The best live TV streaming services to cut cable in 2025

Price: $83/mo. and up | Simultaneous at-home streams: 3 | Total channels: 100+ (base plan) | DVR limits: Unlimited, 9 mo. expiration | Multiview: Yes (select programming) | Contract: No | Free trial: Yes (length varies)

In mid-December of 2024, subscribers got a bummer of an email letting them know the price of YouTube TV would be going up yet again, this time to $83, which is a $10 hike from the last increase of $8 in March of 2023. Even still, Google’s option makes a strong case for delivering the best streaming service for live TV. 

Compared to our top pick for sports, YouTube TV covers major and minor teams, regional games and national matchups almost as well. It gives you clear navigation, a great search function, unlimited DVR and broad network coverage. But, even beyond the price increase, YTTV is financially precarious if you’re not great at resisting temptation.

Upon signup, you’re presented with nearly 50 different add-ons, including 4K resolution, premium channels and themed packages. Even if you fight the urge to roll Max, Shudder and AcornTV into the mix at signup, the enticement remains as it’s dangerously easy to add more to your subscription — when I searched for a program on a network I didn’t have, I was prompted to add it. And of course, you can also rent or buy movies that aren’t currently showing on any channels, just like you can via YouTube. While it’s convenient to be able to order up anything I might want on a whim, I could easily see this pushing one’s bill far above Google’s listed price per month.

Still, it’s nice to have all your entertainment in one place. And if you only want the add-ons, you can actually subscribe to most of the standalone networks without paying for the base plan. Either way, you get a familiar user experience, with navigation you’ll recognize if you’ve spent any time on regular ol’ YouTube. Unsurprisingly, Google’s search function was the best of the bunch, finding the shows and games I searched for quickly and giving me clear choices for how to watch and record.

At signup, you’ll also pick the shows, networks and teams you like, which are added to your library. YouTube TV then automatically records them. You get unlimited cloud DVR space (though recordings expire after nine months) and it’s dead simple to add programming to your library. Like a real cable experience, YouTube TV autoplays your last-watched program upon startup by default, but it was the only service that allowed me to turn that feature off by heading to the settings.

Searching for and recording an upcoming game was easy. Once the game was recorded, I had to hunt a little to find it in my library (turns out single games are listed under the Events heading, not Sports). But after that, playback was simple and included a fascinating extra feature: You can either play a recorded game from the beginning or hit Watch Key Plays. The latter gives you between 12 and 20 highlight snippets, each about 10 seconds long. It focuses on the most impressive shots in an NBA bout and includes every goal in an MLS matchup. The feature was available for NCAA basketball and in-season major American leagues (hockey, soccer and basketball at the time of testing). Foreign and more minor games didn’t have the feature.

Sports fans will also appreciate the new multiview feature that YouTube TV added mid-2024 that lets you pick up to four sports, news and weather channels from a select list and view them all at the same time on your screen. If you find yourself constantly flipping back and forth between games, this could save you some hassle.

YouTube TV also gives you the most in-app settings. You can add parental controls to a profile or pull up a stats menu that shows your buffer health and connection speeds. You can lower playback resolution for slow connections and even send feedback to YouTube. It was also the best at integrating VOD and live programming. For example, when I searched for a show that happened to be playing live, a red badge in the corner of the show’s image let me know it was on right then. I know it makes no difference whether I watch an on-demand recording or a live show, but I like the imagined sense of community knowing someone else might be watching this episode of Portlandia too.

Price: $56/mo. and up | Simultaneous at-home streams: 10 | Total channels: 215 (base plan) | DVR limits: Unlimited, 9 mo. expiration | Multiview: Yes (select programming) | Contract: No | Free trial: Yes (length varies)

You may have heard about the announcement of the merger between Fubo and Hulu + Live TV and find yourself wondering how that’ll affect the two services. For now, the companies plan to operate the two as separate entities, but will use their combined power to leverage carrier and content deals. 

