Tidal vs YouTube Music: Everything You Need to Know

Part 1. YouTube Music vs Tidal: Brief Introduction

Tidal and YouTube Music are two latest streaming music services in the market. Before comparing them, now, let's check more about them below.

What Is Tidal?

Tidal is a premium music streaming service recognized for providing one of the highest audio fidelities available in the industry and for its focus on fair compensation for artists.

Tidal has streamlined its service to feature a single main subscription tier, and the ad-supported Free plan has been discontinued. High-resolution audio formats like Master Quality Audio (MQA) have largely been replaced by HiRes FLAC files, making the highest audio quality accessible to all paid subscribers.

All current standard paid plans provide:

• Audio Quality: Access to the full library of over 110 million tracks in high-fidelity formats, including lossless FLAC (up to 1,411 kbps) and HiRes FLAC (up to 9,216 kbps), which is the standard for master-quality tracks.
• Artist Support: The service maintains its commitment to artist payouts, including features like Direct Artist Payouts where a portion of the subscription fee is sent to the user's top-streamed artist.

What Is YouTube Music?

YouTube Music is the music streaming service created by YouTube. It offers an interface similar to the YouTube page's interface. So, users can easily find YouTube music videos and songs as per recommendations, playlists & genres. There are more than 100 million songs in its music library. Also, it is available in 101 countries and gains over 80 million users now. Moreover, this streaming service provides a premium plan for users. With a YouTube Music Premium plan, users can play ad-free music, download music for logged-off streaming and so on.

Part 2. Tidal vs YouTube Music: UI and Available Platforms

YouTube Music and Tidal work great on iOS & Android devices, Apple CarPlay, Windows, Android Auto, macOS, Android TV, wireless speakers and so on. Moreover, these services support AirPlay, Chromecast, Siri, Alexa, or Google Assistant. You can also access Tidal or YouTube Music via its own web player. But please note that there is no YouTube Music desktop app now.

YouTube Music mobile application features a user interface nearly similar to the YouTube application's interface. Besides the three tabs featured on YouTube Music, you can also find the subscriptions in the library section. You can get your recommended song/video on the 'home' tab and the news releases and trending music on the 'Explore' tab. Finally, use the media player option to switch quickly between the videos and songs.

Tidal's user interface features older but unique icons & fonts. It allows you to use the separate tab to find your desired music. Also, this streaming service features a search tab, making it easy for you to discover your favorite music. The "My Collection" section is where you can locate all your videos and songs. Another unique feature of Tidal is its media player. It displays some additional details that you can't encounter when using the YouTube Music application. Besides this, Tidal shows the playing music's streaming quality.

Part 3. YouTube Music vs Tidal: Music Library and Discovery

Tidal features over 350,00 videos and 80,000,000 songs with 25 genres for your entertainment. Also, this streaming service comes with a 'curated playlists' support that allows you to select music according to a specific theme. Moreover, you'll find the top twenty charts, where you'll rate the remarkable song or video for the week.

YouTube Music offers 100 milllion songs with 28 genres for users to enjoy. Also, it has well-arranged live concert videos and official albums for you to listen to and watch. YouTube Music premium's 'home' section features live performances, recommendations, and your favorites. Also, you can get four sections - 'New releases' , 'Charts', 'Podcasts' and 'Moods & genres' on the 'Explore' section. Moreover, the 'library' section features your saved songs and playlists.

Part 4. Tidal vs YouTube Music Quality

Here comes to YouTube Music vs Tidal sound quality. YouTube Music service is streamed from 128 kbps to 256 kbps, while Tidal's present audio quality is 320 kbps. Yet, for Tidal HiFi vs YouTube Music sound quality, Tidal Premium offers a CD streaming quality of 1,411 kbps and HiRes FLAC audio quality at up to 9,216 kbps.

So, when comparing YouTube Music quality vs Tidal, Tidal wins. Tidal subscriptions provide higher quality in audio than YouTube Music.

Part 5. YouTube Music vs Tidal: Social Sharing Features

When it comes to social sharing feature, Tidal loses. That's because it only allows users to share music on FB and find colleagues who subscribed to the application.

However, YouTube Music offers several social sharing features, starting with collaborative playlists. This streaming service gives you three options when drawing up your new playlist.

• Public, allowing to view
• Unlisted, allowing only those with the link to view
• Private, allowing only you to view

Besides this, you get a channel automatically when you begin using YouTube Music. And this is where your public playlists will appear. Any individual can view your YouTube Music profile, search your playlists or even follow you.

Part 6. Tidal vs YouTube Music: Price Plans

Both Tidal and YouTube Music offer free and paid plans to users. Also, there is a 30-day Premium free trial on Tidal & YouTube Music. After the trial, individuals need to pay 10.99 USD per month for YouTube Music Premium. The family plan goes at 14.99 USD per month. The premium option gives you access to offline playback, ad-free content, and an extra 2 USD per month to enjoy YouTube videos with zero ads.

For Tidal, individuals need to pay 10.99 USD per month for the Premium option and 5.49 USD per month for students. Choose this plan if you want to listen to higher-quality songs.

Part 7. Additional Features between YouTube Music and Tidal

On Tidal, there is a Tidal Connect feature. This allows users to stream music from phone to Tidal Connect-compatible devices. And the songs will be played in HiFi, HiRes FLAC, Dolby Atmos, and more formats.

Besides, both apps offer lyrics feature. In this case, users can view lyrics while listening to music. Users can search for songs via lyrics in YouTube Music. Yet, Tidal doesn't offer such a function and you can't get lyrics with a Tidal free plan.

Also, both apps support offline mode once you subscribed to their premium plan. But please note that there is no offline mode for Tidal on desktop.

Part 8. In Conclusion

This review has presented minor distinctions between YouTube Music vs Tidal. Therefore, selecting the streaming service will depend entirely on your individual preferences. You can check out the comparison table below before picking up the service.

From the table, you knew the differences of both apps. If you want to enjoy music in high quality, you can opt for Tidal as it offers high music quality. By the way, if you'd like to listen to Tidal music anywhere and anytime, you can use the DRmare Streaming Audio Recorder for help. With this smart program, you can easily get Tidal music as common audio tracks on your computer. After that, you can move and enjoy them anywhere offline. Also, you can share Tidal music with friends or families with ease.