Everyone was so excited when Spotify finally showed up in the US the other day. Being a happy Rdio user for the past several months, I wondered what all the fuss was about, so I signed up for Spotify premium to find out. Here’s a quick rundown of what I’ve found so far.

I’ll be ignoring cost, as they both cost the same once you rule out the usefulness of the free versions. If you’re ok with what Spotify’s free version offers, you’ll probably stick with that, since Rdio doesn’t really have a usable free version.

Why I prefer Rdio to Spotify

• There is a web interface available when you need one. Spotify has none.
• Feels more album-oriented. I think in terms of albums so this suits me.
• Much (much!) better discovery in Rdio
• Acts like it’s never even heard of Facebook, while Spotify seems to practically require it.
• Pretty good recommendation engine
• Artist-based “radio” (web interface only?)
• The entire process of finding and adding music makes more sense to me than that of Spotify

I also don’t like Spotify’s desktop app. It’s very iTunes-like. While you’d think that would be a good thing, it just confused me because being like iTunes brought with it expectations that the app never actually met.

Both services work well with my Sonos system, but Spotify did throw a few errors while playing with it. Not sure what that was about.

The iPhone apps are similar and basically it’s a jump ball since I don’t use them other than to hit Play when in the car.

I have not yet looked for any music that was on Spotify but not on Rdio, so unless something strange happens, I’ll be continuing with Rdio and canceling Spotify at the end of the month.