Napster vs Tidal: Which Is Better for You 2024?

Napster and Tidal Comparison: Overview

Napster music streaming service, founded in 1999 with more than 80 million register users, is home to more than 110M songs and thousands of music videos. It caters to your need of both streaming online and offline listening. Just like Spotify, Napster also boasts curated playlists and music recommendation based on algorithm technology. With Napster, you are able to browse Napster's huge music catalog and listen all the songs offline with ads-free interface on Napster. Also, Napster put you in a music listener network with its social feature like Spotify Blend. However, Napster makes a difference, matching you with other Napster users not only with your friends in line with your listening habits in the premise that you set your profile public.

Tidal music streaming service was formed in 2014 and has over 60 million total registered users, among which paying subscribers number is up to more than 3 million. Tidal offers its users with expansive music library including 90+M tracks and 450K+ videos in immerse audio formats. It has professional editorial teams to create loads of curated playlists and new songs. At the same time, Tidal also boast its social feature: it tracks and shares how your listening habits impact your favorite artists and recommends playlists and new songs based on you listening habits. Tidal will display interview series, documentaries and special events of artists, connecting you closer to your favorite artists. Also, Tidal supports almost all types of devices including smart TV & streamers, Audio and more.

Through the overview of both two platforms, we can find that Tidal offers its users not only millions of songs but also thousands of music videos. But except that, Napster attracted more registered users. It provides a wider music library for its users with more than 110 million songs and enables free users listen to all songs without interruptions. Also, Napster has more integrated features like Spotify, for example, Napster allows users to match with other Napster users based on their listening habits and tastes under the premise that you open your profile public, which is more convenient to put users to a music network.

Here's a table of comparing the main features between Napster and Tidal according to the content above.

Napster vs Tidal Comparison: Subscription Plans and Price

Both Napster and Tidal roll out free and premium subscription plans for users but with some differences. Here are their subscription plans including price and service.

It shows in the chart that Napster offers free trial, individual premium with $9.99 monthly and family premium for $14.99 monthly that support up to 6 accounts. Napster free users are accessible to all songs on Napster without limited interruption but with annoying ads. And Napster free users can neither enjoy official videos nor offline listening service.

As for Tidal, it offers three types of subscription plans--Tidal Free, Tidal HiFi and Tidal HiFi Plus. Tidal also offers Family Premium like Napster. But different from Napster, Tidal offers student/first responder/military discount. Among those three plans, Tidal Free allow users enjoy Tidal music but with limited features, such as ads interruption, online playback and so on. If you want to enjoy complete songs and download the Tidal music offline, you have to choose to subscribe its HiFi or HiFi Plus. However, even with Tidal HiFi or Tidal HiFi Plus, paying subscribers can only download and playback Tidal music offline on selected devices, and after you cancel the subscription, all the downloaded songs will disappear from your library, which is not so worthy. Don't worry though. If you want to get rid of all the restrictions and playback Tidal music offline on any devices permanently--you can choose to download and convert Tidal music to MP3 with a professional Tidal music downloader and converter, for instance, AudFree Tidable Music Converter.

AudFree Tidable Music Converter

• Convert and download Tidal music at 5X faster speed
• Support to offline listening of the Tidal songs
• Organize downloaded playlists with ID3 tags and metadate infor for quick access
• Keep the Mater quality of Tidal audios after conversion

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As an all-in-one and multi-track Tidal music converting tool, AudFree Tidable Music Converter is specially designed to download and convert Tidal songs or playlists to multiple audio formats like MP3, FLAC, WAV and so forth with innovative converting technology, fast converting speed and simple steps, which is newbie-friendly and professional at the same time. With all tools you need to convert Tidal music, AudFree Tidable Music Converter serves to losslessly convert Tidal music for offline listening on any devices and players. Also, it keeps full metadata information and ID3 tags including artist, albums and so forth, which facilitates to organize audio library.

And here's the tutorial on how to use AudFree Tidable Music Converter to download and convert Tidal music to MP3.

Step 1. Import Tidal songs or playlists to Audfree Tidable Music Converter:

Launch AudFree Tidable Music Converter, and Tidal app will launch in sync. Select the obsessed song or playlist you hope to convert later, then copy its track link and paste it on the search box. Then click "+" tab on the upper right corner of the interface to add files.

Step 2. Set audios output format as MP3 and other parameters on AudFree Tidable Music Converter:

Get into the menu bar on the upper right corner of the program. Select "Preference", and get into a setting menu. Customize output format as MP3 or other parameters such as bitrate, simple rate or audio channels as you like.

