Today, the top streaming services are Spotify and YouTube Music. Both are partly free, with ads, but you can also sign up for a paid subscription to access the full suite of features like offline music listening.
If you're wondering which music app to subscribe to, try out a few lesser-known music apps first - completely free, no fuss.
Aux.app
There are 4 main streaming apps that are suitable for listening to music online for free: YouTube, SoundCloud, MixCloud and Deezer. Each of them will have a song that is not available in the other three - this is where a music aggregator comes in handy Aux.app.
Aux combines these 4 music services into one convenient service. You can set up a search for all 4 platforms or for each one separately. Add songs to the queue or to your own playlist, like it to add it to your favorites. If the playlist is empty, Aux will recommend you a song based on your tastes: chanson, hip-hop, classics - whatever. Tracks are played without stopping for advertising (Hello, VKontakte). And everything is legal. Russian language support is available.
The service can be used without registration, but to search Deezer databases, you will need an account in this service. Registration in Aux is useful for saving playlists and the ability to like. And if you connect YouTube and SoundCloud accounts, Aux will immediately import your favorite tracks.
Mozaart
More and more people are using YouTube as a music app, but let's face it: YouTube is not optimized for listening to music. Mozaart — is a track search catalog app that will also give you a YouTube link for any song.
Browse Chartsto see the top 50 most popular songs in any country, or go to Playlists for ready-made collections based on genres, your mood or the language of performance. One click of the icon Play near the desired track - and you're done.
The powerful catalog system in Mozaart is the main feature of the application. Although it was not intended as a search engine for tracks on YouTube, it eventually became exactly that. This application is a perfectly systematized search engine by artists, albums, lyrics, etc. with the ability to play immediately. Mozaart will open YouTube to you from a completely different side.
Spinrilla
In its early days, when hip-hop was still an underground culture, artists distributed their music by recording their performances at parties on audio cassettes. Labels grew and developed, and over time hip-hop became part of the mainstream, but its underground component is still alive. And Spinrilla - is clear confirmation of this.
Hip-hop artists still release mixes with originals and new remixes of old works. If you are a hip-hop fan and want to hear tracks from new artists, then Spinrilla is for you.
Spinrilla is a free hip-hop mix music service. Listen to trending, popular and upcoming mixes, discover new singles and watch music videos. With an account, you can save songs and mixes, and create playlists of your favorite tracks.
Whether you use Spinrilla in a browser or in a mobile app, it is as good as any other service. The sound quality is also impressive, considering that Spinrilla is completely free to access and does not require any contributions.
Spinrilla is available for Android And iOS.
YouTube Music for Desktop
The official YouTube Music app is a great thing, but it has one drawback: it doesn’t have a desktop version. The mobile version has a lot of useful features for comfortable listening to music.
However, where YouTube gives up, other developers come to the rescue. YouTube Music for Desktop — a very useful program for all major operating systems that will give you not only full access to YouTube Music, but also something on top. Search, playlists, listening to radio stations and much more, all through a free account.
In addition, the player is compatible with MusixMatch. Since YouTube Music doesn't have lyrics, the MusixMatch integration gives you access to that feature as well, along with smart lyrics preview as you play.
There is a version for Windows / macOS / Linux.
mStream
You have tons of folders on your computer filled with your favorite music - but how do you listen to it from another device? mStream will allow you to easily set up your personal streaming server, accessible from any other device.
According to the developers, setup takes only 30 seconds — and they're not lying. Launch the program, enter your username, password, and an available port on your network. TCP port 3000 is usually fine. Specify the path to your music and click Run Server to get an IP address. After a few seconds (depending on the size of the folder), the server will create a playlist and start working.
Now, connect to the same Wi-Fi network as your PC, enter the IP address, enter your login, password and here it is - your music, click on any track and listen! A very simple way to access music within the home.
The program itself is open source, compatible with all major OS (Windows, macOS and Linux). Raspberry Pi OS is not supported at the moment, but you can easily find instructions on how to write a program on any version of Terminal.