Is there a good app for identify a song that is playing?
Prime Gap: 6 apps already serve this, and 73 data points mined from real user reviews across 2 sources show where they fall short. Heavily used and done badly — the most disruptable kind of gap.
Data refreshed July 20, 2026 · scores recompute weekly as new reviews are mined, so re-check before you build.
Y Combinator names music discovery as a classic 'tarpit': lots of founders try it, users love the demo and never come back. You can build on Spotify's data, but in Nov 2024 Spotify restricted its recommendation and audio-analysis endpoints for new apps — the exact data a discovery tool needs. Possible, but go in with eyes open.
The way in: Recommendation/analysis tools on Spotify's API — but the endpoints you'd need are now restricted for new apps.
Moat: the licensed catalog is the product · platform risk: high · why: YC lists music discovery as a classic tarpit · Spotify restricted recommendations/audio-features for new apps Nov 2024
What users complain about
The most common complaints behind apps that try to identify a song that is playing, mined and clustered from real reviews:
| Complaint area | Type | Mentions | What a user said |
|---|---|---|---|
| can no longer identify songs | reliability | 11 | Has not succeeded in identifying a song for about a month |
| fails to identify songs | reliability | 5 | It doesn't identify anything, and when it does, which is almost never, it fails miserably |
| misidentifies songs | reliability | 3 | It just misidentified 6 songs/artists in a row and it wasn't even close. |
| song identification accuracy | reliability | 2 | Can't find my songs that I've trying to find for weeks |
| fails to identify music | reliability | 2 | Музыку не определяет |
| plays one song then stops | bug | 2 | Only lets me hear one song and it stops playing I have to choose another song |
| cannot identify well-known songs | reliability | 1 | sound hound just couldn't find it. Absolute waste of time |
| unable to identify songs lately | reliability | 1 | the last few times I've tried to use it the app is unable to identify the song |
| cannot identify recent popular songs | reliability | 1 | One week after a popular song... Soundhound is not able to identify it |
| can't identify songs from TV | reliability | 1 | No matter how close I bring this app on my phone up to the tv, it still can’t register the name |
| won't identify music | reliability | 1 | it won’t identify music |
| non-English song identification | missing-feature | 1 | Only identifies songs in english |
Apps that already serve this
| App | Rating | Ratings | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shazam: Find Music & Concerts | 4.9 | 8,749,395 | Free |
| Music Recognition- Song Finder | 4.6 | 7,745 | Free |
| SoundHound - Music Discovery | 3.7 | 918,982 | Free |
| SoundHound ∞ - Music Discovery | 1.4 | 41,367 | $5.99 |
| Music Finder: Song Identifier | 4.3 | 726 | Free |
| SoundHound - Music Discovery | 4.8 | 180,741 | Free |
Should you build it?
Heavily used and done badly — the most disruptable kind of gap. Opportunity here scores 88 out of 100 — a function of demand, how crowded the field is, and how badly the existing apps perform. Use the live map to compare it against adjacent tasks.
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