The Fubo live streaming service is a solid option for sports enthusiasts. In our tests, we loved the international soccer (football) coverage. We also liked the interface and overall sports lineup, but were a little disappointed to miss out on TNT and CNN. We were also bummed by hidden regional sports fees, but highly recommend the seven-day trial.
Philo is a great value with 70+ live TV channels, the full AMC+ library, and channel add-ons available. You can watch TV live and watch over 75,000 on-demand titles from the streaming library. If you love feel-good movies, reality TV, and shows about home and family, you'll love Philo. We tested Philo across browsers, phones, and streaming sticks, and it performed really well. Get started for just $28 a month or try a 7-day free trial.
Vidgo costs nearly as much as the top streaming services we reviewed, but it’s harder to use and missing a lot of top channels. It’s the best way to watch One America News plus original programming from Bill O’Reilly, though, and one of the best ways to catch college sports.
Fubo is a decent all-around replacement for cable TV, but it really shines when it comes to regional sports. This handy channel guide from Fubo is an easy way to see whether your shows and games are available.
Local: 3.5/5
Fubo offers more local channels than most of its competitors in the streaming space, and that means home games, primetime hits, and local news. There’s no PBS or C-SPAN though, and some markets don’t have NBC or ABC. You’ll also miss out on CNN, The CW, A&E, and HBO.
Sports: 3.5/5
Fubo is a great choice for regional sports networks in addition to popular favorites including FS1, Golf, ESPN and ESPN2, and NFL Network, all of which are available on the first-tier. You also get TUDN channels, beIN SPORTS channels, and BIG NETWORK channels, but no TNT. For NBA TV, NHL Network, MLB Network, and PAC 12 coverage (among others), you’ll need the Fubo Extra add-on for about $8 per month. Other add-ons for sports include MLB.TV ($25 per month), NBA League Pass ($15 per month), Adventure Plus ($5 per month), and more.
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Family and education: 2.5/5
Fubo is adequate (but not great) when it comes to programming for kids. You get Disney, Disney Jr., Nickelodeon and Nick Jr. plus Animal Planet and Universal Kids at the first tier. There’s even a channel that’s all Bob Ross, all the time. You can’t get PBS or The CW, though.
News and politics: 3.5/5
Fubo does a little better when it comes to news. You can get local coverage from your ABC, NBC, FOX, Telemundo, Univision, or CBS affiliate station plus Fox News, MSNBC, Bloomberg, NEWSMAX, and Scripps News (a channel not widely available elsewhere). There’s no way to get HLN or CNN with Fubo, though, and you’ll have to pay an extra $3 per month for the News Plus add-on if you want coverage from smaller outlets including ROI, Cheddar News, TYT, and i24 News.
Entertainment and lifestyle: 3/5
From true crime documentaries to love stories and blockbuster hits, Fubo has a lot to offer. We like that Paramount and Bravo are included at the base package price. You can also get TLC, Grit, USA, and three Hallmark channels at that price. There’s no way to get Lifetime channels, though, and there’s also no TBS, History, A&E, AMC, IFC, or Sundance.
If you love home renovation shows, feel-good movies, and reality TV, Philo has a channel lineup you’ll love. But you won’t find sports, local channels, or news.
Local: 0/5
Philo doesn’t offer any local channels, so that means no local news, no primetime favorites, no local sports, and no awards shows. If you want this programming, we recommend checking out live TV streaming options YouTube TV and Hulu + Live TV or a traditional TV provider like your local cable company or satellite TV providers DISH or DIRECTV.
Sports: 0/5
Like with local channels, Philo doesn’t offer any sports coverage. You can catch some sports content on ESPN+ or get a decent variety on services like Fubo or Sling TV. If you want to catch every NFL game, you could even try the NFL Sunday Ticket premium channel from YouTube.
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Family and education: 4/5
Philo is a great choice for families and kids. You get multiple channels from Discovery with the base package price, plus Animal Planet, Great American Family, Family Entertainment TV (FETV), three Nickelodeon channels, Story Television, and Science. There’s no Disney, Cartoon Network, or PBS, but we love that Philo makes it easy to access free programming from services including Crackle, Cheddar News, Gusto TV, and RetroCrush, the new station featuring classic anime hits.
