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From its launch in 2008 to 100 million monthly active subscribers in 2017, Spotify has taken over the music streaming industry. Having a smartphone is synonymous to listening to music, practically. For users within reach of such abundance, how much does it cost to make an app like Spotify is something to discuss. 

The music streaming industry has grown greatly because people don't have to buy anything anymore. Our topic here is how much it costs to make an application like Spotify. Music for millennials is just about equal to Spotify and iTunes. What does this mean for the developing mobile app industry?

How does Spotify work?

Spotify is a social sharing music streaming and playlist service available in 60 countries. It has more than 30 million songs in its library and works across nearly every device. Users don't need to download songs and store them to listen to on a hard drive. Users can find a song or album in Spotify, and play it online immediately.

For easy access Spotify works for free, you must be a registered user first. But you're going to see in-app advertising and not be able to listen to music offline. Paid Spotify subscriptions to give you full features in Premium, such as download, no advertising, or hi-fi sound quality. 

How much does it cost to Spotify?

There are two versions: free and $10/month premium Spotify.

How do I download music from Spotify?

Displayed in Premium account only, go to Library, pick song or track. Then push the Offline button on the right-hand side.

How do I listen remotely to Spotify?

Select a playlist, tap Edit, and check if it has a grey or green arrow icon next to it. Tap the grey ones to turn it green, meaning your device will be synced with a playlist. Then press done.

How do you make a Spotify playlist?

Select a song or playlist, tap the icon with three dots and tap Share. Choose options from Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr and tap Mail.

Features of Spotify

• Spotify does not serve all existing markets. Users in many countries receive the Notification "Not available." Therefore, music apps or music streaming website opportunities are still open. And, of course, the cost of making an app like Spotify would entrust features and type of app.
• Digital streaming is what sets Spotify apart from other music services and radios. This technology allowed music to be enjoyed as easily as ever before. Now, to create a music streaming app like Spotify, one would have to implement the following functions:
  
  User profiles and authorization: registration and login forms for users, using email addresses or social media accounts Audio streaming service: enabling constant online access to music files through cloud storage Search and organize options: search and navigate algorithms to find songs by titles or artists, and save favorite tracks Playlists: users can save, edit, listen and share in both.

• Offline availability: saving music to user devices or computers, or caching social sharing files: options for sharing songs/playlists with friends and seeing what others share, private or public notifications: getting news from friends, artists, and community.
• Moreover, you'd almost certainly need to create subscription plans for a music app. The key way to earn money on the Spotify-like app is to grant with paid subscription access to cool features. Or if you're making a free music download, the advertisements can be monetized.

Technology stack for music streaming app

Spotify will store all music on servers, and send requested songs to devices for users. All files are cached on smartphones or laptops, so no need to retrieve them from servers again. Spotify uses Cassandra, PostgreSQL, and general memory caching system for this, and all other features.

You can develop your tech stack around Python and JavaScript to create a music streaming app just like Spotify's team does.

PHP is used on the server-side to some degree, while Spotify's backend framework is designed mainly with Java. Consider also those tools which impact the cost of making an app like Spotify:

• Kafka Software- 

  For processing and managing real-time data

•  Amazon S3- 

  For storage and caching

• GraphWalker- 

  For integrating the app with Python services and model-based testing

• Google Cloud Platforms or Datapro- For primary platform structure.
• Chromium Embedded Framework- For desktop-based UI.
• Use Bootstrap- For making the music streaming apps like Spotify look sleek and classy 
• Nginx- For HTTP and proxy servers.

You can develop your tech stack around Python and JavaScript to create a music streaming app just like Spotify's team does. PHP is used on the server-side to some degree, while Spotify's backend framework is designed mainly with Java. Consider also those tools which impact the cost of making an app like Spotify:

In most instances, the developer rate is a defining factor for the cost of devices. It takes a lot of hours to make a music streaming app or any mobile app. So, a fortune in between would make $25 per hour or $150 per hour rate for the same app.

Backend for an app such as Spotify

The architecture of an app like Spotify could easily become quite embroiled. This is due to the use of any additional services, as hundreds of them seem to be included by Spotify. Most of them are written in Java and Python, others with languages such as Clojure and HTML5.

Spotify's team uses C++ for Mac / Windows clients, Java for Android, and Goal-C for iOS apps, nothing new here. Partitioning by apps is the principal concept behind Spotify backend. Every feature of the app has an allocated team of developers. You would also need to connect the JS and backend to the so-called' access point' to create an app like Spotify.

Android / iOS platforms

Now comes the most time-consuming and expensive part of the actual development of a mobile app. Developers will start developing an Android music app or an iPhone music app. Here our question of how much it costs to make an app like Spotify is answered.

The Android SDK Spotify and the iOS SDK Spotify are now publicly available. This helps to ease the work of developers for apps such as streaming music and authentication. While services such as the Android Multimedia Framework can help integrate audio/media files, it's still not easy. 

Conclusion

And now we're ready to disclose how much it costs to make an app like Spotify. Note, we just outline a simplified cost estimate, based on functionality and tech stack for a music streaming application.

Also remember, we used a $50 hourly rate to assess the Spotify-like app cost. Nevertheless, we have trained software engineers to recruit EPixelSoft at a $30 hourly rate.