Such deals are no doubt behind Fubo’s latest package, a sports-focused plan that goes for $56 per month. Fubo Sports includes 20 sports and broadcast networks including ABC, CBS and FOX as well as ACC Network, Big 10 Network, CBS Sports Network and the ESPN stations available with the ESPN Unlimited plan. Fox News and FS1 and 2 are also included. For college and pro football fans, this package comes the closest to having most of what you need to watch most live games.  

For that reason and others, our top pick for live sports coverage is Fubo. When you first sign up, it asks which teams you follow across all kinds of associations. Pick teams from in-season leagues and you’ll quickly have DVR content to watch. That’s because Fubo records every game your chosen teams play as long as it’s aired on a supported channel – and its sports coverage is vast.

I tested out the top-tier package and the guide said there were 118 sports networks to choose from. In addition to the usual suspects from ESPN, Fox, NBC and CBS, you can watch motorsports, international leagues, adventure sports and even poker. Add-ons give you NBA TV, NHL Network, NFL Red Zone and MLB Network. And if you need access to all one thousand games the NBA plays in a season, you can add the NBA League Pass to your lineup for $17 per month. 

Fubo even has its own sports channels. And in August 2025, Fubo added access to ESPN+ for subscribers to its Pro, Essential, Elite and Deluxe plans. It does require setting up a MyDisney account, which you can learn about here. The only notable lack for sports fans is the absence of TBS and TNT which have licensing deals to show some NBA, MLB, NHL and NCAA games.

Still, the coverage is comprehensive. The UI designers obviously put effort into making everything easy to find with endless categorization, including breaking down sports offerings by type, giving lots of filtering options for live guide and on-demand content, as well as including interesting groupings on the home page.

Fubo also makes finding and recording your favorite games easy. Searching for an upcoming game was simple, as was sifting through the ample amount of recorded games I ended up with. I particularly liked FanView for live games, which inserts the video into a smaller window and surrounds that window with continually updating stats plus a clickable list of other games currently airing. But, unfortunately, the feature isn’t currently available. Hopefully Fubo will bring it back, as it was a differentiating perk for the service.  

Fubo did recently expand its multiview feature, letting you watch up to four live channels at once. This feature used to only be available on Apple TV boxes and only with sports fare, but I used it in January 2025 with a Roku device and was able to have two NCAA men’s games, my local evening news and CSI Miami from ion Mystery all up on the screen at the same time.

Fubo has made an obvious effort to win at sports, but recently it’s tried to deliver on the live TV experience as well. Based on what I’ve seen so far, it’s certainly made strides. The guide was impressive in the number of ways it let you organize live TV, yet everything felt clean and uncluttered. The Home, Sports, Shows and Movies pages were filled with recommendations and many iterations of categories, with almost all suggestions being live TV.

The focus on live TV can make the VOD and DVR playback functions feel second-rate. The search function wasn’t the best at finding the shows I looked for, and navigating available VOD content wasn’t as breezy as browsing through live programming. The lack of a pop-up preview window as you fast forward or rewind through recordings makes it tough to gauge where you are in a show.

At $85, this is technically the most expensive base package (now that DirectTV offers a 26-channel, sports-only package). And it’s now $2 more than YouTube TV and Hulu+ TV, which are both $83. But if you need all the sports – and want some nicely organized live TV during the few moments when there’s not a game on – this is the way to go.

It’s worth noting that a lapsed Fubo subscription will let you access a truncated version of the service for free. When my subscription expired after testing, I received an email detailing the content I could still watch without re-upping my payments. It’s similar to other free ad supported TV streamers, with a limited channel selection through the same Fubo interface.

