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Philo Logo
Live TV & on-demand with unlimited recording.
8 / 10  Review Rating

Philo has become a real innovator in the world of television streaming by doing something simple: cutting out the most expensive cable channels. Philo’s approach leaves us without certain types of networks, but it also results in the leanest, cheapest live TV streaming option on the market — one that costs just $25 per month. In this Philo review, I’ll take a deep dive into the skinniest of the live TV streaming services.

Pros and Cons of Philo

Pros

  • Most affordable live TV option
  • Includes most familiar and popular TV channels
  • Unlimited cloud DVR

Cons

  • No sports channels
  • No local channels
  • Very limited news selection

5 Reasons to Choose Philo

  1. You want the cheapest live TV streaming option.
  2. You want live TV, but don’t care about sports.
  3. You already have an antenna for sports and local news, but want cable channels for movies and TV shows.
  4. You want to stream on multiple devices, including mobile devices.
  5. You’re sick of paying for cable!

What You Can Watch on Philo

Like all streaming services, Philo is designed to replace many of the live TV channels that cord-cutters lose when they cancel cable or satellite (though it's not designed to replace every last one of them, as we'll talk about in a moment). Philo is a “multichannel” service, so — like cable — it gives you access to multiple live TV networks that you can surf between, make DVR recordings from, and so on.

When it comes to movie channels, reality TV networks, and other general entertainment outlets, Philo's channel lineup is really impressive. Philo's channel bundle includes a wealth of channels, including AMC, Comedy Central, The Hallmark Channel, HGTV, IFC, and many more well-known cable TV staples.

Add-ons make premium channels like STARZ and MGM Plus available, too. Philo's channel list changes from time to time, but it has always been pretty impressive when it comes to movies, sitcoms, dramas, reality TV, and other straightforward forms of TV programming.

But part of what makes Philo unique is what it doesn't have. Philo offers very low prices, and the reason it's able to do so is that it omits certain channels. Philo takes the classic pay-TV bundle and deliberately carves out the channels that contribute the most to high cable bills — namely, sports channels and local affiliates of the major networks.

As a result, Philo is lacking precisely these things. You won't find ESPN or any other big sports networks here — in fact, you won't even find non-sports channels that air sports occasionally, like TBS or TNT. Philo is also missing the major networks (ABC, CBS, FOX, and NBC) and their local affiliates, so don't expect to find your local action news team on this streaming service. Philo has also been careful about adding news channels, though the selection of those has improved quite a bit since we first reviewed Philo many years ago. You won't be able to stream CNN or watch Fox News with Philo, but you will see at least a little bit of news thanks to the welcome (and relatively recent) addition of BBC World News.

Philo Fire TV Guide
Philo Fire TV Guide

How much these omissions bother you will depend on what you like to watch. For a big sports fan like me, Philo felt like it was missing a lot: When I'm looking for live TV options as a cord cutter, it's usually because I'm trying to find a way to stream baseball. Since Philo didn't have my team's local regional sports network and was also missing ESPN, TBS, Fox, FS1, MLB Network, and the rest of my go-to channels for baseball, I didn't always feel like I was watching what I really wanted to. On the other hand, I do enjoy relaxing with a home improvement or DIY show, so I loved being able to surf between HGTV and DIY Network.

Your mileage may vary, of course. If you're a sports fan like me, Philo's trade-off might feel like a deal with the devil. But if you could take or leave channels like ESPN and CNN — or if you’re able to shore up those areas with other options, like an ESPN Plus subscription or an over-the-air TV antenna — then you might be overjoyed to see Philo's impressive lineup of entertainment channels available without the pricey sports and news networks holding them back.

If the type of content is your cup of tea, you'll have plenty to watch: All told, Philo has more than 70 channels on offer at the time of this writing. It also has an on-demand library populated with recently aired TV from the many networks included in its bundle. If you miss a show, there's a good chance you can just catch it on-demand shortly after it airs. You can make sure of this by digitally “recording” the program with the cloud DVR — which, in Philo's take on the DVR, pretty much just saves on-demand content to a watchlist.

