Best music streaming services available right now, tested and rated

Spotify is the biggest music streaming service on the planet — but does that mean its the best that you should drop your hard-earned dollars on? It’s done its best over the last year or so to more effectively vie for your cash with updates like Spotify Hi-res, audiobooks and podcasts, but only time will tell if that’s enough for it to beat out the other options with their differing features and often lower price points.

After all, the best streaming services live and die by their music libraries. Increasingly, AI music is becoming a concern (or a boon, depending on your viewpoint), with each service offering different ways to filter out slop. In a previous life, I was audio editor — and I still use every service daily to work out which should live on your devices for your music fix.

What are the best music streaming services? 

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At the start of 2026, things are looking very different indeed from the beginning of 2025. Spotify has upped its game this year (and its price), and Tidal has lost some features in a fairly tumultuous year. Upstarts like Deezer have created AI detection engines so that you know for sure that your music is being made by a human being. Niche options have stepped up to the plate with more user-friendly features, too, like Qobuz and its new Qobuz Connect feature for internet-connected devices.

The landscape has changed, and so to has my choice for the best streaming service overall — it’s now Apple, unseating Tidal from the throne. In 2025, Tidal lost access to spatial audio formats, along with its MQA streaming. That means that users looking for top-quality music are now better served by Qobuz, with its wider range of hi-res streams and formats.

Apple Music then — it’s the best right now, and for good reason. The high-quality streams are up there with Tidal’s current quality, but it houses a larger library in 2026. You’ll also still find Apple’s excellent Spatial Audio mixed tracks, as well as access to Apple Podcasts and Apple Music Classical for those who like a symphony or two.

Spotify is better than ever, now cementing a solid second place. It's still expensive, but it's now the most fully featured streaming service thanks to the addition of hi-res listening. There aren’t any other services that offer podcasts, audiobooks, and music in the same app.

Qobuz comes in third, thanks to its human-curated library and mind-blowing sound quality. Where’s Tidal, then? It no longer presents a unique experience — it sounds good, but not as good as Qobuz. It also doesn’t have the extras of Apple or Spotify, and costs about the same as everything else. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

The best music streaming services now

Best music streaming service overall

Apple is now the best streaming service you can subscribe to — not because it’s offering any more features than it ever has before, but because other streaming services that were at the top have lost features. I was already a big fan of Apple Music, and now that Tidal has lost Spatial Audio and the application continues to be unstable as the firm struggles on, it’s managed to take the top spot of the list for 2026.

You get a whole bunch of features, as you might expect for something from Apple in 2026. There’s Spatial Audio and Hi-Res listening on the audio side. The former is about as good as you’ll get, and works with some of the most popular headphones and earbuds around. Including, as you might imagine, AirPods. The hi-res listening isn’t the best around, but it still sounds excellent through any device you might play it through.

The library of music is still huge, with over 100 million songs for your listening pleasure, and the human-curated playlists continue to be a highlight. The app works very well whether you’re on Android, iOS, macOS or even Windows.

It’s also one of the cheaper options at $10.99 per month. That’s less than Spotify, its key rival. You also get access to Apple Music Classical, making it much easier to sort through the ever-convoluted world of symphony orchestras, ancient recordings, and composers. It’s my pick for the best music streaming service right now.

• Read our full Apple Music review

Best music streaming service for features

Spotify does just about everything. It’s now got hi-res listening (although it's not quite as tasty as the other options on the list), along with the already available music videos, podcasts and audiobooks. Spotify wants to be a one-stop music shop, and its just about become that over its long life. Thanks to the addition of Hi-Fi streaming, it’s now the second-best streaming service on the list.

There’s only one thing that some will miss, and that’s Spatial Audio. It’s also not the best if you’re looking for something transparent about AI music, nor is it particularly good at paying the artists on the platform very much money. There are also some extra AI features like AI DJ which definitely fall under the “love it or hate it” category.

Still, with the largest library of any streaming service around and one of the best apps in the business, it makes a more compelling case for your money in 2026 than it has pretty much any other time it's existed.

• Read our full Tidal vs. Spotify face-off

Best music streaming service for audiophiles

The audiophile landscape has changed a lot since the inception of streaming. Where before you might have ignored most streaming options thanks to their woeful MP3 file types that pale in comparison to your collection of locally stored Flacs, you now find streamers that pride themselves on having the very best formats, bit-rates, and resolutions available at any time on a range of different devices — Qobuz is just one of many, but there are some key reasons it's better for audiophiles than the likes of Tidal.

Its implementation of DACs is excellent, for example, working out of the box with a range of different devices. There are more hi-res tracks, and they sound slightly better than Tidal too — all housed within a streamer that wants you to engage with the music that you listen to, as opposed to just playing it in the background. Each entry in the streamer has a review from a well-known critic, or even more details entered by those in the know. It tells you more about what you're listening to than any other streamer and makes things feel more personal.

Streaming quality goes from CD-quality FLACs all the way to DSD files and other more esoteric formats — all to make the music sound as good as possible. Plug in your finest headphones, and you're treated to detail, space, and definition that you've likely not experienced before. Then there's the Qobuz store, and if you opt for the more expensive 'sublime' tier, then you get a 60% discount on the music you buy and download.

There are a couple of things holding Qobuz back from the top spot. The app is, while much better than before, still slightly buggy, and there's no Spatial Audio should you be interested in the format. All in though, if you're looking for a streamer that fits with your thousands of pounds worth of HiFi seperates, then Qobuz is the way to go.

