Today, Disney+ launched to the delight of people who love Star Wars, Marvel, and anyone with small children. Disney’s new standalone streaming service gives users access to pretty much their entire back catalog, along with National Geographic, as well as the aforementioned blockbuster series they’ve purchased.
It’s also got a lot of people asking: How does it compare to the existing streaming services?
In this article we’ll look at the Disney+ vs. Netflix debate. We’ll look at what each offers, and compare price and interface. We’ll give a final verdict for people out there, and have a special analysis for sports fans.
Let’s get to it.
Which has better offerings?
Right now, by a nose, we have to give it to Netflix. Netflix has spent aggressively on original content, and has also invested in a lot of classic films
Disney+ comes out of the gate in second place, already surpassing Hulu. It’s got the Disney back catalogue, as well as everything from the Marvel cinematic universe, Star Wars, and National Geographic. This does leave blind spots — any movies that are older and outside of a few major franchises are basically going to be kids’ movies, and their TV offerings can’t get close to Netflix yet. But this is a strong start.
As for other things out there: Hulu is a fine option. It’s got some interesting TV shows and gets TV offerings much quicker than Netflix does. And as we’ll share in a second, you can actually get it with Disney+, which may be the best way to go.
Price?
Disney+ is available for $6.99 a month to start, with an annual option for $69.99. This is considerably less than Netflix’s current cost of $12.99 a month, and will be the difference maker for a lot of people.
And Disney+ also came over the top with another option: You can have Disney+, Hulu, AND ESPN+ all for $12.99. I already pay for ESPN+ (you can read our review of ESPN+ here), so for me, this option is a no-brainer.
Ease of use?
We haven’t had too much time to play around with Disney+ yet, but the format seems intuitive and nice to use. Netflix has had years to perfect the way they share content with you, and their search option works great, but Netflix also has an annoying feature where it auto-loads previews and starts playing video when you’re just trying to browse, which drives me nuts.
So I guess we’ll give it to Disney+ for now.
Final verdict
If you have to choose between one, I think I give the slight edge to Disney+, with a big caveat — if you don’t have small children and aren’t a huge comic book film fan, you might be frustrated with what they offer at first. Netflix has more original programming, and much better TV offerings. Hulu I don’t think compares to either, but as a tack-on to Disney+, might well be worth it.
Plus, if you love sports, the Disney+ / Hulu / ESPN+ deal is a ton of great content and live sports programming for the same cost you’re paying for Netflix now.
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