Spotube is an open-source music streaming platform that functions as a lightweight alternative to the official Spotify client[^7]. 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[^5].

The app is available through:

F-Droid for Android devices[^7]
GitHub releases for desktop platforms^4

[^5]: GitHub - Incorrect, Mismatching Tracks Issue [^7]: F-Droid - Spotube

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[–] george@feddit.org 9 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

How does this work? Spotify allows free access to their APIs?

[–] mamg22@sh.itjust.works 2 points 18 hours ago

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.