Many people hesitate between Spotify and Tidal. While Spotify is the obvious winner for the Free tier, as Tidal has discontinued its Free plan in 2024. As for the paid plans, the Tidal Premium plan offers 100M+ songs in up to 24-bit/192 kHz Hi-Res FLAC, while the Spotify Premium plans offer Lossless audio up to 24-bit/44.1 kHz FLAC in over 50 markets and, in other areas, up to 320 kbps.
It may not be hard to decide whether to subscribe to Spotify or Tidal Premium, since the music quality and pricing differ. Here’s a detailed comparison of Tidal and Spotify to help you decide.
Spotify Free users can stream all songs without spending a penny, but there are some limitations: ads, no offline playback, limited skips and shuffle play on mobile.
Tidal used to offer a similar free plan for access to all the songs in its streaming library. However, in 2026, Tidal free users can only play a 30-second preview of each song, whether on desktop or mobile.
Both Spotify and Tidal offer Individual, Student, and Family plans. Both Family plans offer 6 accounts. Unique accounts allow family members to get better recommendations and discover new music tailored to them.
In addition, Spotify has a Duo plan that allows two Premium accounts on the subscription. While Tidal offers a “DJ Extension” at $9/month to unlock the ability to use TIDAL’s music library within professional DJ software.
In general, Spotify costs more than Tidal in the same account type. Both Spotify and Tidal offers 50% off student discount. But Spotify Student offers free Hulu (With Ads) in the U.S., making it an appealing option.
Spotify Plans
Tidal Plans
Both Tidal and Spotify offer free trials only for new subscribers. Spotify typically offers a one-month free trial for Individual and Student plans, while the Family and Duo plans usually don’t offer a free trial. Sometimes, Spotify extends the free trial to 3 months for the Individual plan.
Tidal offers a one-month free trial for Individual, Family, and Student plans. Sometimes, you can pay $2 to extend the free trial to 60 days.
Tidal has more than 100 million songs and 650K videos. Tidal also offers podcasts, but its selection is small, to say the least.
Spotify has over 100 million tracks and over 7 million podcast titles. Spotify also has videos, but they don’t play as significant a role as with Tidal. There’s no dedicated section for videos, for example. You can come across videos when searching for an artist or song, and that’s about it.
Spotify shows how many listeners a particular artist has each month. This helps you figure out which ones are most popular among Spotify users. You can also see how many followers a playlist has, how many times a song is played, which helps decide which one to try.
While Tidal sometimes hosts exclusive, early-release albums from major artists, Spotify often has better access to obscure content.
Tidal has more album editions than Spotify.
Spotify album
Tidal album
Tidal classifies some albums as compilations, while on Spotify, they are in the albums section.
What is the difference between an album and a compilation?
An album is a collection of NEW, original, and well-crafted songs put together to form a meaningful work of art. A compilation, on the other hand, is usually made up of previously released songs that have been compiled. Songs on compilations could be album leftovers, uncleared songs, previously released music looking to be re-branded and re-presented to an audience, etc.
Tidal
Tidal has 110M+ tracks in lossless, HiRes FLAC, and Dolby Atmos. Tidal Premium plans deliver sound at peak performance – with up to 24-bit / 192 kHz (Hi-Res FLAC).
Spotify
Spotify offers Lossless audio up to 24-bit/44.1 kHz FLAC in over 50 countries and regions. In other areas, Spotify’s “very high” quality is typically taken to be equivalent to 320 kbps MP3.
There is a difference between 320kbps and Tidal HiFi, but you need a good player to hear the difference. If you’re listening to your music through your iPhone headphones, everything tends to sound the same. If you are the obsessed audiophile type and have a good system, lossless is definitely worth it.
TIDAL Hi-Res FLAC allows you to hear the difference in your favorite songs with high-fidelity sound quality, Master Quality Audio, Dolby Atmos, and Sony 360 Reality Audio. Enjoy your music ad-free or offline from anywhere on all your favorite devices.
