not discover in the first place. However, I personally think that it makes the app a little more niche than some people may like. It’s a good app by all means, but I don’t think it’s as accessible as some of the other applications on this list. Nonetheless, SoundCloud has made significant strides in improving their services over the years, and I think that this is at least worth a look.
4. Amazon Music with Prime Music
However, that isn’t to say that Prime Music is perfect. You may have noticed that I mentioned that Prime Music lets you freely stream over one million free tracks. This may seem like a lot on paper, but consider that services like Spotify sport over 20 million tracks. Amazon’s catalog is absolutely dwarfed in comparison. Not to mention, although Prime Music may be ad-free, that doesn’t necessarily mean that the service itself is free. As you may have assumed, ‘Prime Music’ indicates that you need to be an Amazon Prime member to use service to its fullest extent. A Prime subscription costs around $99 per year, and although that’s an excellent deal with all things considered, this isn’t the best app for someone who doesn’t already have a subscription. If you’re already a Prime member, though, you should be pleased with the service.
3. Google Play Music
My only real quarrels with Google Play Music have to do with the need to pay to access their on-demand service. (To be fair, Pandora doesn’t even have on-demand streaming at all. There are rumors, though, that it will be added soon.) Not to mention, the app itself lacks a certain level of user intuitiveness. Google cranks out some great services, but their apps are known for being sort of buggy. It’s one thing to have Gmail crash on start, but it’s another to have your app’s functionality interrupted while you’re in the middle of listening to music. If Google would tweak the user interface a little bit, and put some resources into debugging, then it would see itself a little higher on this list.
2. iHeartRadio
If you’re not interested in a more traditional radio experience, though, then you’re still in luck. iHeartRadio also lets you browse their custom radio stations, however. These stations are more what you would expect from a music streaming service, and they have skips and thumbs ups and thumbs downs and all of that good stuff. When it comes down to it, there isn’t really anything wrong with iHeartRadio. It’s an excellent service, and it offers absolutely anything that a Pandora fanatic would ever need. It doesn’t offer on-demand music but, as I mentioned before, Pandora doesn’t have the either. The only reason why this app wasn’t able to top the list is simply because the next app we’re going to talk about is an absolute juggernaut. Even though this app win gold doesn’t mean that it isn’t well worth your time. I highly recommend it to anyone looking for an app like Pandora.
1. Spotify
If you like Pandora, then you would probably really enjoy using Spotify. The user interface can take some getting used to, and the difference between playlists and radio stations can be confusing. (A lot of radio stations are called radio stations, when they’re really just playlists that are 20-30 tracks long.) Once you’re over that hurdle, though, then you should have no further issue adjusting to the service. When it comes to library size, functionality, and value, Spotify is absolutely unmatched in the music streaming industry. I highly recommend it to any fan of Pandora who happens to be looking for something different.