Price: $83/mo. and up | Simultaneous at-home streams: 2 | Total channels: 95+ (base plan) | DVR limits: Unlimited, 9 mo. expiration | Multiview: No | Contract: No | Free trial: Yes (3 days)

When Hulu+ Live TV increased the price of its ad-supported base plan to $83 per month, it was the most expensive option out there. YouTube TV caught up a few months later and now both are the same price. Of course, because the service comes bundled with Disney+, ESPN+ and includes Hulu’s original programming, you get a lot of content you can’t find elsewhere. So if you already subscribe, or plan to get the regular Hulu app and/or Disney+, Hulu’s live component makes a lot of sense. Note that $83 gets you that content with ads — for ad-free Disney+ and Hulu, it’s $96 monthly.

But it looks as though things will soon change for the Hulu brand across the board. First, there was the announcement of the merger between the service and Fubo. Then in August 2025, Disney shared its plans to combine the on-demand Hulu with Disney+ in 2026. For now, Fubo, Hulu + Live TV and Disney+ will all operate as separate entities, but Variety reported on plans for Hulu+ Live TV to also be rolled into Disney+ at some point next year.

As it stands now, Hulu + Live TV carries your local affiliates and most of the top cable channels. For sports, you get all available ESPN iterations plus FS1, FS2, TBS, USA, NBC Golf, the NFL Network and TNT (Turner Network Television). You can also add on premium VOD channels like Max and Showtime, and it’s the only provider that includes Disney+ at no extra cost.

Navigation isn’t as smooth as most of the other options — as I used Hulu + Live TV, it felt like the live component had been shoehorned into the standard Hulu app. But for viewers who are already comfortable with (and paying for) Hulu and Disney+, this might be the best pick for your live TV subscription.

Price: Free, $20/mo. and up | Simultaneous at-home streams: Unlimited | Total channels: 105 (free), 9 – 185 (paid) | DVR limits: Unlimited (9-month expiration, maximum of 30 episodes per series) | Multiview: Yes (select mixes) | Contract: No | Free trial: Yes (5 days)

In mid-April, DirecTV Stream rebranded. Streaming is now the company’s primary offering and is simply called DirecTV. Customers looking for the original satellite TV service can still find it, but it’s nested within the streaming option on the website, with a disclaimer that states the dish-enabled plan is only for those who don’t have high-speed internet at home. It’s interesting to see a more traditional satellite provider shift its focus to streaming — a move that’s clearly intended to better compete with YouTube TV and other similar services.

The good news is that streaming with DirecTV requires no contract (the satellite plan still assesses a $20-per-month early termination fee). There’s no special equipment involved unless you want to get the Gemini Air streaming device. The HDMI streaming dongle supports 4K resolution, Dolby Atmos, Dolby Vision and HDR10+, similar to the 4K streaming sticks from Roku or Amazon that cost around $50. But you can’t buy the Gemini Air. Instead, you lease it for $10 per month, which, after five months or so, might start to feel like a bad deal.

It’s still the service that most closely resembles cable, complete with numbered channels and somewhat confusing plan structures. You can go for Signature packages, which range from $85 per month to $170 per month — those are most comparable to YouTube TV, Hulu + Live TV and Fubo. Or you can sign up for one of the four Genre Packs which cost $35, $40 or $70 monthly. These slimmed-down channel lineups focus on sports, entertainment, news or Spanish language stations. The entertainment pack reminds me of Philo and the sports offerings have a whiff of Sling’s Orange and Blue plans. 

In good news for sports fans, the company recently announced that subscribers to any DirecTV Signature Package or the MySports Genre Pack will gain access to the Unlimited version of ESPN’s service at no extra charge once it’s live. DirecTV customers with a Gemini device will also get access to the Disney+ and Hulu basic bundle.

Regardless of which plan you end up going with, it’s all based on the DirecTV streaming app, which you can download and watch for free, (like Tubi or Pluto TV), but once you add a plan or pack, the channels you paid for are unlocked.

Comparing the $85-per-month Entertainment Signature Package (not to be confused with the $35 MyEntertainment Genre Pack) to YouTube TV and Hulu + Live TV’s $83 base plans, the offerings are pretty similar. You get your area’s five major local channels (ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, PBS), nearly all of the 20 most popular channels (with the exception of Ion and the History Channel), sports channels that include ESPN, TNT, and FS1, plus unlimited DVR space with a nine-month expiration.

