Trebel is a music app that lets you download music for free — but there are some tradeoffs.

You have to listen to multiple ads to download a song, and there are 'credits' that get consumed by offline listening — these credits are earned by watching ads.

However, Trebel is aimed at people that wouldn't be paying for a streaming subscription in the first place, and by choosing Trebel instead of torrenting or other free downloads, listeners are helping artists receive compensation for their work.

The app is similar in some respect to Spotify's free app — but there are a few big differences.

Not everyone can afford to dish out the $10 per month for a Spotify or Apple Music subscription. They're both convenient and great apps, but there's certainly incentive for younger, lower-income people to simply torrent their music or download it for free elsewhere.

This is the demographic that Trebel, a music app, hopes to reel in. Trebel boasts that it allows free offline listening — and that artists are compensated, too. It seems like a win-win: you don't have to pay for the music you download, and the artists you enjoy listening to are getting paid at the same time.

There are some tradeoffs, however. To highlight how the app compares with other 'free' alternatives, we chose to put Trebel head to head with the free version of Spotify's mobile app.