How It Felt to Use Philo

Using Philo on a Fire TV Stick
Using Philo on a Fire TV Stick

Right off the bat, Philo felt a little different to me than other live TV streaming services that I've tried. Like most of its competitors, Philo offers a free trial. Unlike most of its competitors, though, Philo didn't necessarily need my credit card information — not right away, anyway. You can watch Philo for free for a week using the free trial, and you don't have to enter any payment information for the first 48 hours of that period. An important note: This 48-hour grace period only applies if you sign up for Philo using a phone number. If you use an email address, you'll have to provide your payment information from the start.

Philo’s Sign-Up Process

I elected to sign up via email. Philo emailed a code to the address I provided, and then I entered that code to start watching in my browser. That same process repeated whenever I activated one of Philo's apps — I never had to worry about a password. I found this pretty convenient, but you may decide that you'd rather use a phone number (if you do that, Philo will text the login code each time instead of emailing it).

Philo - iOS - login process
Philo – iOS – login process

Either way, Philo is easy to log into and doesn't require you to create any new passwords. The flip side of this is that you'll have to OK each new login to your account — you can't just give a family member or friend your password and let them log in on their own.

Philo Channel Guide
Philo Channel Guide

Philo’s User Experience and App Design

Philo's user experience was pretty straightforward. Like most great live TV streaming services, Philo divides its app up into sections. The “Home” screen offers a few trending live programs before diving into lots of recommended on-demand content. The “Guide” screen hosts a familiar-looking TV guide menu that makes it easy to select a live channel. I could find my recordings and favorites under the “Saved” tab, and there was a “Search” option as well.

Philo Content
Philo Content

It was also easy to find shows by genre or category. I liked scrolling through the home tab as I decided what to watch — though this tended to send me to on-demand content rather than live TV. When I felt like channel-surfing, I headed to the TV guide screen instead — just like with other live TV streaming services I’ve reviewed, I found that TV guide was one of my favorite ways to find something to watch.

Philo’s ‘Unlimited DVR'

Philo also comes with an “unlimited DVR.” Philo's DVR option essentially saves all available episodes of the series you choose (unlike with a traditional DVR, you don’t have to wait for them to air again as reruns). The unlimited DVR feature also adds all future new episodes to your library of saved content.

Philo - Saving a show to the DVR
Philo – Saving a show to the DVR

Using the DVR feature was simple, though it does feel a bit different from the typical DVR experience. There was no limit to how much I could “record,” but my saved programs only stuck around for 30 days. I would have preferred a more straightforward (and more DVR-like) DVR, but Philo's watchlist-like option works just as well in most cases.

Philo Streaming Quality

I didn’t have any trouble streaming Philo in my extensive trials. The service worked just fine on Roku and Fire TV, as well as on iOS and in my browser.

Resolution Framerate
Live TV content 720p 30 FPS
On-demand content 1080p 30 FPS

Philo’s streams may have been smooth, but the quality didn’t quite blow me away. Philo tops out at 30 frames per second. That number refers to the number of images that Philo flashes up on your screen per second. As you can probably imagine, lots of speedy frames make for smoother viewing. (Just imagine a flipbook: If you tore out every third page, it would look “choppier” — that’s what a lower framerate is like, though the effect is a bit more subtle.) Philo’s rate of 30 FPS is only about half of what we’re used to from some other live TV streaming services. This isn’t the end of the world — a 30 FPS stream is still perfectly watchable, and the sports content that suffered most from lower frame rates isn’t available on Philo anyway — but it’s still an area where I would have liked to see Philo step it up a bit.

Philo’s live streaming content streams at 720p HD (this measurement means how high the resolution of the image on the screen is — it’s about how sharp it is, not how quickly it flips from frame to frame). With on-demand content, quality goes up to 1080p. Both of these numbers are very typical for live TV streaming services, so I can’t fault Philo here. A little 4K UHD content would have been nice, but I don’t consider that a must-have for services like these.

Philo Profile
Philo Profile

More About Philo’s Features

Philo’s features aren’t overwhelming, but they’re strong and include pretty much everything I was looking for. I was able to create multiple user accounts within my main account, and I could rename those accounts and choose from a few profile image options (I chose a little tree icon that I thought looked neat). I could stream on up to three devices at once.