The navigation and performance of the service remains largely unchanged from when we first started recommending it. I like the experience of flipping from one numbered channel to the next — it reminds me of watching TV as a kid, plus it’s great for serendipitously finding something to watch when you’re bored. The top navigation is pretty simple, with options for search, home, the live TV guide, your DVR library and on-demand content. The guide doesn’t split the channels into a ton of categories, just recent, sports, kids, movies and TV shows. There’s also a favorites channels list, which you can add to from the guide.

There’s still no way to stop whatever is playing as you browse the guide — something I find irritating, but it might not bother everyone. As you watch a show in the live guide, you can press your remote’s right D-pad button to advance to the next numbered channel and hitting the left button takes you to the preceding channel. If you want to rewind or fast forward, you have to first hit the center/enter/OK button and then you can control playback. That took me a minute to get used to, but wasn’t a huge learning curve. Pressing up shows you a few recent channels and the down button creates an inset of the show you’re watching alongside some suggested similar programming, popular channels, your continue-watching content and more browsing categories.

A new multiview feature lets you pick from seven “mixes,” each of which contains four channels that you can watch all at once in a grid on the same screen. There’s a mix for sports, news, business, kids, local and more and it’s available to subscribers to the Signature packages and the MySports genre pack.

I found it pretty simple to navigate DirecTV once I got the hang of it. That simplicity extends to the way it looks as well, with plain grids in grey and blue tones. Some might find that minimalism refreshing and clean. I found it a little uninspired — I wasn’t as excited to browse as I’ve been with other apps. Navigation is also a little slow. Compared to watching other live content (on the same TV with the same internet connection), DirecTV channels always took a second or two longer to load.

The search function requires you to input your entire query then hit Done to see your results. Other services start showing findings as you type. Again, the results are organized into three categories: shows, movies or all. If there’s something on a channel you’re not subscribed to, it’ll prompt you to go online and sign up for the channel. You can’t do it through the app, like you can with some services. You might find that annoying or be thankful for the slight bit of friction it adds to spending more money.

Price: Free, $20/mo. and up | Simultaneous at-home streams: 1 (Orange), 3 (Blue), 3 (Select) | Total channels: 600+ (free), 10 – 50 | DVR limits: 50 hours | Multiview: No | Contract: No | Free trial: No

To me, the idea of spending time fine-tuning channel choices sounds exhausting. But if you’re the type who wants to get exactly what you want without paying for too much of what you don’t, Sling TV may be your best bet. It breaks its base plan into two packages, Blue and Orange, with different channels on each. 

Sling snuck in a price increase at the tail end of 2024 and now Blue costs $51 a month. It carries a larger number of networks, while Orange seems to have spent its lineup dollars on ESPN and ESPN 2. But even at the new $46 monthly, Sling Orange is still the cheapest way to get those two sports outlets (ESPN+ is only $12 monthly, but doesn’t show all of ESPN’s content.) 

In August 2025, Sling introduced Day Passes that let you watch channels on the Orange plan for just $5. There are also weekend and week-long passes to choose from, so if there’s just a game or two you want to watch, this is probably the cheapest way to do it — just make sure Sling Orange includes the channels that air the events you want to watch. It’s worth noting that Disney recently filed a suit against Sling for offering these short-term packages, so there’s a chance they may not be around long. 

Sling also added another plan to its lineup. The Select plan includes National Geographic, FX, the NFL Network, FS1, Fox News and more. In some markets, subscribers will also get their local ABC, NBC and Fox stations. The plan goes for $20, $25 or $30 depending on the number of local stations available.

After picking a plan, you can choose from a stable of add-on packages, with monthly prices ranging from $6 to $11. These include blocks of sports or lifestyle channels, kid-friendly fare, the Discovery+ bundle and a news package. There are 29 individual premium offerings, including AMC+, Starz, MGM+, Shudder and Acorn, which go for between $2 and $10 per month. Sling has pay-per-view movies, too.