Spotify’s interface is more concise than Tidal’s. One of the reasons Spotify is so popular is its easy-to-use interface. When you open the app, you’ll find a number of personalized playlists, such as your “Daily Mixes”, that Spotify curates based on your listening habits, along with your top artists, top playlists, and new releases.
Spotify Premium mobile
Spotify Free mobile
Tidal
Tidal iOS interface has 5 tabs: Home, Updates, Upload, Explore, and Collection.
Spotify desktop
Tidal desktop
Spotify’s search result feature is more user-friendly than Tidal’s. All results are displayed but classified on the same page. Scroll down, and you can quickly find what you want.
While Tidal search result pages are classified under different tabs. You need to click the relevant tab to view the results.
However, Spotify’s recent searches don’t update in time.
Tidal Recent Searches
Both Spotify and Tidal support lyrics. Spotify provides lyrics to all free and Premium Spotify users worldwide. However, Tidal lyrics are only available to paid users.
Lyrics on Spotify and Tidal aren’t produced by Spotify itself. They’re supplied by MusixMatch, a music data company that specializes in Lyrics Display, Synchronized Lyrics, and other lyrics management tools.
Users can access Spotify lyrics on tablets, mobile devices, desktops, the SpotifyTV app, and the web player. Lyrics may not be available for all songs. New lyrics are added every day, so you may find them added in the future.
Spotify uses auto-scrolling song lyrics on its mobile and desktop apps. The auto-scroll feature highlights each lyric line in time with the song, making it easy for users to follow and sing along.
TIDAL paid members can access the lyrics feature on mobile, desktop, or web.
Both Spotify and Tidal support Profile, Public Playlists, followers, and following. Profile feature lets users create a profile name and then publish their playlists, so other listeners can enjoy their digital mixtapes. The feature also lets users follow “friends, family, and favorite curators.”
Users can find a profile in two ways: by searching for a specific Tidal Profile name in the ‘Search’ box, or through a profile link (select ‘Copy Profile’ on your profile page and then ‘Share the link’).
Spotify Friend Activity feature allows you to connect with Facebook to see what your friends are listening to, which is a great way to discover new music. You can also publish your new playlists on your profile, share your listening activity on Spotify, or show your recently played artists on your public profile. Spotify’s Blend feature lets you create a playlist that mixes your favorite songs with a friend’s.
If you want a free plan and don’t care about ad interruptions and the lack of offline listening, Spotify is the winner.
For Premium subscribers, if you focus on music and a clean, non-intrusive UI and want to support the artists more, TIDAL is the winner.
If you prefer to quickly switch between devices, Spotify is the winner. If you need Smart Home integration with Google/Amazon ecosystems, choose Spotify.
Related: How to play TIDAL music on Google Home/Assistant?
Switch between Spotify and Tidal? Don’t worry about the missing playlists. You can always transfer playlists between the services with a tool like Soundiiz or TuneMyMusic.
While you can download Tidal music for offline listening, the songs are restricted to the Tidal app on the device where they were downloaded. To download Tidal music to FLAC and play them anywhere you want, all you need is Pazu Tidal Converter, which allows you to download any Tidal songs, albums and playlists to M4A/MP3/AAC/FLAC/WAV/AIFF on your Mac and Windows. Follow the steps below and learn how to download Tidal music to FLAC.
Download, install, and run Pazu Tidal Converter on your Mac or Windows, which features a built-in Tidal web player. Log in to your Tidal account.
If you have purchased a license, click the key icon to register the converter. If not, continue using the trial version.
Click the Gear icon in the top right corner to change the output format. The default output format is M4A. Select FLAC as the output format. Pazu Tidal Music Converter also supports MP3, AAC, WAV, and AIFF.
You can also customize the output folder or organize song names with any combination of Title, Artist, Album, Track Number, and Playlist Index.
Click any playlist you want to download. Then click the red icon to load songs.
All songs in the playlist will be added by default. You can uncheck the songs you don’t want to get.
Click the Convert button to start downloading Tidal music to FLAC.
After conversion, click the folder icon to quickly locate the downloaded Tidal songs. You can then transfer and play it anywhere.
Download and convert any Spotify songs, albums, playlists to MP3/M4A etc.