As the competition between video streaming services intensifies, Hulu continues to offer a strong library of shows and movies, as well as a robust live TV option.
That said, Hulu's original series are hit-or-miss, and offline downloads are still only available for premium subscribers.
Hulu's latest price hike for its live TV plan put its Editors' Choice distinction on shaky ground, despite its unique combination of on-demand and live content.
What Can You Watch on Hulu?
Hulu's on-demand library has always been about TV shows and that emphasis remains.
The service offers hundreds of seasons and thousands of episodes from major networks.
The rise of network-specific streaming services, like CBS All Access and NBC's Peacock, has cut into this vast content library.
However, Disney's role in Hulu and its vast library of former 21st Century FOX content that doesn't fit Disney+'s more family-friendly profile will likely keep Hulu afloat.
For instance, there's some talk that the Lizzie McGuire reboot, which may be too adult for Disney+, might instead find a home on Hulu.
Hulu offers many cable TV shows.
For fans of animation, there's Archer, Adventure Time, Bob's Burgers, and Futurama.
Drama shows include Bones, Killing Eve, The Orville, and The X-Files.
Comedy fans can watch 30 Rock, Broad City, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Letterkenny, Malcolm in the Middle, Scrubs, and Seinfeld. Note that Parks and Recreation has left for NBC's Peacock and Seinfeld is going to Netflix in 2021.
The good news is that Hulu's FX hub is live.
FX shows such as A Teacher and The Old Man, Devs, and Mrs.
America exclusively stream on Hulu.
Full seasons of past FX shows, including Archer, Atlanta, Better Things, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Justified, and Snowfall live there, too.
Like Netflix and Amazon, Hulu also creates original content.
While its offerings have typically been a mixed bag and many shows don't get renewed, its track record is trending upward.
Some of Hulu's best original releases include Castle Rock, Harlots, Helstrom, High Fidelity, Little Fires Everywhere, Marvel's Runaways, The Handmaid's Tale, and Veronica Mars.
Ramy and The Act both won Golden Globe awards.
Hulu is also one of our picks for the best video streaming services for celebrating Black art.
Netflix's originals are generally more successful than Hulu's, including mega-budgets productions like The Crown, animated hits like Bojack Horseman, genre pieces like Stranger Things, and adaptations such as The Witcher.
Other streaming services also outclass Hulu.
For example, Amazon has a growing list of top-notch originals, including Bosch, Fleabag, Patriot, Hunters, The Boys, The Expanse, The Marvelous Mrs.
Maisel, and Undone.
HBO Max offers a substantial catalog of quality past and current shows including Barry, Big Little Lies, Deadwood, Silicon Valley, Six Feet Under, The Sopranos, The Wire, Westworld, and VEEP.
Hulu's library of movies is decent with mainstream movies such as Forgetting Sarah Marshall, High Fidelity, Parasite, Rocketman, Superbad, Terminator: Dark Fate, and Twilight at the time of publishing.
However, movie fans will likely want to subscribe to one of the available channel add-ons.
Hulu does produce some original movies and documentaries, such as Batman and Bill, Becoming Bond, Fyre Fraud, Happiest Season, Palm Springs, and Run.
Foreign films on the platform include Shoplifters and A Breath Away.
Despite Hulu's efforts, Netflix currently offers the best movie library of any of the video streaming services.
A dedicated movie streaming service offers more for cinephiles.
For instance, The Criterion Channel's and Mubi's film libraries are much more substantial and heavily curated.
Hulu has hundreds of anime titles, such as My Hero Academia, Himouto! Umaru-chan, and One-Punch Man.
Older classics, such as Cowboy Bebop, FLCL, Ghost in the Shell, Naruto Shippuden, Ranma 1/2, Rurouni Kenshin, Slayers, and Trigun are also present.
Hulu only falls short of Crunchyroll in this category, with the latter hosting a much larger library of content.
Crunchyroll, and by extension VRV, also has the upper hand on Hulu and Netflix in terms of simulcast shows.
You can stay on top of what's available with Daxdi's monthly guide to what's arriving on Hulu.
Live TV and Sports
Hulu + Live TV's channel lineup should please most general audiences, with a deep lineup of content across the news, entertainment, and sports categories.
News channels include ABC News, CBS News, CNBC, CNN, CNN International, FOX Business, FOX News, and MSNBC.
