Spotify alternatives compared: which service fits which listener

If you want everything in lossless, Apple Music already includes hi-res ALAC and Spotify Premium now streams FLAC up to 24-bit/44.1 kHz. For the largest hi-res catalogues look at Qobuz, TIDAL and Amazon Music Unlimited. Deezer is the large service whose payment model gives extra weight to artists with a real fan base. YouTube Music lets you upload up to 100,000 songs of your own, even without a subscription.

Artyfile Stream is a different kind of alternative: a single label streaming its own recordings — cinematic, classical, pop, jazz, rock and alpine folk played by people, no AI-generated music — as the untouched WAV master. Your subscription’s artist pool goes to the recordings you actually play, never less than €0.03 per stream. Most people use it next to a large service rather than instead of one.

What sets it apart:

• Label masters, not a distributor copy: every track is the WAV file the mastering engineer approved, streamed bit for bit in the browser and in the iOS and Android apps.
• User-centric pay with a floor: on the Standard plan €12.00 of your €19.90 goes to the artist pool and is shared among what you play; each counted stream pays at least €0.03 to the rights holders.
• My Music: upload your own CD rips and recordings (WAV, FLAC, MP3, AAC) to a private locker of 10, 30 or 50 GB and play them next to the catalogue. Those plays do not use your stream allowance.
• Owner’s Lounge: if you own a numbered Limited Edition share of a recording (sold on artyfile.com), the app shows your editions and how often they were played this quarter.
• Try before you pay: every track has a free 30-second preview on stream.artyfile.com, no account needed.

It is not a 100-million-track library: you will not find the latest chart releases from other labels. It is not unlimited either — plans include 100, 250 or 500 streams a month. There are no permanent offline downloads (the apps reserve up to five streams per device for 24 hours), no files above 48 kHz, no free ad-supported tier and, today, no CarPlay, Android Auto or Chromecast.

Keeping your large service and adding Artyfile Stream Small (€9.90 for 100 streams) is the common set-up: the big app for everything, Artyfile for its studio recordings and your own uploaded albums in one hi-fi player. Your account works in the browser, on iPhone, iPad and Android at the same time, and you can cancel monthly.