4. YouTube Music

Are you not planning to pay for YouTube Music? Or do you not intend to use YouTube Premium coming with YouTube Music? If so, you will still be able to load up the web’s app, iOS, and Android. The free tier runs with Google smart speakers as well, though you can only get moods and mixes, not particular albums or songs.

In the leading apps, the users will get the usual option of popular and algorithm-generated playlists, which YouTube Music serves up for the user: All-Time Laid-Back Hits, Acoustic Pop, Top 100 Music Videos, Good Vibe Rap, Dance Hotlist, a choice of newly released music, and more.

You can skip around inside these playlists, picking out the queue’s other songs, and jumping forward and backward. You will hear some occasional ads, just like on regular YouTube, yet they are quite infrequent. Also, you can skip some of them.

Looking for specific songs and artists works fine, too—when you desire to enjoy a particular track at a certain time, you can. It is possible to queue up full albums as well as playing them in order. Plus, you can make custom playlists with your choices of songs, though again, some occasional ads will interrupt your listening.

It applies to the web client as well as mobile apps. Yet, when the apps for iOS and Android entail, you cannot sync the songs for offline playback. Either, you cannot listen in the background; thus, once you close the app, then the music will stop.

YouTube Music brings a strong free offering, providing you with more music and flexibility compared to what you might expect from one streaming service, which you do not pay for—yet then, it builds on top of YouTube, which allows you to listen to countless music for free.

3. Deezer

It may not be as famous as the other choices here, yet it does provide one completely free tier that allows you to access the web’s streaming service, the one on desktop clients, iOS, and Android.

As you begin the apps, you can get many recommended playlists, inclusive of your favorite artist mixes, recommended new releases, etc. On the web and desktop, you can look for particular albums and tracks, make your own playlists, as well as playing them all on-demand.

As you expect, you will get ads – yet, they are quite few and far between. Also, clicking through as a lot of track skips as you love is possible. 

Deezer gets more restrictive on mobile: Listening to your playlists is not possible. Instead, only the mixes based on them. Plus, you are limited to only six skips per 60 minutes and every usual restriction – say, no syncing playlists on the phone for offline listening as well as no access to the audio fidelity’s highest level.

It is possible to shuffle through particular playlists suggested by Deezer. Yet, for enjoying your own music, this one is less helpful (even though you can keep on adding to playlists that you have already created). Unless you do most of your listening on the computer, Deezer’s free version fails to provide you with much to work with.

As a whole, the app (inclusive of one premium choice, which is 10 USD per month, or 15 USD monthly for the Elite version) should be worth a look. You see, it comes with an interface, one catalog, and many features to its rival Apple Music and Spotify. That said, as addressed, the free tier displays some gaps when you switch to mobile. You also need one paid Deezer subscription for the service used on devices.

2. Amazon Music

You can use it for free on iOS, Android, Echo smart speakers, and the web, even if you do not pay for Prime. You can only access two million songs, instead of 50 million or so on the paid Unlimited that will run you as a Prime member 8 USD a month or 10 USD a month when you do not get Prime.

There are not just fewer songs on your free Amazon Music. It is quite restrictive regarding what you indeed can do with it. For example, picking a song from one album is not possible. If you do, then you will launch one radio mix that is based on the song (even though it will not contain the song that you initially chose).

Though you can skip tracks, you are limited by the number of times. Seeing what is coming up is not possible, and also there are ad breaks for interrupting the music as well. Also, they seem to be far more regular compared to those on a service like Spotify. In terms of creating custom playlists, it is off the table with Amazon Music’s free tier.

With them in mind, it is not for people who want to choose individual songs—yet if you need a mood or a mix, it is okay. At least it is simple to run and jump into. Plus, the choice of playlists and stations is decent.

Fire up your mobile apps, and then you will find the similar restrictions are in place. Listening is recommended instead of being on-demand. There are many ads; you can skip plenty of times, and yes, there is no offline syncing.

At just about every turn, you will come across the adverts, and Amazon will be quite aggressive in getting you to upgrade.