Article updated on August 28, 2024 at 7:17 AM PDT
Written by
Kourtnee Jackson,
Meara Isenberg
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Kourtnee Jackson Senior Editor
Kourtnee covers TV streaming services and home entertainment news and reviews at CNET. She previously worked as an entertainment reporter at Showbiz Cheat Sheet where she wrote about film, television, music, celebrities, and streaming platforms.
Expertise Cord-cutting | TV and music streaming services | Netflix | Disney Plus | Max | Anime | Interviews | Entertainment Credentials
- Though Kourtnee hasn't won any journalism awards yet, she's been a Netflix streaming subscriber since 2012 and knows the magic of its hidden codes.
Ty Pendlebury Editor
Ty Pendlebury has worked at CNET since 2006. He lives in New York City where he writes about streaming and home audio.
Expertise Ty has worked for radio, print, and online publications, and has been writing about home entertainment since 2004. He is an avid record collector and streaming music enthusiast. Credentials
- Ty was nominated for Best New Journalist at the Australian IT Journalism awards, but he has only ever won one thing. As a youth, he was awarded a free session for the photography studio at a local supermarket.
Meara Isenberg Writer
Meara covers streaming service news for CNET. She graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a degree in journalism. When she's not writing, she likes to dote over her cat, sip black coffee and try out new horror movies.
What's the best overall free TV streaming service?
When it comes to free TV streaming services, you might as well not limit yourself. After all, you can switch between as many of them as you want, as often as you want, without parting with a penny. If we had to choose only one free TV service to wear the ultimate crown, it would be Tubi. The Fox-owned brand, which recently updated its logo and color scheme, touts an easy-to-use interface and excellent on-demand library.
Still, you shouldn’t shut yourself off from other options on this list; Pluto TV could easily take the top spot for you if you are a dedicated channel flipper. There are plenty of benefits of streaming TV for free, you should keep in mind that in most cases, ads are the price you’re paying for no-cost entertainment. Most of the free services have older shows and movies, sort of like basic cable reruns. Here's more on why we think Tubi is the best and other legal ways to indulge your inner couch potato.
Read more: The Best Live TV Streaming Services for Cord Cutters
Tubi TV offers considerably more free movies than TV shows, but it continues to grow its extensive library and its live channel lineup. This ad-supported network doesn't require an account, although signing up for one enables you to save favorites and resume playback if you switch between devices.
Tubi offers nationwide and local news livestreams in addition to live sports, weather and entertainment channels. The streaming site's TV selection offers some of the reality shows we've come to expect, such as Hell's Kitchen and Dance Moms, plus oddball inclusions such as the Australian drama McLeod's Daughters.
To watch TV series on demand, you can browse by title, network or genre, including a Tubi Kids category. Not every show has full seasons available, but you'll find Broadchurch, Columbo and six seasons of Gossip Girl among the choices. There are also a handful of Tubi originals as well as feature films such as The Goonies and Snowpiercer.
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Pluto TV is noteworthy for offering not only on-demand, free movie streaming, but also more than 250 live and linear channels on the platform, including BBC Food, CSI, Star Trek and CBS News. Because it's a Paramount-owned brand, Pluto also has episodes of shows like Criminal Minds and Survivor.
Pluto offers an impressive selection of live channels sorted into categories like news, reality, sports, comedy and movies in a grid format. On-demand TV content is organized into TV drama series, sitcoms, crime, game shows, sci-fi and more. The layout is not nearly as slick as the live channels, but there's a variety of genres. One oddity: If you're watching a livestream, there's no way to pause. You can only mute it.
Roku Channel is a free TV streaming service designed for people who own the company's streaming devices and TVs, but it's also available via Roku's apps for phones and tablets as well as online.
The Roku Channel offers more than 400 live channels including a channel guide, with its existing selection of on-demand content. While the linear TV includes live news and lifestyle channels, the on-demand content ranges from Roku originals (like the Weird Al Yankovic biopic), to reality TV (Hoarders, Kitchen Nightmares) to popular series like 2 Broke Girls and House. You'll also find anime (live and on-demand) and crime shows.
Unfortunately, not every TV series is complete (Bewitched, for example), and the service offers only a single episode in some cases. There's plenty of stuff to watch, including a dedicated kids section. There's also a solid array of classic movies, including It's a Wonderful Life and The Usual Suspects. In addition, you can subscribe to premium services including Paramount Plus, much like you can via Prime Video channels or the Apple TV app.
Formerly known as IMDb TV, Freevee is Amazon's ad-supported streaming service that features a motherlode of TV shows and movies. In addition, you can stream Freevee originals and a string of 24/7 live channels.
Although the service's initial focus was primarily on movie streaming, it's now filled with TV shows too. Popular movies like Split are available, as well as Leverage and all six seasons of Schitt's Creek. Other titles include MacGyver (the reboot), Good Times, Freevee original Jury Duty and all five seasons of the sci-fi anthology The Twilight Zone.
Notably, full seasons of Prime Video original series like Homecoming and Upload (plus movies like The Vast of Night) are also available to stream for free with commercials on the service.
Although Sling's live TV packages start at $40, Sling Freestream offers more than 40,000 titles of free on-demand TV, and movies and over 500 live TV channels. Sling Freestream is a bulked-up and rebranded version of Sling TV's former offering, Sling Free.
