As a recovering Apple Music user, I have an interesting perspective.

Life is unpredictable. Teachers spring pop quizzes on students, snow falls from the sky in the middle of May, and global pandemics come out of nowhere. But one thing we can all predict–something we can always count on–is our insta story feeds being flooded with people’s “Spotify Wrapped” each December.

Although this practice is a little annoying, it gave me serious FOMO as an Apple Music listener. Apple Music might provide its users with a year in review “Replay,” but it isn’t as in depth or as visually appealing (insta worthy) as Spotify’s. As much as I hate being left out, I resisted the temptation to abandon Apple and switch to Spotify for years.

This year, I cracked and it is the best decision I have ever made.

From the moment I purchased Spotify I was receiving more benefits than I did with Apple Music.  Although Spotify Premium and Apple Music have the same cost for individual ($9.99) and family plans ($14.99), Spotify has an additional “duo” option. Spotify duo costs $12.99 a month, as opposed to the $14.99 family option. Previously, my sister and I shared an Apple Music family account, but now we save money with our Spotify duo account. Another superior cost benefit of Spotify is the free with ads option. Although having the ability to play any song you want at any time is incredible, many people are not willing to fork over $10 every month. Spotify’s free option allows people in this category to still experience a music streaming service.

Spotify also has better playlists, especially for teens. According to Hypebot, a music industry news source, on Spotify’s platform, there are a whopping 1.1 million playlists. It is very popular to follow editorial playlists or playlists of other users as these playlists share 1.3 billion followers.

Apple Music on the other hand has only 60 thousand playlists, and it is less popular to follow these playlists. This large base of playlists allows Spotify users to be connected to new music that is relevant to their taste.

These playlists can be oddly specific. For example, one of my favorite songs is “All Too Well” by Taylor Swift and I found a playlist on Spotify called “to remember it all too well to” which consists of 3 hours worth of songs similar to “All Too Well.” This playlist has racked up 4,369 likes, meaning 4,368 people with the same taste as me were able to be connected to songs in their favorite style. This playlist was not made be a Spotify editor, but an unpaid user. On Apple Music I was never able to find playlists like this!

Finally, Spotify’s recommendations are super to Apple Music. Each day, Spotify Premium provides its users to 6 “Daily Mixes,” made just for them. These mix tapes are based on your recent listening and organized into genres. They consist of songs you’ve listened to before, and new songs the algorithm thinks you might enjoy. There are other personal playlists such as “discover weekly,” “artist mixes,” “decade mixes,” “on repeat,” “repeat rewind” and more. Apple Music does have “favorites mix,” “new music mix,” and “chill mix,” but they were never as relevant to my taste or as organized as Spotify’s recommendations.

In summary, Apple Music is a decent option, but it still has a long ways to go before it reaches the level of music perfection Spotify has attained.

Be on the lookout for my “Spotify Wrapped” because this year, I will not be missing out.