Building Spotify’s New Web Player

This post details the complete rewrite of Spotify's web player. It describes the architectural limitations of the previous iframe-based, multi-library approach, which led to long load times and maintenance challenges. The new architecture is a Single Page Application (SPA) using React + Redux, inspired by the Spotify TV application. Key technical decisions included adopting HTML5 standards and EME for playback, embracing well-known open-source solutions over custom libraries for faster onboarding, and implementing fast CI/CD pipelines. The rewrite resulted in a faster, simpler player that outperformed the old version in key metrics and enabled the introduction of new features.