Entertainment coverage is similarly varied with options such as Animal Planet, Cartoon Network, Discovery, Disney, Food Network, FX, HGTV, National Geographic, SYFY, TBS, Travel Channel, TLC, and TNT.
You also get the movie channels, FXM and TCM.
In addition to live feeds of these channels, you can watch on-demand content from each of these networks.
For fans of channels from Discovery Inc.
(such as Animal Planet, Food Network, and HGTV), discovery+ is a much cheaper, albeit on-demand, streaming service.
Hulu recently announced that it would add live Viacom channels, such as Comedy Central, MTV, and Nickelodeon, to its lineup.
If you are specifically interested in those channels, the much-less-expensive Philo includes them in its lineup.
As for sports, Hulu lineup includes BTN, CBS Sports, ESPN, ESPN 2, ESPNEWS, Golf Channel, and Olympic Channel.
That's all in addition to local channels you get in your zip code, such as ABC, CBS, FOX, and NBC cable affiliates.
The number of channels you get depends on your location.
Football fans should consult our roundup of the best NFL streaming services to see how Hulu compares to other options.
While Hulu's lineup features NBC-owned RSNs, it recently lost all Sinclair-owned RSNs (soon to change to be renamed from FOX Sports to Bally Sports) .
This will affect your ability to watch local MLB, NBA, NHL games.
AT&T TV Now is the only remaining live TV service that offers FOX Sports RSNs.
Check out FOX's RSN page to see what teams those channels cover.
Many other live TV services also strive to appeal to general audiences, including AT&T TV Now, and YouTube TV.
Other services are better suited for one genre of content than others.
For example, fuboTV is an excellent sports streaming service, though it pretty much matches Hulu in the other categories as well.
ESPN+ is another sports-centric service, but with a much narrower content scope.
How Much Does Hulu Cost?
Hulu's ad-supported, on-demand streaming plan currently costs $5.99 per month.
To avoid ads, you need to spring for the $11.99-per-month plan.
You can bundle Hulu (ad-supported version), Disney+, and ESPN+ for $12.99 per month or get the ad-free version of Hulu in that same bundle for $18.99 per month.
College students can get the ad-free version of Hulu for $1.99 per month.
The $64.99-per-month Hulu + Live TV plan bundles the service's live TV component with ad-supported access to its on-demand library.
If you want Hulu's live channels and the ad-free on-demand package, that costs $70.99 per month.
The No Commercials price tier still displays ads for a few programs per streaming rights, but to Hulu's credit, it is upfront about this limitation.
At present, these shows are Grey's Anatomy, Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., and How to Get Away With Murder, but this list of shows is subject to change.
Ads in the basic plan are no worse than regular television, but they are jarring and obnoxious for on-demand content.
When I watched an episode of Killing Eve, the stream was interrupted five times for commercial breaks, some of which included several back-to-back ads.
If you're getting rid of cable to avoid commercials, you'll definitely want the No Commercials tier.
Maybe you decide that your current Hulu plan isn't right for you or you don't want to pay for Hulu at all.
Check out our guide on how to modify or cancel your Hulu subscription.
Hulu also offers Cinemax ($9.99), HBO Max ($14.99), Showtime ($8.99), and Starz ($8.99), add-ons, which let you watch shows and movies from those networks along with their live feeds.
Additional add-ons specifically for the Live TV plans include Enhanced Cloud DVR (200 total hours of storage plus the ability to fast forward through ads) and Unlimited Screens (no restrictions on simultaneous streams over your home network), which cost $9.99 per month each or $14.98 per month for both.
You can also opt for the Entertainment ($7.99 per month) or the Español ($4.99 per month) Add-ons.
Netflix's base plan now costs more than Hulu, at $8.99 per month.
Netflix doesn't run traditional ads on any of its content, but you need to pay more (at least $13.99 per month for the Standard plan) if you want to stream HD content and stream on more devices simultaneously.
Plans for CBS All Access start at $5.99 per month, while HBO Max comes in at a much pricier $14.99 per month.
Amazon Prime Video is at $8.99 per month.
Shudder, a horror-focused streaming service, matches the price of Hulu's ad-supported plan, but doesn't show ads.
Apple TV+ is cheaper than all of them at $4.99 per month.
As for cable-replacement services, Hulu + Live TV is now one of the most expensive after a recent price hike to $64.99 per month.
Philo ($20 per month) and Sling TV's Orange & Blue plans ($30 per month) are significantly cheaper.
