Two different verbs.
Last.fm "scrobbles" — passively logs every track you play across whatever services it can hook into. The output is a personal listening history, plus a public profile, plus charts showing how your taste evolved over time. For people who want a 20-year log of their listening, nothing else comes close.
But scrobbling and sending are different things. Scrobbling says "I listened to this." Sending says "I picked this for you." Last.fm doesn't really do the second; the closest it gets is the "Recommended Tracks" section, which is algorithmic, and the friend system, which mostly tells you what your friends scrobbled — not what they wanted you specifically to hear.
Vibes does the second thing without trying to do the first. It doesn't read your listening history. It doesn't keep a 20-year archive. It cares about the moment one person picks a song and sends it to one specific friend.
| Last.fm | Vibes | |
|---|---|---|
| What it logs | Every track you play. Every time. | Only the songs you tap "send" on. |
| How sharing happens | Implicit — your scrobbles are public. | Explicit — you pick a friend and a song. |
| Friend mechanic | Mutual follow. See each other's scrobbles. | Contacts only. See each other's sent vibes. |
| Discovery | Algorithmic recommendations + scrobble overlap. | Friend-curated only. No algorithm. |
| Privacy of listening history | Public by default. Configurable. | Private always. We never read it. |
| Long-term archive | 20+ years if you've been at it. | Just your sent & received history. |
| Charts & stats | Extraordinary depth — top artists, weeks, etc. | Weekly recap + simple profile stats. |
| Best moment | "My #1 artist this year was…" | "Maya sent me this on a rainy Tuesday." |
When Last.fm is the right call
For the long archive.
If you care deeply about a permanent record of your listening history, Last.fm is irreplaceable. Twenty years of scrobbles is a kind of self-portrait you can't recover after the fact. The site is overdue for a redesign and the company has changed hands too many times, but the archive is real and the open API is still good.
Vibes doesn't try to be that. We use both. They do different things.