I recently came across Guvera which is a popular music streaming app with over 10 million worldwide and 3 million Indian users. It offers music streaming through Branded Channels and specially curated playlists. And its features like #Play and social networking and awarding of various achievement badges like "Top Streamer" adds to the fun of listening to music on Guvera. I can also tell you that Guvera has recently partnered with Lenovo and so its app will come pre-installed in all Lenovo smartphones.
Well, when I read all this information about Guvera, of course I had to give it a try. But I already happen to have a favourite music streaming app. And so, a comparison between the two became unavoidable. To this twosome got added another music streaming app about which I have been hearing a lot.
And so, here's a quick review of all these three apps: Guvera, Saavn and Gaana
Well, let me start with Guvera first. First of all, I like its user interface. It's very clean and nicely designed.
I began by choosing to listen to some latest Bollywood songs that were featured on the website of Guvera homepage. The songs streamed easily and without interruption. After that, I tried searching for some songs of my choice. However, most songs I searched were not available for free accounts. The website said some songs are only available to Platinum accounts. But it seemed to me it's many instead of some.
Also, I was not always able to search out songs by movie names on Guvera. Whereas I was easily able to do so on Saavn and Gaana.
I have been using Saavn music streaming app since several years. One of its features that I really enjoy is called Surprise Me. Just hit the Surprise Me button and a random list of songs starts playing.
Guvera has a similar feature too but it is hidden in the #Play section and not prominently visible as in Saavn.
Anyway, The #Play feature of Guvera can be used to create a personalized music station simply by choosing tags. I tried searching for tag Bollywood. But it wasn't there. Bollymelodies was there in the suggestions though. But it started playing new songs and I wanted to look for old ones.
The unavailability of many songs on free accounts, difficulty in searching out songs by movie names and difficulty in reaching to old melodies of Bollywood made me quickly look over to Saavn website.
Well, Saavn is not without some irritations too. Frequent advertisements being one. Free accounts on Guvera are ad sponsored too but the ads seem less intrusive. At least, through the little time that I spent on Guevera, I was never made to wait and listen to a commercial before listening to a song. That happens on Saavn.
But the good thing about Saavn is that it puts no limitation on streaming of music. Even those who have free accounts can listen to all songs. The Pro account is needed only if one wants to download the songs and save them for offline and ads-free listening.
Both saavn and guvera show chart toppers and latest releases in national and international music. Both allow creating of playlists. But it is easier to find the Save to Playlist and Share options on Saavn than on Guvera website. It is also easier to browse through songs of English, Hindi or other main Indian languages on Saavn than on Guvera. Saavn also has several Radio channels one can listen too. But there's no radio on Guvera although the #Play feature can give much the same experience.
I am a regular user of Saavn Android app. I decided to also check out the app of Guvera. Well, the app has all the features that one can access through guvera.com. But the advertisements are displayed in bigger size on it than the album covers. And when I searched out a song which I knew was not available for free play on the website, the app pretended to load it for a long time and then started playing some other song. Twice.
However,it was fun using the #Play feature on Guvera.com and its app.
After trying Guevera and comparing it with Saavn, I decided to check out Gaana.com too.
Gaana.com has much the same features. Its website looks cluttered though. The look and feel of Guvera and Saavn appealed more to me. Gaana.com has a Radio feature and a Discover feature using which one can browse through songs suitable for Workout or Meditation or Party or Romance etc. This is basically the same thing that one can do using the #Play feature of Guvera or the radio stations of Saavn..
Using the Browse feature on gaana.com, one can also browse through popular albums. The paid packages on Gaana enable the users to download and sync songs and listen without ads. Otherwise, I encountered no song that was marked only for paid accounts.. But what I liked best about gaana was that it had different tabs giving direct access to popular shows of FM station Radio Mirchi. Now I'm great fan of FM Radio Mirchi's show Puraani Jeans. So having access to it any time I want by just an app on my phone sounds really great to me. Of course, these are also available on gaana website. I also enjoyed Gaana's Catch Up sections which make it easy to listen to top songs of past years or decades. One can just scroll down to Catch Up 50s, for example, and listen to the top songs of that decade.
All these are among the best music streaming apps with some superb features. Gaana and Saavn seem to offer more for free. Ultimately it depends upon which feature you like most and which app or service offers it best. All three apps are free to download so you can check them all out and decide which suits you best.
Do share your experience and opinion with me too. And if you know of any other such app that I should try, I'm definitely eager to know about it!
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