Spotube, it uses your (free) Spotify account to get the Playlists and artist info etc, but then uses YouTube Music as source for playing the media. No ads.

I’ve used Spotify with subscription on android for years and never had any issue with it. The Web and desktop apps have also worked well for the last decade or so.

Deezer, Newpipe, YouTube have all had their places, but Spotify does it’s thing the best.

I’m using Deezer, because its Duo plan’s T&C doesn’t require couples to live in the same household. (Fuck Spotify because of their shitty plan.)

Unfortunately Deezer’s Android app sucks, because it never reaches the server. Sometimes songs are just restarting or stopping, and you have to press the “add to favorites” button hundreds of times to finally successfully add it to your list. It’s horrible. But in the browser it’s smooth, there’s no problem with it. I even find songs I would never expect to find there (much more than on Spotify). Also you can create playlists together with others, even if others are using a different streaming provider.

If your only choice is between YouTube and Spotify, I’d go for Spotify because fuck Google, and also Spotify app is smooth, and has the ability to control your music from your phone even when the music is playing on another device. (This is possible to do with 3rd party apps with any music player, but Spotify has it built in.)

I self-host with navidrome. I fill up the library with spot-dl. I listen to it with tempo on Android.

I use Deezer. Not quite the same selection, but unless you’re listening to something pretty obscure I don’t think it’ll matter.

Plus if you do iirc the creator gets more per individual listen from Deezer than other platforms (don’t quote me on that though)

Spotify on mobile is a torture test if you do not use a mod or have a subscription.

Have both here, spotify crashes randomly or I just get a blank screen and sometimes requires force stopping the app to make it work at all. I have a phone with an SD card (rare I know) and set in the spotify app to download songs to the SD card, however it randomly switches that option back to internal storage for no reason I am able to discern. I gave up changing this setting after the fourth time as spotify just straight up won’t work for like a week or 2 (done everything except un and reinstall as I don’t want to have to manually re-download all my music (I don’t have everything in Playlist as I usually enjoy jumping from album to album without spotify shuffling the same 3 songs it thinks I love immediately after). I have over 20k liked song but spotify only want to play the same handful of songs makes it really frustrating to use. Spotify also has a really annoying habit of removing an album from the artists page whenever an anniversary or remastered edition comes out. I understand not wanting to have several of the same album listed, but sometimes I prefer the original recording before everything was ‘cleaned up’.

YouTube music is my backup music player for when spotify shits itself, as stated above it usually fixes itself after a week or two The main reason I dislike yt music more than spotify is that it plays audio from videos that are straight up not music. It also plays the outros of videos where artists are talking about the album, thanking you for listening, or upcoming tours (which have already happened since the songs were released years ago). These 2 issues keep me from fully switching to yt music.

Got a cheap mp3 player and micro sd card and use that more than either yt or spotify. No internet required, no ads, no songs getting delisted, no subscription. Just all my music readily available.

If you’re on Android, NewPipe is a great option.