It's not unexpected that Apple Music is marketed directly at Apple consumers. As such, whether you own an iPhone, HomePod, or Apple Watch, Apple Music makes a lot of sense. Apple Music is considered the best music streaming service for user experience.

Apple Music integrates easily with Siri, lets you listen to music on your Watch while running, and its monthly fee (£10/month on its own) can be wrapped into a money-saving package that includes an Apple TV+ subscription and iCloud storage.

The usability is as sleek as you'd expect from Apple, with a clean, simple interface that's simple to navigate and search capabilities that allows you to search by lyrics if necessary.

Apple Music has an incredible starting repertoire with over 75 million tracks for you to enjoy. The fluidity of Apple Music's catalog is what sets it apart from the competition. It combines music from the streaming service and your iTunes library and lets you effortlessly add local files from your computer. Podcast enthusiasts may be disappointed, as Apple's Podcasts app contains the majority of its podcast content.

In terms of features, Apple Music contains well-curated tabs for suggestions, created playlists, and new releases from artists you enjoy. It also includes a powerful radio feature with three specialized stations: Apple Radio 1, Apple Music Hits, and Apple Music Country. Apple Radio 1 is a thrilling 24-hour worldwide radio station that broadcasts exclusive weekly shows from artists such as Frank Ocean and Drake's OVO group.

In addition to their normal AAC audio files, Apple Music subscribers get lossless streaming as part of their base package. The Apple Music mobile and desktop apps perform seamlessly on Macs and iPhones with great Siri integration, making them ideal for anyone already in the Apple ecosystem; Android and PC users may still use them, but there may be the occasional snag since things aren't quite as flawless.

Apple Music offers similar standard, student, and family plans to Spotify, as well as its own Voice Plan for £4.99/month, which is totally controlled by Siri.

Pros:

• Excellent playlist curation;
• 24/7 live radio channel;
• podcasts/Beats radio;
• works well with other Apple kit

Cons:

• No lossless playback option;
• mostly appealing for Apple users

Price: £10 (256kbps) | Family (up to 6 people): £15 | Student: £5

Key details:

• Free Trial: 1 month;
• Audio Quality: 128Kbits/sec - Lossless;
• Offline downloads: Yes;
• Shared plans: Yes

Website: https://music.apple.com/gb/browse

Amazon Music Unlimited, one of the younger services on this list, is swiftly catching up to the competition. Amazon Music Unlimited has a large selection available right now, with over 90 million songs and millions of podcasts in its content repository.

Those looking for high-quality audio will be glad to learn that Amazon Music Unlimited users receive free lossless streaming across the full repertoire, as well as 7 million songs in ultra-high-definition formats such as Dolby Atmos and Sony Reality 360 audio.

Amazon Music Unlimited is regarded as the best music streaming service for Prime subscribers. However, there are a variety of fascinating subscription plans available for non-Prime subscribers in addition to the regular monthly rate. Along with student and family plans, there is an £8.99/month (or £89/year if you opt for an annual subscription) option for Prime members, as well as a £3.99/month plan that limits playback to a single Echo device - a great budget-friendly option if you just want to bring some tunes into the kitchen or living room for day-to-day grooving.

While it offers a comparable repertoire and audio quality to its competitors, Amazon Music Unlimited suffers from less in-depth curation techniques and a little rough app experience.

Price: £10.99/mth

Key details:

• Free Trial: 1 month;
• Audio Quality: 256Kbits/sec - Studio ;
• Offline downloads: Yes
• Shared plans: Yes

Website: https://www.amazon.co.uk/music/unlimited

While it may not be as well-known as Apple or Amazon, French music streaming service Qobuz is well worth a look, providing an experience suited to music fans and aficionados. Qobuz's audio quality begins with an amazing 320 Kbits/sec and progresses to 16-bit CD quality and 24-bit 192 kHz audio. The site also offers a massive content library with over 100 million tracks - the most of any streaming service's selection of high-resolution audio.

Qobuz, like many other services, provides a great, easy-to-use user interface, auto-generated personal playlists, and team-curated selections. Its magazine section, for example, offers write-ups of freshly released music, thorough artist retrospectives, music news, and evaluations of high-end audio equipment. There's also Qobuz Club, a social forum where users can talk about and propose music, speakers, and other products. Clever, minor things, such as the option to examine scans of LP jackets and liner notes for certain albums with a single click, further contribute to Qobuz's impression of being a premium, digital counterpart to physical music media collection.

Qobuz's Studio tier begins at £12.99 per month or £129.99 per year, with the yearly plan costing just £10.83 per month. The Sublime tier of Qobuz, which lets users acquire Hi-Res audio files at a reduced price, is set at £15 per month. Both choices are available on an individual basis as well as through duo and family sharing agreements.