News and politics: 2/5
While you can catch BBC America and BBC World News on Philo, there’s virtually none of the news or analysis you would expect from traditional TV. There’s no Late Night Tonight, and no 60 Minutes or PBS Newshour. You don’t get Fox News, MSNBC, HBO, or CNN either, and we didn’t find any foreign-language news programming in our tests.
Entertainment and lifestyle: 4/5
Philo really shines when it comes to stories, movies, and inspirational shows. You get all the Hallmark and Lifetime channels before add-on pricing. Plus, you get A&E and the INSP channel. We also found shows from TV’s rich past, including I Love Lucy, Father Knows Best, Matlock, Doctor Who, and even Touched by an Angel. There’s a strong selection of shows about the Black experience, too, including Rasheeda Frost's Boss Moves and much more. Even better, you get to choose from four different MTV channels before add-ons.
Optional add-on channels include Fandor, FMC, HDNet Movies, Movies!, Reelz, Sony Movies, MGM+, MGM+ Hits, MGM+ Marquee, Starz, Starz Encore, and Starz Kids and Family.
If Vidgo carries your teams and you resonate with its news offerings, it’s a decent alternative to some of the cable and satellite TV services we reviewed. But for most cord cutters, we can’t recommend Vidgo. Choosing a different streaming service would give you most of the right-wing news you crave and more pro sports.
Local: 1.5/5
Vidgo offers local FOX and ABC channels in some markets (including their respective news coverage) but doesn’t carry NBC, CBS, or PBS. That means missing out on local news and a lot of primetime goodies. We like that there are at least some local channels (you don’t get any with Philo, for instance), but there’s a lot of room for improvement.
Sports: 3/5
Vidgo is so-so when it comes to professional sports, offering MLB Network and NFL Network, but no NBA TV and none of the local channels that host the biggest national games and matches. There’s also a gap when it comes to regional sports networks for pro teams, and there’s no access to TNT. It offers nearly a dozen channels just for college sports, though, plus the standard ESPN, NHL Network, and Fox Sports 1 and 2. It goes above and beyond with sports in Spanish, offering Telemundo, Estrella, Univision, and UniMas.
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Family and education: 2.5/5
Vidgo leaves something to be desired when it comes to family viewing. We like that it offers Science, Discovery, four Nickelodeon channels, and three Disney channels in its Ultimate package, but missing local channels and all their great family content is a bummer. There’s no PBS, either, but you will find the Curiosity channel (without add-on pricing) which is rare among other streaming services, plus BYUtv and Great American Family.
News and politics: 2/5
Vidgo is the only live TV service we tested that still offers OAN (One America News), and it’s the home of two new shows from conservative commentator Bill O’Reilly: Shock and Awe and No Spin News. It also features Fox News, Newsmax, and News Nation channels, and the listener-supported channel Vice, but it’s missing CBS, NBC, MSNBC, CNN, and BBC America. Top competitors YouTube TV, Hulu + Live TV, and DIRECTV STREAM offer a wider range of options, so the focus on right-leaning options is what makes Vidgo stand out.
Entertainment and lifestyle: 2.5/5
We like that Vidgo offers both Lifetime and Hallmark channels, but it’s missing a lot of the most popular entertainment channels out there. There’s no Showtime or HBO (and no add-ons), no Ion Mystery, no Reelz, and no Grit. You will find MTV, CMT, and BET, though. If there’s a particular channel you’re interested in, we recommend checking the Vidgo channel guide before making a decision, because there are no free trials.
Monthly costs for Fubo are about average compared to competitors we tested, at least for the first tier. For about $75 per month, you get access to more than 140 channels, including a very strong soccer lineup. We also found golf, NASCAR, and NFL options pretty easily. A lot of content is limited to 720p resolution, but that’s standard for a lot of live TV. To access games in 4K, you’ll need to pay for the third- or fourth-tier plan for between $10 and $30 more per month. It’s not cheap, but it may be worth it if you’re a serious international soccer fan. We also liked the add-on lineup, which includes options for soccer in French, Portuguese, and Spanish, plus most of the standard entertainment extras like SHOWTIME and MGM+.
