Spotube is an open-source music streaming platform that functions as a lightweight alternative to the official Spotify client[1]. The app allows users to stream music without requiring a Spotify Premium subscription.
Key features include:
- Ad-free listening using public Spotify and YouTube Music APIs
- Cross-platform support for mobile and desktop
- Downloadable tracks for offline listening
- Time-synced lyrics
- Anonymous/guest login
- No telemetry or user data collection
- Native performance without using Electron
A notable limitation is that Spotube can sometimes play mismatched tracks, particularly for less popular songs. Users have reported cases where the app plays incorrect versions of songs from YouTube when the original Spotify track isn’t found[2].
The app is available through:
Oh, were they able to resolve the legal issue they had with the Spotify API? Really glad to hear that.
I can’t even find the announcement for when they got into the legal issue in the first place. It’s like it didn’t happen.
Yeah, me neither. Maybe because it wasn’t a post perse but a modification of the main page that they modified again? I don’t know if github saves previous states of a modified page.
It was definitely on the main page. Their blog link is coming up dry too. Hmm. 🤷🏽
Is it only for me, or the login does not work? I get error 404 every time i try.
This has been the case for a few months now, rather disingeous of op to post this when it’s a known problem and makes the app completely unusuable.
It’s a known issue. They have to find a way around Spotifys API which… doesn’t seem to be going well.
Ah, makes sense now. I’ll keep it installed just in case they found a workaround.
https://github.com/KRTirtho/spotube/releases
It seems they have already fixed it, but I haven’t tried the new update since it isn’t on F-Droid yet
Me too
How does this work? Spotify allows free access to their APIs?
Regarding the API, Spotify does allow free access, but some content and features are restricted to the official apps. For example, personalized playlists such as Weekly Discovery, release radar, daily mixes and the like are not available and return an error. Rate limiting is ok for a personal use case with a custom api key, and maybe some small apps can stay under the limit; developer agreement is also quite restrictive, so they have a bunch of reasons to block you.
Source: I’ve used the API before and built a small tool to help me export my top listened songs and some recommendations to a list, nothing heavy but still made sure to read the docs needed just in case. Still managed to hit the rate limit with a few tens of requests in a minute, though the way they do limiting is weird and difficult to account for.
I tried this before and it was complete shit, everything took forever to load.
Not that I’m dismissing the service, other people may have no issues with it, but personally it was almost unusable for me. I’d still encourage other people to try it and hopefully they’ll have a better time.
I use the SMplayer, which do almost the same, FOSS, also streaming from YT, SoundCloud and others.
Why post about a currently broken app then and not just SMPlayer which going off your screenshot appears to be working?
I didn’t know that it is broken, I read about this app as recent updated one in AlternativeTo, which is IMHO a source pretty reliable. Using as mencioned the SMplayer, I didn’t test this app by myself.
Is the browse anonymously supposed to work or is this for people who already have a Spotify account?
Same question… I’m getting nothing.
So how do the artists get paid then?
As always, in concerts and selling their music. Same as they got paid before YT and Internet. YouTube is only a promotion side, as also in the past the Radio, where you also can listen their music for free. You pay mainly YouTube, the artist only recieve a small comission for the clicks. Because of this, most go to Bandcamp, where the can sell direct their music.
With how abysmally little as they make from Spotify, this isn’t much different. They make anywhere from 0.003-0.005¢ per stream. If you really want to support artists, buy music from their Bandcamp or Qobuz, but don’t pay for Spotify; the only people winning in that exchange is Spotify.
