Amazon Music vs. Apple Music: Who’s the Winner?

Plenty of music streaming services out there offer you easy access to your favorite music and artists. Two of the most popular ones are Apple Music and Amazon Music. Both services offer a huge catalog of songs, personalized playlists, and subscription plans. Still, there are distinct differences between them.

If you are trying to switch to a new music streaming provider but are not sure which to choose. You have landed at the right place. We've looked into two top music services and evaluated which is best from subscription plans and music quality to their stand-out features.

1. Amazon Music vs. Apple Music: Pricing

To cater to different needs, Both services provide different paid subscription plans for individuals, students, and families consisting of 6 members, whose monthly fees are basically the same. The price for the individual plan, student plan, and family plan are $10.99, $5.99, and $16.99 respectively. For new subscribers, both services offer a 1-month free trial and allow users to cancel anytime. Besides, Apple also offers a 6-month free trial if you purchase an eligible Apple device (such as AirPods, HomePod mini, or Beats).

The major differences lie in their annual plans. Apple's yearly plan charges $109, while Amazon Music's plan is only available for Prime members and charges $99.

For subscription plans, if you are already an Amazon Prime member, Amazon Music is worth a try as it offers cheaper individual and yearly plans for Prime members. But if you are not an Amazon Prime member but you do have many Apple devices, Apple Music probably suits you best.

Verdict: Tie.

2. Amazon Music vs. Apple Music: Music Catalog

While both music streaming platforms offer a huge catalog of 100 million tracks, the music categories may differ. Apple Music provides 30,000 playlists, albums, original shows, concerts, and exclusives, and live & on‑demand radio stations hosted by artists. Whereas Amazon Music offers playlists and DJ mode to deepen your connection to the music.

So before deciding between Apple Music and Amazon Music, it is advisable to consider your personal tastes and preferences. Apple Music has various music categories, with which you can find almost all the music you want in Apple Music. Whereas Amazon Music is designed with "DJ Mode" to their streaming services where you can access music stories from artists and commentary from music insiders.

Verdict: Apple Music wins.

3. Amazon Music vs. Apple Music: Music Quality

Apple Music and Amazon Music both provide high quality for streaming songs, but they also offer several audio quality options. Generally, Apple Music streams songs at 256 Kbps in AAC format and offers high-resolution lossless streaming option, while Amazon Music delivers ultra HD quality when you listen to its songs on PC or Mac (HD and Ultra HD playback are not supported on the Web Player).

Considering they both provide similar audio quality on their web players and offer lossless quality, which makes both of them the winners.

Verdict: Tie.

4. Amazon Music vs. Apple Music: Offline Listening

Both Apple Music and Amazon Music Unlimited provide paid users with downloading songs to the library. Once you subscribe to its plan, be it Student, Individual, or Family Plan, Apple Music allows you to download up to 100,000 songs. Besides, it offers the Cloud Music Library feature, with which you can sync any downloaded music across any device with the same Apple ID and access your Apple Music library on any device.

While Amazon Music doesn't allow for syncing those devices to access or update your library, the platform allows Amazon Music Unlimited users to download songs, albums, and playlists. For Amazon Music Prime users, they can only download playlists.

Verdict: Apple Music wins.

5. Amazon Music vs. Apple Music: Device Compatibility

Apple Music and Amazon Music are available on browsers, Android devices, computers, and a wide range of devices. Yet, Apple Music is more compatible with its own eco-system. It works pretty well on Apple devices, such as iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, Apple TV, Apple Watch, and HomePod. Amazon Music is compatible with various devices, including smartphones, tablets, PC/Mac, smart TVs, Roku devices, Sonos, and Alexa-enabled devices like Amazon Echo devices.

As discussed above, you may find Amazon Music offers broader device compatibility compared to Apple Music as Apple Music is more often used with Apple devices.

Verdict: Amazon Music wins.

6. Amazon Music vs. Apple Music: Exclusive Features

Most of the features in Apple Music and Amazon Music are similar, such as music discovery, offline playback, curated playlists, karaoke-style lyrics, etc. Besides, there are exclusive features offered by both services.

The most sharable features of Apple Music must be Voice Plan and Spatial audio with Dolby Atmos. The Voic Plan can help you play songs quickly and easily. You can just ask Siri to "Play something chill" or "Play the dinner party playlist" and it will play similar songs for you. In addition, its Spatial audio with Dolby Atmos brings you an immersive audio experience by placing sounds in a virtual space around the listener.

Amazon Music also provides smart control called Alexa Controls. You can request Alexa to play or pause music and even create playlists, streaming from any eligible Echo or Fire TV device. Besides, Amazon Music's DJ Mode streams a mix of music and shares the stories and commentaries of the songs you are listening to, giving listeners a unique listening experience.

Verdict: Apple Music wins

7. Amazon Music vs. Apple Music: Free Listening

While both music streaming services offer free listening, there are huge differences in this aspect. Apple Music allows you to enjoy music from almost any browser on your computer, tablet, or phone. However, if you are a free user, you only can listen to part of the songs for free on Apple Music unless you subscribe to its paid plans. But, there is no ad during the playback in this player even in a free trial on Apple Music.

Amazon Music also offers free online listening. For its free users, Amazon Music allows them to listen to playlists and stations for free with ads.

Verdict: Amazon Music wins.

8. Amazon Music vs. Apple Music: Social Features

When it comes to social media sharing, both services allow you to create sharing links to share songs with others.

On Apple Music, you can follow your friends and share your favorite songs directly with them. You can look at the list of songs your friends are hearing. Through this streaming service, you can keep a connection with your friends and family members as well. On the other hand, Amazon Music also lets you share songs via links. This means you cannot directly share it through the service even if your friend is using it.

Apple Music lets you directly share songs with friends using the service or by links and Amazon Music only supports sharable links. In this way, Apple Music is the winner.

Verdict: Apple Music wins.

9. Amazon Music vs. Apple Music: User Interface

Both Apple Music and Amazon Music offer their users unique designs. Personally speaking, the white Apple Music player is more concise and it looks lively and bright. Its main features are arranged in a straightforward layout, which can be easily accessed. The tabs on this app are adequately arranged so that you can find everything easily.

The user interface of Amazon Music is black. It is researched that the interface works very slowly. It can hang while streaming music or trying to search for new keywords. Similar to Apple Music, it also has four parts: Browse, Home, Podcasts, and Library. On its main interface, you can also discover music in DJ Mode.

Verdict: Tie.

10. Amazon Music vs. Apple Music: Country Availability

Apple Music, an efficient and famous streaming service, is currently operating in 167 countries. As Apple devices are well-known worldwide, people using Apple devices are more attracted to this streaming service as they can stream from their Apple devices easily.

Amazon Music is available in only 46 countries, including Prime membership. As Amazon is still a beginner in streaming services, that is the reason for its unavailability in many countries.

In this case of country availability, Apple Music wins because it is available in more than 100 countries, which is a significant achievement for this streaming service.

Verdict: Apple Music wins.

Final Verdict: Is Amazon Music better than Apple Music?

Through the scorecard below, you can find both streaming services have similar and unique features. Some features of Apple Music are better than that of Amazon Music, but there are sections where Amazon Music tops. Overall, Apple Music wins over for better performance in 5 aspects and combining both the music quality and overall sound experience.

If you decide to give Apple Music a shot, you can enjoy a 1-month free trial after subscribing to its Individual Plan, use TuneFab Apple Music Converter to download your favorite songs and playlists, and enjoy them whenever you want even without Apple Music Premium!