CableTV.com’s Best of the Best Awards 2025: On-Demand Streaming Services

In 2024, streaming services tried a lot of different methods to try and bolster their bottom line through the perils of streaming fatigue. And as a TV expert, I’ve kept track of every price hike, password-sharing crackdown, and new ad-supported plan.

These revenue-driving methods didn’t work for every provider—Disney+ seems to have hit a breaking point—but they’ve created new niches within the streaming world. When every streaming service is expensive, the cheap ones really stand out. And with password-sharing crackdowns and waves of unskippable ads, viewers are looking for services they can share with their loved ones without interruptions.

These standouts are the services that we’ve chosen to feature in this year’s Best of the Best Awards—alongside the more premium suggestions we always give.

I consider a lot of factors when evaluating streaming services, including value, user experience, and content library. But there’s always one service that stands out from the rest: what we at CableTV.com call “The Best of the Best.” The most premium streaming experience in a given year.

The Best of the Best isn’t necessarily the most budget-friendly pick or the most shareable, but it will provide the absolute best experience. It’s the one users would pick if cost wasn’t a factor. If there’s anything close to an all-in-one streaming service, this is it.

We couldn’t pick just one service this year. This year’s best service is a duo—or a trio if you want it to be. We think that the Disney Bundle is the Best of the Best streaming service in 2025. Specifically, we’re impressed with the combined Hulu–Disney+ interface that lets you access two streaming services through the same application.

The Disney Bundle is this year’s best option for TV lovers who want it all.

But not every customer is looking for all the bells and whistles. Money is a very pressing issue for a lot of TV lovers as services get more expensive by the year. Consumers want to know: What’s the best service you can get for the cheapest price?

When determining the Best Bang for Your Buck, I evaluated each eligible service on three points: paywalling, ads, and free trials.

I considered services a better value if they offered two or fewer plans and if they refrained from paywalling features or better experiences behind higher-priced tiers. At CableTV.com, we feel that if users are paying for a service, they should receive the best that service has to offer. And we always appreciate it if services let customers try a product before they commit.

Finally, I considered price. After looking at a spread of 2025’s streaming service prices, I created three price ranges. In 2025, a “cheap” streaming service costs less than $10/mo. A “standard” streaming service costs $10–$15/mo., and an “expensive” streaming service costs more than $15/mo.

I was surprised to see MGM+ get so much recognition in our 2025 Customer Satisfaction Survey, so I gave it a closer look. What I found was an impressively thrifty service, free of the confusing plans and add-ons from its competitors. MGM+ provides a decent library of new and classic movies. And it earned perfect scores across each value-based category.

We do a lot of research and evaluation at CableTV.com, but how does that compare to what we, the experts, actually use?

This year’s Editor’s Choice award goes to the streaming service that I find myself using the most. If I personally had to downsize to just one service, I’d probably go with this one. It’s easy to use and has a lot of original content that I wouldn’t be able to find anywhere else.

If you know me at all, you won’t be surprised that my Editor’s Choice award goes to Netflix. I’m a big animation fan, and Netflix invests a lot in original animated series and, more recently, popular anime simulcasts.

It also produces a lot of must-see originals, like Bridgerton and Stranger Things. I’m usually able to find something new to watch, thanks to its incredibly prolific production schedule.

“Shareability” is a new category I’m studying in 2025. I define it as the ability to create multiple user profiles, stream on multiple devices simultaneously, and share your password with people outside your household.

Larger streaming services have been restricting password sharing in recent years, targeting people who try to save money by splitting streaming services with friends or family. I’m not a fan of these policies, so I decided to highlight services that have a little more faith in their audiences.

In 2024, Crunchyroll finally introduced the ability to create multiple user profiles per account, making it the perfect candidate for our Best of the Best for Sharing award. Crunchyroll doesn’t restrict password sharing by location, and its higher-tier plans allow up to six simultaneous streams. In comparison, many streaming services don’t allow more than three.

For many viewers, exclusive content is the biggest driving factor for choosing a streaming service. If all of your friends are watching Severance, you may feel like you have no choice but to sign up for Apple TV+.

This year, we’re renaming the “Original Content” category to “Exclusive Content.” Sometimes streaming services are cagey about calling things “originals,” whether because they licensed it from another company or because they produced it under a different spoke of their corporate umbrella.

After a lot of deliberation, I felt that Max deserves this year’s award for Exclusive Content. It combines well-respected, premium HBO brand titles with new and trendy Max Originals. Warner Bros. Discovery may have taken HBO out of the streaming service’s name, but our 2025 Customer Satisfaction Survey found that a lot of viewers still feel passionate about Max’s HBO content.

When it comes to kids’ entertainment, parents and guardians are looking for more than just a good library of shows. It’s also important for a service to provide a safe experience for kids, with enough precautions so that they don’t accidentally stumble into something harmful at too young an age.

Many streaming services offer “kids’ mode,” a type of user profile that only offers kid-friendly content. The best kids’ modes have password-protected controls that allow adults to pick which content they do and don’t want their children to see.

I was particularly impressed by Paramount+’s kids’ mode, which prevents the child from switching to another account without a passcode. Other services have the ability to put passcodes on individual profiles, but that seems backwards compared to the way that Paramount+ does it.

Paramount+ also has some pretty good children’s content, with large collections of Nick Jr. and Nickelodeon favorites. After picking an age range, parents have peace of mind knowing their children will be safe with and entertained by Blue’s Clues and Dora the Explorer.

Our TV expert Randy Harward is a big horror fan, and he’s taken great care to test all of the best horror streamers on the market. A good horror streaming service should have a comprehensive library of new titles and creepy classics, and Shudder delivers in sharpened spades.

Not only does Shudder deliver on a lot of horror content, but it’s also well-curated. Its watchlists guide viewers towards the best of the best content, and that was enough to earn it a CableTV.com award.

And for what it’s worth, Shudder offers an incredible amount of bang for your buck, as well. As of writing, it’s the same price as our value pick, MGM+.

There are fewer anime streaming services than there were a few years ago, so the competition in this category isn’t quite as fierce as it used to be. But we still tested our options for everything that anime fans would need to fully enjoy the medium.

The three biggest players in the anime space right now are Netflix, Hulu, and Crunchyroll. Netflix offers exclusive titles like Delicious in Dungeon and Ranma ½ thanks to its deals with Japanese studios, plus its own anime-adjacent titles like Castlevania and The Witcher: Sirens of the Deep.

Hulu licenses a small portion of Crunchyroll’s library and provides the most accessible experience due to the way its subtitles work. Unlike other services, viewers don’t have to choose between English subtitles or dubs because Hulu always provides accurate captions for dubbed audio. (As of writing, Crunchyroll is getting better at this, but suffers inaccuracies when it over-relies on AI).

But neither Netflix nor Hulu are dedicated anime streaming services. I believe that (despite its captioning misfires) Crunchyroll provides the best overall experience for anime fans. There’s really no beating its giant library of content, new title discoverability, and weekly simulcasts. And its Best of the Best for Sharing title is just icing on the fish cake—you can split the cost of a subscription with your anime-loving friends.