Sling TV's free streaming service includes live streams for news, entertainment, sports, kids and more. You'll find channels for ABC News Live, The Walking Dead Universe and Bon Appetit and on-demand selections including Ryan's World, Kim's Convenience and To Kill a Mockingbird.
You do not need to create an account when watching Sling Freestream, but if you do, it makes it easier to personalize what you watch, create profiles or use parental controls. The service also gives new users who create an account access to a free DVR. Sling Freestream is available to watch on a web browser and via the Sling app. No payment information is required for viewing.
Starting as a way for users to stream content stored on users' computers, Plex has evolved to incorporate other sources such as free streaming TV. You don't need to install the Plex server, you just stream it with the basic Plex app, or if you want, sign up for an account.
More than 600 live TV channels are in the mix with Plex's free streaming service, including Stories by AMC, Hallmark and niche 24/7 streams for certain series, including MythBusters and Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations. On-demand content includes The Age of Adaline, Weeds and Kitchen Nightmares.
Movie fans can search by title and genre. Or you can check out themed collections such as Screen Legends or Midnight Movies.
Got a library card? Check to see if your library has partnered with Hoopla. This digital-media service allows you to check out all kinds of stuff -- from ebooks to movies to TV shows. When you "borrow" one, you have 72 hours in which to watch it. Your library determines the total number of titles you can borrow each month. A bonus for this service is no commercials are interrupting your viewing experience.
Hoopla's TV selection is something of a hodgepodge, with a smattering of well-known shows mixed in with a lot of self-help, documentary and family fare. For example, you'll find two seasons of Chewing Gum, both seasons of The Jim Gaffigan Show and lots of Ken Burns documentaries. Hoopla also has instructional videos from The Great Courses series, various kids shows and plenty of Acorn TV content that would otherwise require a subscription. Film selections rotate on and off the platform, so be sure to check the rotation on a regular basis.
Crackle seemingly won't be around much longer as its parent company filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy. The ad-supported streaming service offers mostly movies, but also some TV shows, including original content. It doesn't require you to set up an account, although doing so enables you to save favorites, get recommendations and resume playback if you switch between devices.
Crackle's commercial-supported selection has expanded with over 300 different shows and mainly consists of older releases such as The Carol Burnett Show, Alf and Highway to Heaven. As with other free services, not every TV series is complete -- you might get only one or two seasons or even just a partial season. There are movie selections from the 1940s to the present, including Sophie's Choice and The Host.
- Use them all: As all these services are free, you have nothing to lose by trying multiple out and determining which suits you best. You could also take a different approach by searching for a movie or show you want to watch and see if any free services offer it.
- On-demand or flipping through channels: The free TV streaming services often feature both on-demand content and live channels, but not always. You may prefer Pluto for channel surfing and Sling Freestream for on-demand binging, or the opposite. Think about what you want to get out of a free TV service and what each one provides.
- Ads on ads on ads: With most of these TV services, ads are the price you pay to watch titles for free. If you really can't stand ads, you may need to stick with premium subscriptions from streamers like Netflix and Max.
- Kids offering: Consider whether the free service offers kid-friendly content, and that ads may be a factor. Hoopla, if you can get it through your library, is an ad-free option on this list.
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With more than 200 streaming services in existence -- globally -- it can be hard sifting through each brand and its offerings. We narrowed this list down based on several factors, including accessibility, popularity, on-demand content, live channels and reliability. We watched each service on a TV and mobile device to evaluate its user interface and channel roster.
These apps can be easily accessed on virtually any media player, smart TV, web browser or mobile device, and they offer a variety of content to suit genre preferences or age ranges. Because they're free services, there's added value for those that offer originals and live channels. When doing test runs of these services, we didn't encounter problems with crashing, lag time or choppy live broadcasts, but your mileage may vary.
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Peacock: The main way to access Peacock is by being a paying customer. Plans include Premium, which is $8 a month or $80 a year, and Premium Plus, which is $14 a month or $140 a year. NBCUniversal's streaming service also has a free tier, which may or may not be good news for you. As of January 2023, you must already be a Peacock Premium subscriber to use the free version of Peacock. In addition to being exclusive to older users, the tier severely limits what you can watch compared to if you paid for Peacock, so we opted not to include it on this version of our best list. If you've had a Peacock account long enough, the free tier should be available if you aren't actively paying for a Peacock subscription.
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What about free apps for networks like ABC, NBC, PBS, CW and others?
These are also viable options. You can watch shows from your favorite networks on their dedicated apps but we opted to not include them on this list as some (like ABC) require you to be registered with a cable/TV provider to view the most recent content. Network apps typically allow you to watch new episodes of your shows the next day -- or week -- via their app or website. In some cases, you can also watch live news broadcasts or episode reruns of TV series.
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Do I have to sit through ads on these services?
Yes. The tradeoff for receiving content to stream for free is that you have to tolerate commercials. Whether you're watching a live channel or on-demand video, each of these services will run ads during your viewing experience. To keep the content free, they have to pay the bills with ads. The only exception on this list is Hoopla.
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Which app has the most family-friendly content?
If you're looking for age-appropriate shows and movies, you'll find plenty of titles on Tubi, Roku Channel and Freevee for young children, tweens and teens. Pluto also features dedicated kids' channels with content from Nickelodeon, Lego, Garfield and more.
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