There’s a big drawback, though. The Fubo streaming service doesn’t carry any Turner Network channels, so you can’t get CNN or TNT. Depending on where you live, you may also miss out on local stations, which could mean missing home games. We highly recommend the seven-day free trial, but set yourself a reminder to cancel in case you can’t find your games and teams.
After the trial ends, you’ll be charged the regular monthly price plus local taxes and a regional sports fee, which is either $10.99 per month (if you have one RSN in your area) or $13.99 (if you have more than one RSN or signed up through Roku). Most streaming providers have dropped hidden fees at this point, and we wish Fubo would do the same.
Cleverly named after the inventor of the television, Philo is one of the cheapest live TV options available. It’s a great value for live TV and vast array of movies, entertainment, and lifestyle shows. There are other add-ons, but even if you pay for them all, you’ll still pay less than most of the other live TV services. You’ll also find more than 75,000 titles in the on-demand library.
Philo stays super cheap by skipping local channels, sports, national news, and many of the most popular national networks. (1) You’re also locked out of recently aired entertainment from PBS, NBC, ABC, CBS, and Fox. A digital antenna is an easy workaround that can enable you to watch your local news.
Philo is easy to sign up for, and it's easy to manage your subscription. Philo comes with a free, 7-day trial, and it's easy to cancel online.
Vidgo offers four package options, and they’re not cheap. The cheapest English-language package starts at about the same price as the top live TV streaming services we reviewed. Other packages cost even more.
Rather than try to be everything for everyone, it’s pretty clear Vidgo is going for two main audiences: people who love right-wing news and analysis, and people who love college sports. You’ll also find some heart-warming movies, shows for kids, and music videos, but the channel lineup makes it clear producers care more about starting lineups than love notes or bleeding hearts.
It’s worth noting that Vidgo also has a subscription focused on Spanish-language TV, and we like that it costs $20 less than the cheapest English-language subscription.
No matter how you watch Fubo, we think you’ll enjoy the experience. The app is highly rated, the DVR works well, and it's easy to watch simultaneous streams both at home and on the go.
Ability to watch: Great
The day-to-day viewing experience with Fubo is very good. Shows load faster than with DIRECTV STREAM, and there are a lot of games available in 4K. We tested the service on a large Samsung TV, multiple browsers, and mobile devices. We also tested the mobile app, which is rated pretty highly by both Android and Apple users.
Ability to record: Excellent
Fubo offers a cloud DVR that lets you save up to 1,000 hours worth of shows, and we love that it doesn’t expire. You can also watch recent games you forgot to record, and you can pause and rewind most of your live shows and games (depending on the channel). We also liked that the cloud DVR saved a complete episode or game even if we forgot to start recording until the middle. There’s a minor caveat around DVR, though. You get only 250 hours of cloud DVR space with the Latino plan. That seems like a lot, but we don’t recommend it if you support multiple teams or have a household with diverse TV tastes. The other Fubo plans offer 1,000 hours of storage, but many top competitors offer truly unlimited DVR these days. The Fubo app felt faster and more modern than the DIRECTV STREAM options we tested and sleeker than bargain TV streaming services like Philo. Fubo feels a lot like traditional TV, but with a better interface and easier access to free options like Crackle and TYT.
Ability to find: Great
The channel guide from Fubo is fast and modern, and we like that you can see both channel numbers and logos from the home screen. You can see previews and details for a given program without having to click through to it, which is nice. You can also find your stuff using a few other views, and the recommendation engine works well. There were a few things we didn’t like, but we can’t really single out Fubo because we found the same issues elsewhere. First, it was tricky to find the on-demand library or see which shows are available on demand (compared to streaming live or recorded in your cloud DVR). DIRECTV STREAM was much better in that regard, but it only really matters if you’re watching a show that lets you skip commercials.
Ability to share: Excellent
Fubo lets you watch on up to 10 screens at a time, and you can create up to six different user profiles. It was nice to get a six-digit passcode when logging onto a new device rather than having to type in a password, but we didn’t love that we had to share our location every time we opened the mobile app. In today’s privacy-centric world, it felt borderline invasive, but the experience watching on the go was still better than with Hulu + Live TV. In all our tests, Fubo was one of the best services out there for sharing with a big household.