As far as local coverage, Sling Blue grants access to ABC, Fox and NBC local affiliates in about 20 of the larger US markets including Los Angeles, Seattle, Dallas, NYC, Miami and DC. ABC coverage began in March 2023. That raised the price of Sling Blue in supported markets from $40 to $45. For people not in those areas (or who opt for Orange) Sling suggests getting an HD antenna to catch local stations for free. 

Sling now offers select sports in 4K. You’ll need a Roku, Amazon Fire or Apple TV device that supports 4K (and a compatible TV) but for no extra charge, you’ll get to certain sports events with a bump in resolution.

Sling’s navigation is speedy and the interface is nicely organized, putting an emphasis on what you like to watch, with recommendations that are pretty accurate. The UI also makes the add-ons you’ve chosen easy to find. In my tests, though, the app froze a number of times as I navigated. While most services froze once or twice, it happened enough times with Sling to frustrate me. I had to force quit or back out of the app and start over five or six times during the three weeks of testing. Compared to others, Sling’s DVR allowance is on the stingy side, only giving you 50 hours of recordings, though they won’t expire. You can pay for more DVR storage, but that will increase your overall costs.

I tried not to wander too far off-path during testing, but I feel it’s my duty to inform you that Sling has an Elvis channel, a Bob Ross channel and ALF TV (yes, an entire station devoted to the ‘80s sitcom starring a puppet). There’s also a Dog TV network intended to be played for your dogs when you leave the house, which you can add to Sling or get as a standalone app for $10 per month.

Price: $28/mo. and up | Simultaneous at-home streams: 3 | Total channels: 70+ (base plan) | DVR limits: Unlimited, 1 yr. expiration | Multiview: No | Contract: No | Free trial: Yes (7 days)

Philo held out at $25 monthly for a few years but increased to $28 in 2024 — though they did add AMC+ to the channel lineup to lessen the blow (and it has some good shows!). Despite the bump, it’s still one of the cheapest ways to get a cordless live TV experience. Philo’s free offerings recently increased as well, bumping up to more than 100 channels. 

The biggest caveat is that you won’t find any local stations or sports programming on Philo. If that’s not an issue, the service is great, with a clean, streamlined interface and generous DVR limits.

I’m a fan of minimalist design, so I appreciated presentation of the menus and guide. There are just four top navigation headings: Home, Guide, Saved and Search. And instead of the usual guide layout that stretches out or shortens a show’s listing to represent its air time, Philo’s guide features monospaced squares in chronological order with the duration of the program inside the square. Another nice touch is when you navigate to a square, it fills with a live video of the show or movie.

Philo doesn’t limit the amount of programming you can DVR and lets you keep recordings for a full year, which is more than the nine months other providers allow. Like all live TV streamers, Philo won’t let you fast forward VOD programming. If skipping commercials is important to you, I recommend taking advantage of that unlimited DVR policy and hitting “Save” on any show or movie you think you may want to watch, then fast forwarding it on playback (you can do this with all the services we tried).

As far as channels, Philo covers many of the top cable networks, with notable exceptions including Fox News, CNN, ESPN and MSNBC. Anyone looking for great news coverage should look elsewhere anyway, but the lack of a few must-have entertainment outlets like Bravo and Freeform was a little disappointing.

The 100 or so channels in Philo’s free service are baked into the paid plan, bringing the total to 170, which is a pretty good deal for under $30 monthly.

Local channels: A few | Sports coverage: Replays and shows about sports | On-demand: Yes | Total channels: 260 | Profiles per account: 1

You can watch Tubi without signing up, but doing so lets you make lists, add your favorite shows and channels, and remember where you left off in a program. There are a couple hundred live channels including dozens of regional Fox stations (which ones you see will depend on your location). You also get news-stream channels like NBC News Now, Fox Live Now and ABC News Live. Fox is Tubi’s parent company so there are picks like Fox Sports on Tubi, Fox Soul and Fox Weather as well. Around a dozen sports channels, channels devoted to true crime, dramas, comedy and lifestyle shows round out the complete lineup.