• Read our full Qobuz review

Best music streaming service for value

Operating as a separate Amazon streaming tier from its Amazon Music service, Amazon Music Unlimited offers a very strong 100 million songs in its library with access to CD-quality streams and higher, and supports both Dolby Atmos and Sony 360 Reality Audio content. The service is less focused on curated content than some of its rivals, though, and the playlist it generates appear to be rather generic.

Amazon Prime members now have access to Amazon Music Unlimited library in shuffle mode, bringing its full catalog at no additional cost to their membership. The only catch is that you'll need to pay more to get to "All-Access" on-demand streaming that isn't stuck on shuffle mode.

Configured to work with the best Alexa compatible devices, third-party platform integration is slowly being more widely supported. The sound delivery from Amazon's CD-quality content via the desktop app is glitch-free, but there are some issues when selecting hi-res content that defaults to your laptop's internal audio output settings. This can effectively mean that a hi-res 24/96 audio file is down-sampled to 24/48. There doesn't appear to be any way to override this in the app, and you have to resort to continually adjusting the settings of your laptop to ensure that it's outputting full-fat hi-res audio.

• Read our Apple Music vs. Amazon Music face-off

Best music streaming service for social

Deezer is one of the oldest music streaming services around, although it's likely you've never heard of the French streaming platform. It sets itself apart with a club-like aesthetic — all black and neon, making it a unique-looking service when compared to the more austere competition from the likes of Tidal and Apple Music. That sense of fun extends to its social aspects.

Those social features are what allow the service to set itself apart from the other options out there. Shared playlists that are easy to edit and add to, tracking your friend's listening habit,s and more make it a whole lot of fun to use Deezer with your buddies.

Then there are the music quizzes, which ask you to identify tracks based on a few seconds of playback. The quicker you can work out what's playing, the more points you earn. The points are then gathered at the end of the quiz, and your performance is stacked up against other Deezer users. It's loads of fun.

The streaming quality isn't quite up to snuff with Tidal, Qobuz, or even Apple Music, but it's a lot better than the MP3 files streamed on Spotify. They're CD quality, so they're a whole lot higher resolution than the green circle can muster. Over Bluetooth headphones, you won't miss the extra resolution of Tidal and co.

Deezer is a solid streaming option if you want something that's more fun than the competition — just be aware that you have to make a few compromises for it to work.

• Read our full Deezer Review

Best alternative service for audiophiles

Once upon a time, Tidal was the best streaming service, thanks to its mix of spatial audio and excellent streaming quality. Since then, however, it’s lost the throne to more fully featured options like Apple Music and the resurgence of Spotify and its new high quality streaming. Tidal is still a good streaming service — but there are options that do just about everything better.

Qobuz has better streaming quality, a larger library, and more helpful human features. Tidal has now lost Spatial Audio and misses out compared to Apple Music. Spotify offers far more features and streaming quality that gets very close. No matter what you’re looking for, there’s always something that does it better than Tidal in some way or another.

So who is Tidal for? Audiophiles who aren’t entirely sure about Qobuz, I’d say. But given that Qobuz sounds better and now works better, it feels like the superior option.

• Read our full Tidal review

Best internet radio service

Available to U.S. subscribers only, SiriusXM is an internet radio streaming service that lets you tune into live music, talk, and sports radio stations as well as access a library of hundreds of on-demand channels including podcasts and videos. Subscribers can listen on a computer, smartphone, tablet, or via a wide range of car kits. It's an evolved radio streaming approach with an interface that enables listener's find other stations that fit their listening habits.

There are hundreds of channels to choose from. Some of the stations are live, with DJs guiding you — our review found these better than Spotify’s AI DJ. Other stations are pre-programmed without a host. The channels are all ad-free, but that’s only if you don’t count the frequent station IDs and cross-promotions. The app does a good job of suggesting channels and shows based on your listening patterns, and sound quality was decent throughout our trial.

There's no way to select a particular song you want to hear, but SiriusXM is a useful add-on to one of the streaming services above.

• Read our full SiriusXM review

How to choose the best music streaming services for you

Unlike the best streaming video services, you're unlikely to want more than one subscription to a music streaming service. It's all about picking the right platform and audio-quality content that's right for your budget.

It's important to consider the device you're most likely to use it on and how you interact with your friends and family over the music you enjoy listening to. You may want to share some of your listening habits with friends and family, for example.

Although the pricing structures have remained pretty static in light of growing competition while audio quality and features have improved, there are still some who don't want to pay to listen to music. If you care about music and the artists that produce the content you enjoy listening to though, there's never been a better time to consider how these services compensate the musicians whose work they offer up. Spotify's long had a bad reputation for its remuneration policy, but if you want to see how it compares to Apple and Tidal read our look at who pays artists more?

How we test the best music streaming services

Testing music streaming services is both serious work and good fun. As you'd imaging, we spend a lot of time listening on a selection of the best audiophile headphones as well as a selection of the best wireless headphones to build a picture of how each of the services sound. We listen to a selection of music tracks that can be found across each of the platforms and evaluate audio performance at different resolutions. As well as the test material, we also listen extensively to a wider selection of content and assess additional features to see how well they are implemented.

We rate the streaming services on a 5-point system (1 = worst, 5 = best). Products that excel in one or more particular fields and that's rated 4 stars or above may also receive an Editor’s Choice award.

More from Tom's Guide

• Tidal is streamlining its premium features into one affordable tier
• 10 hidden Tidal features to make your streaming experience sound even better
• I've been overpaying for Tidal, here's how to avoid making the same mistake