Deezer: Music Player, Podcast reviews
What users love and hate, from real reviews
A music-streaming service for people fleeing Spotify for HiFi sound and principles (better artist pay, no AI music), who then hit an unstable app and a paywall instead of the promised free tier.
What users love
An ethical Spotify alternative: pays artists and blocks AI music
A large share of users came on principle — to get away from Spotify (politics, ICE ads, AI tracks). What keeps them is the sense that Deezer pays musicians more and filters out AI "slop."
The only music streaming service that actually cares about fighting the AI garbage.
they pay their artists better than other streamers, and they don't (so far) include ai music
Sooo much better than Spotify...Mostly because there are no ads for ICE recruitment.
HiFi sound quality is the main reason to switch and stay
Listeners praise genuine lossless/CD-quality sound that is noticeably louder and cleaner than rivals — for many it outweighs every bug and justifies the price.
A superb better alternative to Spotify. Better quality (bitrate ) music.
the noticeable improvement in audio quality makes up for it. I can actually feel my headphones shake at full volume
Best HiFi library out of all streaming services, and for the most optimal price
Library transfer from Spotify is easy and nearly lossless
A key retention moment: thousands of tracks and playlists move over in minutes with only a handful lost. For many, the painless switch is exactly what made them stay.
transferred like 12 000 songs over from Spotify in like 7 minutes
super smooth to switch over from Spotify only lost 3 of my 4652 songs in my playlists
I moved a library of ~2000 songs over and only ~20 weren't on Deezer
What users hate
Playback stops on its own and crashes mid-song
The single most common pain: music randomly stops, throws an error or the app crashes outright — even for paying subscribers, on full signal, in the background. Force-stop and reinstall don't help, and it has dragged on for years.
app crashes, doesn't stay connected to cast devices, pauses randomly, songs drop mid-play
it still always stops playing after a few songs and says there was an error
my music now just keeps randomly stopping, sometimes it starts again on its own, other times it doesn't
No free version in your country — but you find out after signing up
Users create an account, hand over their email and age, pick 10 artists — and only then see "Deezer Free isn't available in your region, pay for Premium." Many read it as a dark pattern and delete the app on the spot.
The app collects your Gmail account details before telling you the app isn't free in your region you pay for it
Scam. Made me make an account and give my age just to tell me that the free version is not available in my country.
not available in our country after signing an account, thats a freaking scam bro
Paywalls where rivals are free: 30-second clips, offline, lyrics
Without a subscription a song plays for ~30 seconds, offline and lyrics moved behind Premium, and you can barely browse the catalog. The store listing promises free listening, and users call the gap deceptive — a "scam."
claims it does but can only listen to like 30 seconds of a song unless paid subscriber
Lyrics are hidden behind premium. Scummy Spotify behavior. Would not recommend.
I cannot even see the catalog without paying, this makes the app totally useless unless you pay
Flow and recommendations: magic for some, a 40-song loop for others
The recommendation engine polarises: some worship Flow, but many complain the playlist loops the same ~40 tracks, drifts into a random genre, and the "don't play this" button changes nothing.
this app will only play the same 40 songs. What is the point of having a playlist
Flow is a joke, constantly drifting far off my music to genres I don't like.
The flow algorithm can be shocking and clicking the "don't play this song" button means nothing.
Casting to speakers, Alexa and Android Auto keeps breaking
The link to Google Cast, Alexa, Bluetooth and Android Auto keeps dropping: music plays on both phone and speaker at once, controls vanish, and rebooting the phone is the only fix. In the car, ads lock the controls, which is outright unsafe.
after a little while the app becomes disconnected from the speaker. The music still plays, but if you try to skip from your phone, all of music is playing from both the speaker and your phone. Rebooting the phone is the only way to stop it.
serious flaw locks android auto if the ads cannot play cannot control screen in car at all or stop the app, very unsafe for car use.
latest update seems to have broken android auto for me. app just plays an ad and spams play/pause so fast it never gets through the ad. eventually it crashes.
Queue and "play next" are broken, especially offline
Tracks added to the queue never play, "play next" disappears offline, and you can't queue favourites without a connection. The basic playback-control mechanic that rivals nail simply fails here.
when I add songs to the queue, they never actually play in the queue
Why did the very useful "play next" feature is disabled when we are offline ?
You can't add a playlist to the queue while offline. There's a bug where some search matches won't give you the "play next" option.
Support replies with canned AI while year-old bugs go unfixed
Users describe support as an AI bot repeating one answer and not reading the ticket; the promised escalation to a human never happens, and known bugs stay unfixed for months or years. Canned developer replies under reviews only add insult.
there is literally no support, and you will be entirely on your own.
i message support several times a year regarding these things. no real fix or change. horrible clueless support.
I got an AI response, which wasn't terrible, but when told my case would be escalated to a person, it never did.
Cancellation and account deletion are hidden, and charges keep coming
The free trial turns into an instant full charge, cancellation and account deletion are buried (changing your password is easy — unsubscribing isn't), and refunds after cancelling are denied. Many call it theft.
They make it difficult to cancel and will charge you for months after you have thought that you have successfully canceled.
cant cancel subscription on app when you click manage subscription. You can easily click to change password but making hard to pause or cancel subscription.
even tho i canceled my subscription they still charged me and then refused to give me my money back
AI music is flooding the catalog — against the core promise
The main reason to switch — "no AI" — collapses: artist profiles are clogged with AI tracks and same-name imposters, and squatted songs slip into your likes via the converter. People who came precisely for a clean catalog leave disappointed.
Practically unusable because so many artist profiles are clogged up with AI music and albums from multiple bands with the same name.
installed just to get away from the AI slop only for it to be pushed even harder, uninstalled and won't be back
On top of that AI music is starting to flood everywhere.