With tapes and discs being a thing of the past, it is safe to say that the future of music distribution lies in online streaming. Boasting a customer base of 40 million users and 10 million subscribers as of May 2014, Spotify is the unquestionable leader in the space, however, it is important to note that Spotify is not the only player in the market. Several rival digital platforms offer similar music streaming and recommendation services. The following platforms pose as worthy alternatives to Spotify.

Songza

Songza is one of the best ways to stream music on your phone or on the web for free. One of the most appealing things about Songza is its clean and easy to use interface. Songza has an amazing recommendation service called the concierge, which automatically selects appropriate playlists for you based on the time of the day and the activity that you are currently doing. For instance, you could pick “House Party,” “Studying” or “Taking The Day Off.” There are playlists for all kinds of activities in there, ranging from “Getting High” to “Ballroom Dancing.” You can also get playlist suggestions based on moods, genres and decades. The playlists are curated by experts and are usually well compiled and current.

GrooveShark

GrooveShark is a free online music streaming service that, for most intents and purposes, is a Spotify clone. It has a search engine and recommendation service, just like Spotify. Also, users can stream and upload music and organize their music in playlists. Although GrooveShark is currently a great substitute for Spotify, its legal status remains controversial, with several lawsuits in progress. Accordingly; Google, Apple and Facebook have all removed the application from their respective app stores. However, one can still access the service online at www.grooveshark.com.

SoundCloud

With millions of registered users and listeners, one of Spotify’s chief rivals is Soundcloud. Based in Berlin, SoundCloud is an audio distribution platform that allows its users to upload, record, promote and share their originally created sounds. As of now, it is a free-to-use platform with a paid subscription option for additional features. SoundCloud operates much like a social networking site, with user profiles, followers and a feed on the homepage. A key distinctive feature of SoundCloud is that it lets artists upload their music with a unique URL. As a result, it is possible to conveniently embed these sound files anywhere on the web, and share them on other social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. 

Pandora

Pandora Internet Radio is a music streaming and recommendation service that is associated with the Music Genome Project, an effort to use complex mathematical algorithms to chart the fundamental essence of music. The service automatically creates a station and plays tracks based on the artist selections of the user. It also takes into account the positive and negative feedback of the user in making future selections. In choosing which song to play next, Pandora considers over 400 different individual musical attributes such as key tonality and vocal harmonies.

Deezer

French subscription service Deezer is the latest entry into the crowded music streaming market. With presence in 180 countries and five million paying users, the service poses a sizable threat to Spotify’s dominance in the American market. What sets Deezer apart from its competitors is that they will stream songs in the FLAC format, thus eliminating the loss of audio quality prevalent in other music streaming services in the market that encode music at lower bit rates. The service is available at a cost of $10 a month for customers who sign up for a whole year.

Reach Staff Reporter Adi Radia here and follow him on Twitter here.