There’s just one minor downside when it comes to parental controls. It was easy to create profiles and get custom recommendations, but there are no parental controls or any way to request only kid-friendly shows on a given profile. We created a profile to watch the Disney Channel, Nick Jr., and Animal Planet, for example, and the first recommendation was South Park. Mmmkay.
Philo is pleasant on a day-to-day basis, and works better than some of its higher-priced competitors. There's no 4K, though, and we found some platform-specific quirks.
Ability to watch: Good
We tested the Philo interface on iOS and Android mobile phones, a few different web browsers, and an Apple TV. The interface was similar across devices, and the setup was one of the simplest among all the live TV streaming services we tested. After we entered payment info, we got right into the guide. The original browser saved our login info. Signing in later on different browsers and apps required two-step verification using a mobile phone number or email address, but we never had to enter (or remember) a password.
We didn’t run into any issues when we tried multiple devices and browsers from different locations, which was a refreshing change from services like Hulu + Live TV, which tracks your IP address. Unfortunately, there is no way to watch in 4K—Philo maxes out at 1080p resolution no matter how you’re watching.
The viewing experience is about what you’d expect from a live TV provider, but with some oddities. Watching live, the only way to skip commercials is to record the episode in progress, wait several minutes, and skip ahead whenever the commercials come on. You can also fast forward through most commercials on DVR content, and some channels let you skip ads with one click on Roku streaming devices.
We ran into some buffering issues with Philo on the Apple TV we tested, particularly with the channel guide. It happened on different devices in multiple locations, so we’re pretty sure it wasn’t a bandwidth issue. The slow loading wasn’t a dealbreaker, but we can see how channel surfers would be annoyed.
Ability to record: Excellent
The DVR and on-demand experiences with Philo were pretty par for the course in our tests, and Philo recently upgraded its cloud DVR to save recordings for up to a year. We are impressed that you get three extra months to watch your recordings, compared to competitors Hulu + Live TV and YouTube TV, which give you only nine months. Unlimited recordings is also pretty sweet, and we liked Philo’s 72-hour Rewind feature. You can use it to watch almost anything that’s aired in the last 72 hours, even if you forgot to add it to your library before it aired.
To get the most out of Philo, we recommend spending some time in the beginning to find and add your favorite shows. Within a few days, your Saved library will fill up with dozens of episodes to choose from.
Ability to find: Good
When you get to the Home screen on Philo, you’ll find a roundup of trending live and recommended shows, plus top movies and other categories. You can see whether a show is available on demand by clicking through to the episode description or by hovering your mouse over a particular episode, but there’s no way to tell at the series level. However, you can favorite shows at either the episode or series level, and saving a series means all future episodes will be recorded in your Saved library. You can also favorite channels, and that makes them show up first in the channel guide. It’s fairly simple to unfavorite, and the changes appear across devices instantly.
The channel guide itself is less impressive. Channel numbers aren’t listed (just logos) and you have to click into a program to get additional preview info. It works, but there aren’t a lot of bells and whistles to rave about.
Ability to share: Good
Philo offers many of the features you’d expect from a modern live TV streaming service. In our tests, it was easy to create profiles for different viewers, and the DVR libraries and favorites were kept separate. You can add up to 10 profiles and assign each a separate mobile phone number, so different users can sign in using their personal phones. However, there were no parental controls to be found.
You can watch Philo on up to three screens at a time, without a lot of verification or hassle.
We wish we had a lot of nice things to say about Vidgo’s features, but we only found one: you can stream on at least four devices at a time with one account, with no restrictions around IP addresses or logged-in devices. Things go downhill from there.
Ability to watch: Bad
We started our testing on an iPhone and found out we couldn’t rewind live TV at all, couldn’t fast forward content of any kind, and couldn’t even load a lot of the on-demand content. The problems persisted when we moved our testing to a Safari browser. Watching on a PC or Chrome browser was easier, and the Android app worked well overall. But we ran into confusing quirks and bugs on every device.
Things got a little easier when we tried Vidgo on streaming devices, but the interface was clunky and boxy. The bare bones functionality of watching TV live is there, but it takes several clicks to watch anything at all, and there are multiple weird pop-up boxes throughout the experience.
We found several college sports channels, but our testers noticed low-quality feeds on some games. The load times for games felt faster than with DIRECTV STREAM, the reigning RSN provider in live TV streaming, but we couldn’t get on-demand movies to load at all on several of the devices we tested.