Price: From £12.99/mth

Key details:

• Free Trial: 1 month;
• Audio Quality: 320Kbits/sec - Studio;
• Offline downloads: Yes;
• Shared plans: Yes

Website: https://www.qobuz.com/gb-en/music/streaming/offers

Tidal put a priority on music quality from the start, promoting a CD-quality tier while others were just managing 320kbps. Since then, it has prioritized audio quality, going so far as to offer high-resolution quality (mostly 24-bit/96kHz) for a section of its catalog called 'Tidal Masters,' all as part of its £20 HiFi tier (there's also a standard 320kbps Premium tier for £10/month).

Tidal Connect - a feature that lets you stream to compatible devices over Wi-Fi without leaving the app - is built into hi-fi hardware from brands like KEF, Bluesound, Cambridge Audio, and Dali.

Tidal has effectively established itself as the mainstream music streaming service for audiophiles and music fans. Tidal offers a comparably robust catalog to other providers, with over 80 million tracks. Unlike most other sites, it also includes an amazing video area with over 350,000 HD videos - as well as music documentaries and films for anyone interested in learning more about their favourite performers.

Offline playback, curated playlists, stations, recommendations, and lossless audio streaming are all included in Tidal's regular Hi-Fi account.

While this ordinary plan will satisfy the majority of users, Tidal's slightly costly (£19.99/mth) Hi-Fi Plus plan has several really fascinating features. This grade grants access to studio-quality audio, such as Dolby Atmos and Master Quality. Hi-Fi Plus also employs an experimental royalties scheme for artists, with up to 10% of your monthly fee going directly to your most streamed artists, making the extra cost less painful.

If you care about sound quality and have the necessary equipment, this is undoubtedly the greatest-sounding music streaming service available.

Pros:

• Best sound on a streaming service;
• well designed;
• good discovery;
• lots of videos and original content

Cons:

• Expensive for the HiFi tier

Price: £10 (320kbps) | £20 (high-res) | Family plans (up to 6 people) available for £15/£30

Key details:

• Free Trial: 1 month;
• Audio Quality: 160Kbits/sec - Lossless (standard) Lossless - Studio (hi-fi plus);
• Offline downloads: Yes;
• Shared plans: Yes

Website: https://tidal.com/try-now

Spotify is well-known for a reason. It boasts one of the most extensive content libraries, with 82 million songs and over 3 million podcasts, with the great majority of new releases premiering on the site. Spotify is also compatible with practically all devices and speakers, so you'll be OK no matter what your setup is.

It provides more than just a library; you may listen to daily and weekly created playlists depending on your listening habits, explore new genres and sounds with expertly curated lists like Rap Caviar, and experiment with new features that are released on a regular basis. Spotify does have certain disadvantages. Its audio quality can degrade when you're on the road, and recent UI improvements have made the PC software difficult to use, with plans to switch to a TikTok-style stream upsetting many users.

Spotify does provide a good selection of payment plans, including a free tier with adverts, a basic monthly plan, and subscription plans for two individuals (£12.99/mth), households (£14.99/mth for up to 6 people), and students (£4.99/mth).

Price: £9.99/mth

Pros:

• Great, exclusive content;
• a range of subscription options;
• ease of use

Cons:

• No lossless… yet;
• podcast push is a little heavy-handed

Key details:

• Free Tier: Yes;
• Audio Quality: 24Kbits/sec - 320Kbits/sec;
• Offline downloads: Yes;
• Shared plans: Yes

Website: https://open.spotify.com/

When a new, hot-ticket musician emerges these days, it usually comes from the bubbling cauldron that is Soundcloud. Soundcloud differs from the other services on this list in that it is more focused on newer, independent artists posting music directly to their listeners and has deeper and more fully integrated social elements. Soundcloud is the place to go if you want to find the next Post Malone, Billie Eilish, or Lil Nas X before they hit the charts.

Soundcloud's free tier is ad-supported, but their subscription service Soundcloud GO+ plus provides ad-free listening, full access to their catalog in high-quality audio (though audio quality is dependent on what artists upload), and the ability to use Soundcloud tracks in select DJ mixing apps.

Soundcloud also supports creators through a scheme similar to Tidal called "fan-powered royalties," which means that your monthly price goes towards supporting the musicians you listen to the most. Soundcloud has a student plan and a more limited plan called Soundcloud GO (without the +); however, no family, couple, or home plans are currently available.

Price: £9.99/mth

Key details:

• Free tier: Yes;
• Free Trial: 1 month;
• Audio Quality: 256Kbits/sec - 320Kbits/sec;
• Offline downloads: Yes;
• Shared plans: No

Website: https://soundcloud.com/