Tubi Review 2023

Is Tubi good?

Tubi is a free, ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) service where you can watch 47,000+ movies and shows—and around 200 live TV channels—for nothing. That’s a pretty good deal.

You can watch Tubi with or without an account, but signing up lets you create a watchlist, get recommendations, and use parental controls. Unfortunately, the latter works only when a parent knows about an account, and Tubi has no age checks—but tons of sex and violence.

Tubi also lacks features like simultaneous streams (no reason for that with a free service) and offline viewing (can’t serve ads on downloads). So all that content is the main attraction, and it’s priced right—at only four to six minutes of ads per hour.

• Free
• Massive library
• Reasonable ad breaks
• Parental controls

• Ads
• No offline viewing
• Some NC-17 content
• No age checks

Jump to:

• Deals and promotions
• Plans and prices
• Movies and shows
• Live TV channels
• Specs and features

Tubi plans and pricing

Simplicity is a huge selling point for streaming TV services, and Tubi keeps it extra simple: One plan, no price, 47,000+ movies and shows, and 200+ live channels.

Tubi vs. the competition

Is it fair to compare free streaming services to paid ones? Well, again, Tubi’s biggest selling point is that it offers so much for so little. While the other services might have better content and more features, you just can’t beat free. If you’re on a budget and you don’t care about keeping up with popular Netflix or Hulu exclusives, Tubi gives you a ton of TV to watch.

Tubi movies and shows

You won’t get to stream hot new shows like Netflix’s Squid Game, Max’s The White Lotus, or Hulu’s The Bear on Tubi—but that doesn’t mean you’re left with a bunch of classic TV shows and Z-movies.

Tubi has movies and shows from many major studios, including Max, MGM, Lionsgate, Paramount, WB, and more. And, with 47,000+ titles and 200+ live TV channels organized into 77 genres, collections, and networks (see below), you’ll always find something to watch on Tubi.

Genres, collections, and networks on Tubi

Movies on Tubi (partial list)

Shows on Tubi (partial list)

Tubi original movies and shows

Tubi now has 163 original movies and shows. It’s primarily B-movies, true crime, celebrity profiles, and paranormal shows, but there’s some good stuff—especially in the adult animation category. Check out the counterculture cartoon The Freak Brothers and the film Pastacolypse from Aqua Teen Hunger Force creator Matt Maiellaro (Aqua Teen Hunger Force).

In the movie and show lists above, asterisks (*) denote Tubi originals.

Live TV on Tubi

Tubi has 200+ live TV channels. Most are curated, themed FAST channels like the ones on other free streaming services like Pluto, Sling Free, and Xumo. The 24-hour channels are dedicated to a film or TV genre, lifestyle, news network, sport, or even a single TV series. You’ll also find many local broadcast affiliates—most are FOX channels (FOX owns Tubi).

Live entertainment channels on Tubi (partial list)

You’ll find at least half of Tubi’s 200+ live TV channels in the entertainment category. This  is where you’ll look for movies, series, game shows, reality TV—basically everything except news, sports, and local broadcast affiliates.

Live news on Tubi (partial list)

Among Tubi’s live TV channels are 115+ live news channels. They’re organized into three categories on the Tubi live TV guide: Local (100+ channels), National (10 channels), Global (2 channels), and Business (2 channels). Among these are many FOX affiliates, nearly three dozen Hearst Television channels, and networks like Bloomberg TV, Cheddar, and NBC News.

Sports on Tubi (partial list)

We wouldn’t expect it on a free service, but Tubi has a surprising amount of sports channels with live sports, prerecorded games, news, and documentaries. We’ve listed several of the sports networks on Tubi below.

Tubi specs and features

Tubi lacks two of the most popular features of streaming TV services: simultaneous streams and offline viewing. Also, the max resolution on Tubi is 720p, which isn’t great.

Tubi simultaneous streams

Tubi doesn’t have offline downloads.

Tubi offline viewing

Tubi doesn’t have this, either. Offline viewing is incompatible with ad-supported TV services because there’s currently no way to serve ads on downloads.

Supported devices

With so many supported devices, only Nintendo fans will be disappointed.

Playback controls

Tubi has great playback controls on both Roku and the Android app. We think we prefer 10-second jumps (used by most streaming TV apps) to Tubi’s 30-second leaps, but that’s our only complaint.

Tubi video and audio quality

We tested the Tubi app six different ways, using five screens (two smart TVs, a smartphone, and a laptop), two set-top streaming devices, and two internet connections. Video and audio quality was largely consistent, with one exception.

Tubi testing details at a glance

Five of our tests occurred at home on a Google Fiber 1 Gbps Wi-Fi connection. For the other test, we used the T-Mobile 5G mobile network while driving around town. On the home tests, we experienced no perceptible differences in video and audio quality. On the mobile test, we experienced a few dips in video quality, but not as many as we have with services that stream at 1080p or higher.

Note: video and audio quality starts with the source and then the internet speed. Many older movies and shows—Tubi has a lot of these—still stream at their original resolution (480–720p).

Final take: Is Tubi worth it?

Tubi’s 47,000+ movies and shows—and 200+ live TV channels—are free to watch, thanks to ads that you can ignore. It’s totally worth it.

Tubi FAQ

Methodology

Our TV experts constantly research and test streaming TV services, including free ones like Tubi. For this article, we compared Tubi to paid streaming services based on overall value, content, features, and more to provide accurate, reliable recommendations to our readers. See the CableTV.com How We Rank page for more information about our process.

Endnotes

1. JustWatch.com, “All Movies and Shows on Tubi.” Accessed July 31, 2023.