- When I've done these top 10 apps videos in the past,
it's always been kinda separated.
Paid apps or free apps, Roku apps,
Apple TV apps, Fire TV apps, whatever.
But then I thought, what if I combined all of that?
What would happen then to my top 10?
So, I took a list of about 20 top streaming apps
and whittled them down to my personal top 10
and I ranked them too.
So now there's even more reason for you
to yell at me in the comments,
which I am definitely looking forward to.
So let's dive in.
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All right so let's go over some of the ground rules
that I came up with for this list.
I did this judging based on few criteria.
Price, the presence of ads, the content available,
and my own subjective experience,
and that category is gonna be kind of a catch all,
for things like whether I like the interface,
how many streams it provides,
if the app tends to be a bit buggy and so on.
Each category will get a score between one and three points
and any tie breakers here are determined solely by me
because this is my list and so if you don't like it,
you can take it up with the comments,
which I'm actually looking forward to.
Now if this all sounds terribly unscientific
and totally subjective, well yeah that's 'cause it is.
So if you want to you can subscribe
and stay tuned for Shantel's upcoming list.
She's gonna be taking a more hard-numbers based approach
and she'll have her own top 10 list
of the most popular apps out there.
I'm actually really interested to see
how our lists stack up against each other,
but let's dive in to mine.
Coming in at number 10 on my list is IMDb TV.
IMDb TV is free, it's commercial supported,
but it's got a library, that in my opinion,
actually beats competitors like Tubi and Crackle.
I love the library here on IMDb TV.
There's not a ton else to say about it honestly.
If you've ever used this or something like it
then you know about these free commercial supportive apps.
One thing I will mention is that this library
often gets rolled into your Prime Video interface.
So if you're ever scrolling through Prime Video,
there is every chance that you will see
the IMDb TV categories in there,
where it's actually pulling in this content.
Next up at number nine is Discovery Plus.
When Discovery Plus came out a few months ago,
I was frankly blown away.
This isn't the kind of content that I typically watch,
but I can recognize a quality app when I see it.
I love that it's got a cohesive focus to the content,
and that is unscripted TV.
So whether it's food stuff or ghost stuff
or house porn, whatever,
all that unscripted stuff you used to love on cable,
it's all here and it's just five bucks a month.
So you get everything from Discovery Plus originals,
to HGTV, Food Network, and so on and so on.
There is just a ton of great unscripted content here.
And there's some scripted stuff as well,
but you know, that's the focus.
Next up is the Roku Channel, coming in at number eight.
This is a free app that beat out the paid app
that I just talked about.
The Roku Channel is the ultimate do everything free service.
It does a lot of what you would want from Tubi and Pluto
and other free apps, plus it does more as well.
So if we click into the Roku Channel,
you'll see that it's got all of that free content
that you're looking for, whether it's on demand,
or you can scroll down,
and check out their live content as well.
They even have a live TV channel guide.
Now as with other free apps,
the live TV content that you're getting
is not going to be the same as what you got on cable.
It's gonna be slightly different,
but that doesn't mean it's not awesome.
And there's a ton for you to watch.
And the last thing I'll mention about the Roku TV app
is that it's not just on Roku anymore.
I can watch this on my Fire Stick if I choose to,
and hopefully it'll be on just about every app
here coming up pretty soon.
Coming in at number seven is Peacock.
Now Peacock looks and smells and feels
just like any other studio specific paid app,
like Paramount Plus or Discovery Plus,
that we just talked about,
but this one has a free tier option,
which frankly is something that I hope catches on.
I hope this works out and they get the,
I hope they get the ad revenue and the viewership
that they're hoping for because I would love
for more apps to have this free tier option.
I do really like the library they've put together.
Didn't blow my socks off but,
I like that they make this available for you for free.
Now that free tier option isn't going to have everything,
but they've got, I think something like two thirds
of their library is available on that free tier,
which is great.
Number six is Hulu.
Hulu is a classic.
It's been around since close to the beginning
of streaming content
and it does have some great content on here.
Along with their great content,
the navigation used to be terrible,
but they did update that.
So it is a lot more bearable now than it used to be.
But honestly there are some devices that Hulu
is available on where the navigation is still pretty bad.
But that being said, this one is nice,
in that you do have another tiered approach.
So you can pay six bucks a month
for a commercial supportive version
or 12 bucks a month for the commercial free version.
You get that choice.
Plus it does come with the option for Hulu Live,
which gets you cable channels
for what I think is a pretty steep price,
but you know, if you love those channels,
if you want the live sports, the news, or whatever
then it may be worth it to you.
Number five is Apple TV Plus.
All right, this may be my most controversial choice
for my top 10, but as far as I'm concerned
this one is just criminally underrated.
The thing about it is, people are kinda underwhelmed
with the amount of content on here and I totally get that.
But the thing is they've got amazing content.
What there is here I think is very well produced,
really well written, it's just fantastic stuff.
But if Apple maintains its pace of production
for a few years, they could really fill this out.
And Apple TV, as far as its subscriber base
and peoples enthusiasm about it,
could become much bigger if they keep going.