The live TV category lives in the side rail navigation, along with tabs for on-demand movies, TV shows, kids stuff and a categories section. Those sub-categories are lengthy with topics like Actors Turned Directors, Martial Arts Mayhem and Werewolf Mysteries. Within the live TV tab, the channels are also divided into categories so you can find news, sports and local fare along with genres like comedy, drama and sci-fi channels. Navigation is speedy and settings include useful features like parental controls, autoplay options and closed captioning modifiers. It’s an overall smooth experience — the only mild irritants I found is that the TV guide only stays open for 10 seconds if you’re not actively clicking around and your current show keeps playing as you browse the guide.

Local channels: No | Sports coverage: Replays and shows about sports | On-demand: Yes | Total channels: 800+ | Profiles per account: 15 (with a free Plex Home acct) 

is not just an expansive FAST service with more than 500 live TV channels in most areas — it’s also a great tool for your other streaming pursuits. The search function will tell you which other services currently carry a particular title. I searched for Dept. Q, High Potential, Sinners and Willow and found I could watch those shows and movies with a subscription to Netflix, Hulu, HBO Max and Disney+, respectively. You can also search for content by actor or director and rent movies directly from Plex.

In 2024, Plex culled from other Plex users and professional critics — users can even share their reviews with friends on the service, creating a -like social media element. The search function can be slow (though it has improved over time) and, from what I’ve seen, it accurately directs you to the correct provider. It’s a thoroughly great live TV service too, with plenty of channels, good organization and an easy to navigate interface.

Local channels: A few | Sports coverage: Replays and shows about sports | On-demand: Yes | Total channels: 400+ | Profiles per account: 4 (with sign-up) |

Like DirecTV, Prime Video and Fubo, Sling offers a no-cost version of its paid service within the same app. If you pay for Sling, you won’t see the Freestream framing, but the channels are still available. Without a subscription, you can access more than 400 channels of free stuff, including news networks like BBC News, CBS News 24/7, ABC News live, Bloomberg and Cheddar news, along with a slew of regional Fox and CBS news stations. The sports offerings are pretty slim, but there are plenty of entertainment channels, AMC content, true crime stations and lots of channels devoted to a single show (Doctor Who, Farscape, Portlandia and Kim’s Convenience to name a few).

The navigation is a little clunkier to navigate than other services, with a mix of nested vertical and horizontal menus and different functions for your remote’s buttons depending on what screen you’re on. Whatever you’re watching pops up in a small picture-in-picture window when you go to the guide — and I particularly appreciate that the window is easy to close so you can browse in peace.

Local channels: A few | Sports coverage: Replays and shows about sports | On-demand: Yes | 4K live streams: No | Total channels: 250+ | Profiles per account: 1 | Picture-in-picture: No | Multiview: No | Contract: No

is granularly organized, separating out nearly two dozen categories for its live content — including local CBS news and a sports section that includes CBS Sports HQ, NBC Sports Now, channels for NFL, NBA and MLB, NBC Golf Pass and about two dozen more. There’s also plenty of Star Trek to go around and a bunch of Pluto’s own stations like Pluto History, Nick Jr Pluto, CSI Pluto, Pluto True Crime and a few Pluto Classic TV stations. A lot of that content, of course, comes courtesy of Pluto’s parent company, .

The live news-stream selection is fairly stacked and includes NBC News Now, ABC News Live, CNN Headlines, BBC News, Sky News and others. One thing I have to point out is that whatever you’re watching keeps playing and you can just see a sliver of the show above the guide as you browse, which I found distracting. But I did enjoy being able to flip from channel to channel using the up and down buttons on my remote’s D-pad, just like old-school cable surfing.