Other than being an avid techie, one other thing that defines me is Music. I’m an absolute audiophile. Many like to make fun of the fact that my phone is home more than 2000 songs.

While having all these songs on-tap is nice, the future is in Streaming and as such, I’m also big on music streaming. I have tried almost everything out there. For a long time, Spotify has been my go-to music streaming platform. But it is not officially supported in this part of the planet so I had to jump through a bunch of hoops to enjoy my favorite tunes but for a music junkie like me, it’s almost always been worth it.

But all that is changing. I am ditching Spotify for it’s closest competitor, well, if we’re excluding Apple Music of course, Deezer.

I wish I had a whole list of gripes that inspired my move but I don’t. These are just my personal experiences. Also, for the most part, these two music streaming Giants are comparable.

Convenience for paying for monthly subscription

I know it’s probably not wise to admit this here but, I haven’t paid for Spotify. Not once. I’ve always been using these modded apps that mimic premium features, opening myself to security loopholes associated with these bootleg apps.

But I have been meaning to pay. I have tried to pay for Spotify for years. But since it isn’t officially available in my region, they can’t take my money, be it from my credit card or my PayPal.

Deezer on the other hand, is officially available in Kenya and many other regions. Paying for Deezer is as simple as opening a PayPal account, linking it to M-PESA, transferring the required funds and that’s it.

Deezer sounds so much better than Spotify on every earphone/ headphone

I know I’m not alone here. One song, two different platforms and many people can tell which one sounds better. And it is almost always in favour of Deezer. And I have listened to streams from premium accounts so I know it is not the mediocre quality supported on Spotify’s Free plan.

Local Playlists

I am not very big on local music. But safe to say, I have never searched for a Kenyan/ Tanzanian or any African pop song and missed it on Deezer. The same can’t be said for Spotify, although to be fair, the delta here is rather small as Spotify has almost any song you can think of.

Flow is just as good, if not better than Spotify’s Discover

One thing we can all agree upon, Spotify’s Discover Weekly is insanely good at getting you new songs you would have otherwise never known, but then they end up being you favorite songs. Deezer’s Flow feature is also really really good at doing the same thing.

Deezer’s new UI looks sleek

See, Spotify is kinda like Poweramp back in the day. Release after release, the layout remained virtually the same. While this is good for consistency and ease of use, you know, if it’s ain’t broke, don’t fix it; it gets boring really really quickly.

Deezer’s app for mobile used to be….ugly to say the least. But a few months ago, Deezer rebranded their app, complete with a new icon, a fresh coat of paint and the app looks good.

Google Assistant is supported on Deezer as well.

Spotify is a huge platform on Mobile. And as such, Google Assistant is fully supported. You can even set it as your default music player and as such, you can simply say ‘Okay Google, Play Sarah Bareilles’ and just like that, you’re jamming to heartbreak songs.

I am not sure whether this has been available on Deezer for a while but it is available. You can simply say ‘Okay Google, Play Sara Bareilles on Deezer’ and you’re in business. Although I have to say, I have had Google Assistant drop the ball on Deezer a lot more than it does on Spotify. But you quickly learn to tell it how to play your music.

Deezer has a deep interaction with Shazam and SoundHound

One of the conviniences I love as a techsavvy audiophile, it is the ability to Shazam or use SoundHound to identify any song I hear. Be it in restaurants, in movies, even while commuting.

Simply Shazam a song, tap the three dots and open on Deezer. Add that to an album and later on I can simply kick back and jam to all these songs I have identified through the day.

  • Shazam a song thats playing around you. Get the results, tap on the three dotsSelect Open in DeezerAnd thats it. Listen to the song on Deezer

It is such a simple thing that can easily be overlooked and Spotify just doesn’t do this well. Maybe it is because of the beef between Apple Music and Spotify now that Apple owns Shazam, or the fact that I can’t purchase premium on Spotify but I have switched camps.

I ran a poll on Twitter and obviously, most of you guys chose Spotify as your go-to. But it is 2019 and these ‘underdogs’ have come a long way. If there’s ever a time to try out the alternative, this is a good time as any.

UPDATE

Deezer’s SongCatcher

While Deezer still plays nice with apps like Shazam and SoundHound, it also runs its own Song-identification service, SongCatcher. The service which is powered by ACRCloud, is now available for all iOS and Android mobile users across the world from within the Deezer app, irrespective of whether the account is Free or Premium.

Since the service is built into the app itself, it now allows for things like the ability to add newly identified tracks to your favorites and/or playlists within Deezer and for Premium users, the ability to immediately play saved and favorite tracks from SongCatcher