Simply on the strength of, like I said,
the excellently produced content on here.
For example,
Mythic Quest had one of the best pandemic episodes of 2020.
And Ted Lasso, frankly is flat out
one of the best shows of the last 20 years.
And with the quality of this content that I'm talking about,
at five bucks a month,
as far as I'm concerned, that's a steal.
And a lot of us are not paying anything for a while
because of the deals that they've got going on.
Number four is actually the grand daddy of them all,
Netflix.
I mean it's Netflix, what is there to say?
They've been around forever,
they've got a huge content library.
The only thing here is that they have been
bleeding big name licensed content for years
as studios have stood up their own services
and pulled their content over to those services.
But Netflix has made up for it with hundreds,
thousands of original titles, some of which are even good.
(Craig chuckles)
I mean I'm kidding, kind of.
Netflix's strategy had been to create
something for every niche.
And whatever your niche is, you'll find lots of it here.
The biggest drawback is that to pay
for the breakneck production schedule,
Netflix keeps raising their prices.
Now so far it hasn't been enough
to get many people to tap out.
So there's still over 200 million worldwide subscribers now.
They're a behemoth, they're not going anywhere.
But with that raising price,
it does bring down the overall value of Netflix,
as far as I'm concerned.
When you're talking about price versus content,
but in my opinion it's still a must have.
All right, we're getting into our top three now.
Number three is HBO Max.
Yes, HBO Max beat Netflix.
Now speaking of high prices,
I'll just say this right upfront,
this is the highest priced app on my list.
But I'm not sure that people realize
just how good the HBO Max library is.
Plus, in 2021 with the simultaneous releases
of Warner movies on HBO Max and in theaters,
15 bucks a month here,
if you're interested in any of these movies,
kind of a no brainer.
I was talking to a friend of mine,
who was interested in watching the Snyder Cut and he said,
you know, I'm just not sure if I'm gonna,
I'm not sure if I wanna pay 15 bucks for HBO Max,
and I said, you know what?
You would pay 15 bucks for a single ticket
to go see a movie in a theater,
you can pay 15 bucks a month and get the movie,
plus the entire rest of the library from HBO Max.
Again, in my mind this is a no brainer.
Much like Netflix, it just yeah,
it is a little bit pricey, that's why it's not number one.
Number two is Prime Video.
Now this one surprised me honestly.
With how high it's point total came in,
but hey there's no fighting the numbers, right?
Now this is always a tough one to talk about
because when you sign up for Prime,
it's a lot more than just a streaming service, right?
You're getting the free shipping and what not.
So 13 bucks a month might seem high,
like Netflix or HBO Max,
but when you factor everything else that you get with Prime,
the value, tough to argue with.
And if for some reason you did only want to go
with the streaming service,
you can get it alone for nine dollars a month.
And considering the deep library
and some of the massive upcoming titles on here,
you know, you've got Lord of the Rings coming up,
The Wheel of Time, Galaxy Quest, Event Horizon,
they're making series out of all these.
I'd say nine bucks seems like it's okay.
And lastly we have Disney Plus.
Now it's almost the complete package here,
in terms of entertainment.
They've got everything on here.
The only thing it's missing really is rated R content,
and hey we've got HBO Max for that,
and pretty much everything else.
But on Disney Plus, it's got so much else.
It's got what the kids could want,
it's also got Marvel, it's got Star Wars,
it's got Pixar, it's got just so, so much,
and it's only seven bucks a month.
So in terms of value,
frankly I'm neither surprised nor unhappy
that Disney Plus came in first on this.
Now there are also some honorable mentions
that I wanted to throw out there.
Things that just barely didn't quite
make the cut into my top 10.
PBS and PBS Kids is fantastic.
Whether you have kids or not, the PBS app is really good.
There's a ton of really engaging content for you,
as well as the kids on those apps.
Next it would be Paramount Plus,
which again just barely didn't make the cut.
I just was really underwhelmed with the roll out
when they switched from CBS All Access to Paramount Plus.
CBS All Access you know, a couple of months ago
probably wouldn't have made my cut either
and now Paramount Plus doesn't.
And the last one I'll mention is Crackle.
If you're really into free content then Crackle is,
I think edging out the other competitors in that category,
except for IMDb TV and the Roku Channel,
but it's better than Tubi, it's better than Pluto,
as far as I'm concerned, but again that's just me.
Those are all great apps too.
But there you go that is my top 10.
Now if you are to actually go out and get my entire top 10,
it would cost you about 66 bucks a month before tax.
And that might be a bit steep depending on how much money
you're looking to save with streaming,
but I wasn't basing this list on cumulative pricing,
and there are three free options in there.
So the free options just generally didn't quite stack up
in terms of content quality.
But I guess you kinda get what you pay for most of the time.
So there you go.
I would love to hear you tell me how crazy I am.
So hit the comments below, let me know.
I'm happy to defend my choices here.
(Craig chuckles)
Or hear what you think should have made the list.
I'd love to hear it, so yeah hit those comments.
On your way down there, don't forget to like and subscribe.
Thank you so much for watching everybody,
I'll see you next time.