Step 3. Start to convert Tidal audios to MP3 for offline listening:

Tap "Convert" button on the bottom right corner of the interface. After a while, the converted MP3 audios will be saved in the local file. Then you can playback those downloaded MP3 Tidal audios on other devices or players offline forever.

Napster vs Tidal Comparison: Design

With four main parts on the homepage including Home, Watch videos, Search and My Music, Napster is designed with intuitive and integrated features. At "My Music" part, you can get access to your songs and playlists "Recently Played". At "Search" part, you are able to get detailed results including albums, top songs and the radio station of artists if you search one artist. It also owns a music discovery feature – Automix, which facilitate create new playlists and recommend new tracks. At the same time, users can get access to the service through web browsers without installing the program.

Tidal has an easy-to-use and all-round interface design with its features menu integrated on the left panel including Profile, Drop-down menu, Home, Explore, Collection and Playlist creation, which is pretty clear and beginner-friendly. But Tidal's interface color is a little monotonous. Tap into a playlist of song, there are large "Play" and "Shuffle" playing mode icons for you.

Overall, Napster will attract more music-lovers for its intuitive features and innovative and colorful interface compared with Tidal in the case that both of them has similar features in their windows.

Napster vs Tidal Comparison: Audio Quality

When it comes to audio quality, Napster music has the normal Bitrate up to 320 kbps while Tidal stand in forefront on sound quality all the time with the Bitrate of 162 kbps for Tidal Free, 1411 kbps for Tidal HiFi and 9216 kbps for Tidal HiFi Plus.

Tidal works better than its rivals. As the first music service that offers High Fidelity audio quality for users, Tidal captures the attention of most audiophiles and hi-fi fans since Tidal rolls out three service plans: Tidal Free, HiFi and HiFi Plus, among which Tidal HiFi tiers can enjoy High-fidelity sound quality and Tidal HiFi Plus enables tiers enjoy innovative audio formats such as HiFi sound quality, MAQ, Dolby Atmos even Sony 360 Reality Audio, making listeners feel like in a real concert. What's more, you are able to use Tidal Connect to stream to HiFi on you loved device.

Based on the comparing of music quality, Napster is supposed to invest more in audio quality as its music quality is not as good as Tidal. Tidal wins in sound quality for its lossless and superior audio quality formats.

Napster vs Tidal Comparison: Device Compatibility

Napster can be compatible with an extensive range of devices such as Android Auto, CarPlay, Apple Watch, SONOS, iOS, Android mobile phones and tablets, Amazon Alexa, desktops, laptops, and Samsung Watch.

Compared with Napster, Tidal is compatible to almost all types devices including smart TV & streamers (Apple TV, Fire TV, Samsung TV, Android TV), Audio, Auto, desktop, wearables, Chromecast, Roku, Vizio, CarPlay, Android Auto, Volkswagen, Lincoln, Mercedes-Benz, Tesla, iOS and Android devices, Desktop app for Windows and MacOS, Apple Watch, Samsung Gear, and even Amazon Alexa

In this case, Tidal is vying for more users with its wider device compatibility.

Napster vs Tidal Comparison: Drawbacks

Drawbacks of Napster

1. Compared with Tidal, Napster has lower sound quality without Master quality Authenticated, Dolby Audio Atmos or Sony 360 Audio quality.

Drawbacks of Tidal

1. Tidal Free tiers face listening interruption of only listening 30 seconds of Tidal music.

2. Even with premium subscription, Tidal only allows users download songs for offline listening on mobiles, which makes users feel subscription invalid.

Napster allows Free users to listen to complete songs but Tidal only allows Free tiers to stream only for 30 seconds of the song. Except audio quality, Napster works better than Tidal on other aspects such as social feature and interface design and more.

Napster vs. Tidal: Overall Comparison Chart

In Conclusion: Napster or Tidal - Which One is Better for You?

In daily life, when you are shopping around two things, you must pay more your attention to their price and quality at first than their overlook and others. It is the same thing when you choose two programs. Personally, after detailed comparison, if you focus on various sound quality or sound effect, Tidal should be your first option since it offers you with a wider range of sound quality from Normal to Master including Master Quality Authenticated (MAQ), HiFi quality, even Dolby Atmos and Sony 360 Reality Audio, which gives you real listening experience.

But if you put your eyes more on price, you can choose Napster since Napster Free offers you basic service like listening to all songs on Napster without interruptions and its subscription price is much cheaper than Tidal HiFi Plus but with similar services.