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July 15, 2024
Offline mode in music apps allows users to stream music without Wi-Fi or cellular data. While many offline music apps offer this feature in their premium packages only, 46% of the total music streaming revenue still came from paid services.
And in a world where so many music apps don’t charge a dime to stream, why are half of the serious music lovers drawn towards premium services?
Here are 3 reasons why:
- Offline mode allows users to stream on the go: in gym, plane, and on days long road trips.
- Offline music doesn’t require finicky streaming or buffering that often happens because of network lag.
- Offline streaming consumes half the battery as compared to online streaming.
Building onto the user experience and convenience offline streaming adds to the entertainment domain, here is a list of 10 offline music apps that work on cache and don’t need Wi-Fi:
1. SoundCloud
SoundCloud is our first pick from the lot because even its free, basic version supports ad-free and offline music.
Quite similar to Spotify in terms of User Interface and User Experience, SoundCloud is a music app with a global community of creators. You can stream tens of thousands of original hits to covers, remix tracks, mashups and audiobooks on the platform.
Unlike other music apps that seemingly don’t need Wi-Fi, users don’t have to prepare a library by downloading their favorite songs. SoundCloud automatically processes users’ history and previously streamed can be played on the go.
Source: SoundCloud
SoundCloud earns from sponsored advertisements and is one of the most profitable ventures of music app development. Its premium version SoundCloud Go supports offline streaming for unlimited tracks and starts from $5.99/month.
Download links for SoundCloud: Android, iOS
2. Spotify
Spotify is a free music and podcast application with a collection of over millions of tracks. With the motto, listening is everything, its free version is sponsored by advertisements and has something for everyone, everywhere.
It’s the multiple premium packages of Spotify (ad-free and starting from $4.99/month) that support offline music – up to 10,000 songs on a single device. Users are required to turn the download toggle on and the icon turns green to show the album, playlist or a specific track is downloaded for offline.
It has set the bar higher for other music applications and it’s actually tough to beat Spotify for its user interface and user experience.
Download links for Spotify: Android, iOS
3. Trebel
Trebel is another music app that allows users to play on-demand and offline music for free. The primary app development idea that powers Trebel is that everyone should have access to premium music for free. That’s why, the app earns via sponsored advertisements from popular brands and media groups.
Source: Trebel
From technical standpoint, the app has a robust infrastructure that uses advanced technologies to provide personalized recommendations and show most relevant advertisements only. Different online sources suggest that it has 3.5M monthly active users and had earned $4M in revenue by December 2020.
Download Links for Trebel: Android, iOS
4. Pandora
Pandora is another popular music and podcast app that offers offline playback in its premium version but is geo-restricted except for USA audience because of local music licenses. The app is powered by Music Genome Project and is a subsidiary of Sirius XM Holdings.
The company’s USP revolves around the best personalized listening experience for everyone and for that, it is heavily investing in humanized and automated music analysis.
The paid versions that allow ad-free offline playback start from $4.99/month and differ in their download capacity. Pandora has 3 main packages: Pandora Plus, Pandora Premium, and Pandora Premium Family.
Download Links for Pandora: Android, iOS
5. Deezer
Deezer is a music and podcast app with over 70 million tracks. It resembles SoundCloud in terms of its user interface and experience and has machine learning algorithms for personalized listening.
Source: Deezer
It’s available for worldwide users, compatible with a wide range of devices including gaming consoles, smart home gadgets and wearables, and still growing in popularity. Deezer supports offline music in its premium versions that start from $5.99/month.
Download links for Deezer: Android, iOS
6. LiveXLive
LiveXLive, previously Slacker Radio is another offline music app that features original soundtracks, podcasts and documentaries. One of its distinguishing features is the contest and festival livestream that users can avail in all of its basic and premium plans.
LiveXLive has 2 paid packages: Plus ($3.99/month) and Premium ($9.99/month). Both of these allow ad-free listening and unlimited skips but it’s the latter that doesn’t need Wi-Fi.
7. Tidal
Tidal is a premium music app which has around 80 million songs and 350,000 videos in the database. Earlier owned by a tech company called Aspiro, Jay-Z acquired Tidal in 2015 and marketed it as one of the first artist-owned music platforms.
Users can download unlimited music for offline playback and stream the app ad-free. Tidal supports hand-picked, artist-curated songs and podcasts and exclusive videos, allows their streaming in high-fidelity sound quality and offers lossless audios.
This is the reason it is getting super popular among audiophiles and music enthusiasts who prefer high quality audios and don’t mind paying a price equivalent to Spotify.
Tidal only offers premium packages, Standard and HiFi for $9.99 and $19.99 monthly and comes with a free trial of 30 days. It is compatible with Android, iOS, Windows and smart speakers.
Download Links for Tidal: Android, iOS
8. Napster
Napster is a premium offline music app that allows unlimited music and podcast downloads and comes with a free 30-days trial. It works as a partially social music app because it lets users match their music tastes with other music enthusiasts and create custom music profiles with gifs and photos.
It has 3 premium packages starting from $4.99/month, but it’s the premier and family packages of Napster that don’t need WiFi or data for playback. There is no basic version of the app, but Napster is still worth it because of the ad-free model, personalized recommendations, easy navigation, intuitive user interface and compatibility with over 15 mobile, wearable and smart devices.
Download links for Napster: Android, iOS
9. Bandcamp
Bandcamp is more than a music app – it is a music community where fans directly support their favorite artists by buying music tracks, albums, podcasts, tickets to events and even merchandise like stationery and tees.
Source: Bandcamp
The company has a flagship app called Bandcamp which is free to download and use, and as per its revenue model, requires users to purchase their favorite songs. Premium soundtracks, podcasts and documentaries are instantly available for offline music and don’t need to be downloaded, or streamed to be accessible without Wi-Fi.
Download links for Bandcamp: Android, iOS
10. Amazon Music
Amazon Music is a free music streaming service included with Amazon Prime. Users can request millions of songs, podcasts and albums with built-in voice assistant Alexa.
Source: Amazon Music
The best thing about Amazon Music is the Amazon Originals and Friday releases. The app is ad-free, and supports offline music with packages like Music Unlimited.
If you don’t have a paid subscription to Amazon Prime, you will have to subscribe to Amazon Music Unlimited for offline music, and unlimited skips. Plans start from $7.99/month.
In addition to smartphones, Amazon Music is compatible with a wide range of devices, especially TVs, big screens, game consoles and other devices that can be used with Alexa.
Download Links for Amazon Music: Android, iOS
Business Potential of Offline Music Apps
Music streaming apps are one of the most lucrative app ventures for aspring appreneurs.
Here are three solid statistics that speak volumes about the business potential of paid streaming services:
- 443million users subscribed to paid online music services in 2020, comprising 46% of the total music streaming revenue.
- In the same year, reported streaming revenues reached 4 billion USD.
- The streaming revenue grew by 9%.
Investors can choose to monetize their music apps via sponsored advertisements (like SoundCloud and Spotify), premium subscriptions (Tidal), or seek funding from artists to market them.
Wrapping Up…
Entertainment industry, especially music, is one of the early adopters of emerging technologies. All the 10 offline music apps mentioned in this list leverage future-ready tech like cloud computing to offer huge database of song tracks, machine learning to send personalized recommendations, voice recognition to count a few!
If you too are looking for a mobile app development company for an online or offline music streaming app, get in touch with us!
- Got an epic app idea? Let’s start working on it!
- Offline Music Apps