You can pause live TV, but it’s basically just a mute button because pressing “play” takes you right back to the live version. You can rewind live TV, but only back as far as you’ve been watching live. There’s no way to skip commercials, even if you wait for a lag of several minutes. If you’re using a PC, you can speed up or slow down the show, but the highly unusual feature is glitchy and feels unnecessary.
You can’t fast-forward easily with on-demand shows and movies either, though some devices let you drag a play bar back and forth. It is possible to skip ahead when watching from the on-demand library, but only if you’re using Edge or Chrome browsers or relying on the capabilities of your streaming device (such as an Apple TV).
It doesn’t get much better when it comes to the on-demand library. You can “Favorite” channels and sort by Favorites in the channel guide, but that doesn’t have any impact on your home screen. Instead, you get blasted with content Vidgo considers “Top Shelf,” meaning mostly Fox News.
Watching from the on-demand library was beyond frustrating. We were eventually able to watch on-demand movies on a MacBook, but only with Chrome and Firefox browsers. Other times, we couldn’t get anything to load at all. We understand that not everything is set up to work well with Safari, but Vidgo’s own documentation encourages using the browser. Not a good look.
Ability to record: Bad
Vidgo offers cloud DVR, but it’s terrible. For starters, the maximum possible storage is just 20 hours, which never expire but that you’ll use up in a hurry. Top streaming competitors offer unlimited cloud DVR and include it in the package price, so Vidgo is clearly in the minor leagues here. Maybe even the little leagues.
Using the DVR is a challenge, too. First, it’s hard to get anything to record. You can’t start a recording in the middle of a program, and most of the time the shows we had selected for DVR weren’t actually recorded. Over several days of testing, none of our recordings showed up in the mobile app.
We finally found some (but not all) of our intended recordings using a Chrome browser, but there was no easy way to skip commercials.
From the home screen, you can (allegedly) set recordings by clicking on a show’s image card. You’ll probably have to click several times, though, and it may never work.
Ability to find: Bad
Things get even worse with the channel guide. You first have to click on the bright red “i” button on every channel to get to the description, and then look for the DVR button to the right. That “i” button looks like an exclamation point at first glance, so we thought it was a warning rather than a functional button.
For better or worse, channel surfing is also a no-go. There is a mini player, but if you’re watching on it, there’s no way to get back to the guide. If you pause a show and wait too long to get back on, there’s a good chance you’ll lose your place entirely and be kicked back to the (un-customizable) home screen.
Ability to share: Fine
There are no profiles, no parental controls, no 4K, no surround sound, and no other perks we could find. We were able to get around the three-device limit and watch in multiple locations, though, which earned the provider a little extra credit. Unfortunately, we're pretty sure that's a bug and not a feature.
Fubo treats its customers well, for the most part. The website and app are easy to use and navigate, and you can pretty easily see what you’ll be getting before you sign up. There’s extensive help documentation on the main site, or you can reach customer service by phone or even social media. We also really like the seven-day free trial and the 24-hour email notification that the trial would be ending soon. However, we wish the RSN fee were rolled into the base package price.
If you don’t like what you’re getting with Fubo, it’s easy to cancel your subscription, but your favorites and DVR won’t be saved. You can also pause your subscription for up to three months, which is a nice perk.
Philo makes it easy to sign up for the service, easy to sign in on different devices, and easy to cancel if you so choose. It’s also fairly simple to find and understand add-on pricing, and we love that the free trial lasts a full seven days even if you cancel midway through.
If you run into trouble, there’s a nice Help Center, a chat line, or a phone number to call. In this category, we believe Philo’s perfect score is well-deserved.
We were surprised to learn that Vidgo launched in 2018 because it still feels very beta. The interface and website are clunky and the packages and offerings change often. That said, we had to call in to customer service a few times and had relatively positive experiences. They even let us cancel the service without too much hassle, but it was a little strange. Rather than disabling our user profile, they just removed our credit card info.
Vidgo earned some of our lowest star rankings among both traditional TV and streaming providers, but it’s not hopeless! A new executive team was brought on toward the end of 2022, and we look forward to seeing what’s on deck. (1)