YouTube TV matches Hulu's monthly cost, but both AT&T TV Now's and fuboTV's starting plans are more affordable at $55 per month and $59.99 per month, respectively.
None of these services offer on-demand content libraries as complete as Hulu's.
You don't necessarily need to pay to get video streaming entertainment.
Our roundup of the best free video streaming services offers both on-demand services and those with preprogrammed channels.
Apart from streaming Hulu on the web, you can download apps for mobile platforms (Android and iOS), media streaming devices (Apple TV, Chromecast, Fire TV, and Roku), smart TVs, and game consoles (PlayStation, Xbox One, and the Nintendo Switch).
Hulu's live TV tier is available on the PlayStation 4, but PlayStation 3 users are still out of luck when it comes to live TV.
Hulu's Web Interface
When you log in to Hulu for the first time, the service walks you through some personalization options in which you choose, channels, genres, and shows that appeal to you.
Hulu uses this information to populate the My Stuff section of the web interface, a feature I discuss a bit later.
Hulu's web interface for live and on-demand content looks much more modern now than in years past, with big, flashy sliders and easily discoverable content.
Hulu is planning to make interface text more legible in a forthcoming update.
The homepage highlights noteworthy shows with horizontally scrolling lists below for categories such as Live Now, My Channels, Sports, News, and Hulu Originals.
At the top of the page, you get categories for Live TV and My Stuff.
Search and Account options live in the upper right-hand corner of the screen.
The search feature is not as robust as the one offered by YouTube TV, which allows you to combine terms (such as "Science Fiction" and "1982").
In the account section, you can manage billing details and your subscription add-ons.
You can also add user profiles for individual users, a feature I appreciate.
While you can restrict certain profiles to kid-friendly content only, that's not as flexible as other platforms' capabilities, which let you set restrictions by content ratings.
Browsing for content is pretty straightforward.
From the Browse menu, you can select from one of several top-level categories, such as Networks, TV Shows, Movies, Hulu Originals, and Sports or dive deeper into one of the dozens of available genres, such as Adventure, Comedy, Cooking & Food, Documentaries, International, and Science Fiction.
Each one of those latter categories returns results from both Hulu's on-demand and live streaming library.
Detail pages for content display available episodes, upcoming broadcast schedules, recommended shows, and a brief description.
If you want to specifically browse live TV streams, click the Live TV button in the top menu.
You can filter the channel list by Recent Channels, News, Sports, Kids, and Movies.
The web interface supports a windowed picture-in-picture mode, so you can keep your eye on the current stream while browsing for new content.
You can store and track shows and channels in the My Stuff section.
To add anything to this section, simply hit the + icon next to any programming and choose any available recording options: new episodes only, new and reruns; and do not record.
You can also follow specific sports teams too.
So, for example, you could add the Miami Dolphins to My Stuff to record and keep track of all upcoming games.
I tested Hulu on the web while connected to an Ethernet connection (200Mbps download).
The streaming performance was mostly solid, with a few random stutters.
Hulu only requires speeds of 3Mbps per second for on-demand shows and 8Mbps for live streams, so most connections should be sufficient.
Features and Streaming Experience
Hulu now lets premium subscribers download select TV shows and movies for offline viewing, including its original programming.
Eligible users can download up to 25 videos across five devices.
Downloads expire after 30 days and you get two days to finish watching a video after you begin playback.
Netflix, Prime Video, CBS All Access, HBO Max, and Showtime all offer offline download capabilities, too.
Hulu + Live TV's DVR functionality compares well to other services.
With Hulu, you can record up to 50 hours of content and keep those recordings for as long as you subscribe.
Users can pay an extra $9.99 per month to increase that limit to 200 hours and for the ability to skip ads in recordings.
For comparison, YouTube TV offers unlimited DVR storage and keeps titles for nine months.
fuboTV only allows you to record 30 hours' worth of content by default, while AT&T TV Now can only store 20 hours of shows for up to 30 days.
Sling TV is the worst of the bunch; users only get 10 hours of storage for free.
Sling subscribers can pay an additional $5 per month to upgrade to 50 hours of DVR storage.
Hulu may not offer every show in HD, but many of its shows are simply not available anywhere in a high-quality format.
Many of Hulu's recent original shows are available to stream in 4K, however, albeit only on Apple TV (5th gen or later) and the Chromecast Ultra.
Amazon Prime...