Philo DVR
Philo DVR

Philo also includes the unlimited DVR feature that I mentioned earlier. Since this is an online (“cloud”) DVR, it doesn’t really “record” anything. To me, it felt more like using a watchlist or “bookmark” feature than using a DVR, though I didn’t think that was necessarily a bad thing.

Philo Platform Support

Philo offers apps for all the major devices and platforms that we recommend. I had the option of using Philo on Roku, Fire TV, Chromecast, Android TV, Apple TV, iOS, and Android. I could also use it on Mac or PC through the in-browser app — which, I was happy to see, works not only on Chrome and Safari but also on Firefox and Microsoft Edge.

This is a very solid platform support lineup. Other than certain smart TV platforms, Philo has the full lineup covered here. And if you’re using one of the devices and platforms that we recommend here on the site, you’re 100 percent going to be able to use Philo.

Philo on Roku
Philo on Roku

Philo offers a pretty consistent experience across all of these platforms. For this review, I tested Philo on Roku, Fire TV, Chromecast, iOS, and two browsers (Chrome and Firefox). Based on my experience, I think that Philo works great on every platform.

Philo Value

At long last, we have reached the part of this Philo review where we discuss pricing. And I have some good news for you: Philo is a really, really cheap way to watch TV without cable.

There’s only one main Philo subscription, so we don’t have to worry about any price tiers — just a simple price tag of $25 per month, with the option to splurge on a couple of add-ons for a few extra bucks. (MGM Plus is an extra $6 per month, and STARZ is an extra $9 per month.) The service has increased its price over the years (at launch it was just $15 per month), but that’s not at all unusual for a live TV streaming service. Most of Philo’s competitors, including fuboTV, have raised prices by larger margins — and they were also more expensive than Philo in the first place!

That $25-per-month price is extraordinarily low for a live TV streaming service. Only Sling TV comes close. Most other live TV streaming services cost about $60 per month.

Of course, there’s a reason that Philo is so cheap: It’s missing sports, news, and local channels. Those are the most expensive channels for pay-TV services to carry, so Philo cuts them out and passes the savings on to you.

Philo Homescreen
Philo Homescreen

So is Philo a good value? In my view, absolutely: You simply can’t get a live TV experience this cheap anywhere else.

This isn’t to say that Philo is the right deal for you specifically, though. Like anything else in life, value is in the eye of the beholder. If you don’t like sushi, you probably won’t care how cheap the lunch specials at the local sushi place get — no matter how good the deal is, you’re just not in the market for sushi! As a huge sports fan, that’s how I felt about Philo: Without sports, it just didn’t make sense for me to stay subscribed. But if I’m being objective, I can imagine what Philo would look like to a non-sports fan — and boy, oh boy would it look good. If this is what you’re looking for, then this is an absolute steal.

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Philo Review: Our Verdict

Philo sets out to do something special — something a little different from what our other favorite live TV streaming services do. By skipping sports, news, and local networks, Philo is able to keep prices low on all of the other sorts of channels that pay TV services can offer: movie channels, reality TV networks, and so on.

After testing Philo extensively, I think it’s fair to say that this service nailed it. It’s exactly what it set out to be: a super cheap live TV streaming service that makes it easy to watch your favorite entertainment channels on whatever device you like to stream on.

Philo does a great job of delivering on its promise, but that promise will only appeal to some viewers. Personally, I found I missed sports a lot and news a little bit; for others, it might be the lack of local networks that is most frustrating. If you crave this sort of content, then Philo can’t help you — that’s just not what Philo is for.

But that’s OK: Philo is for something else. And, again, Philo delivers that something else with gusto. If you want a service that lets you flip through channels like AMC, HGTV, and VH1 (and if you don’t care about skipping ESPN and CNN), then Philo is going to give you more value for your money than any other live TV streaming service on the market.

61 thoughts on “Philo Review: Channels, Features, and More

  1. Jeff says:

    I have had Philo for several months On our AppleTV units and have enjoyed it. However it has been unusable for the last week with a message the show is taking too long to load. All other apps are streaming fine. Got Philo for Hallmark channels for my father. Now they have their own app so maybe time to drop Philo? They do have a few channels not easily replaced but if it doesn’t work anymore…

    1. Jane Averill says:

      If you get that msg on Apple TV double click the key on your remote with the square on it. The one across from menu, when you double click it you can close all the apps you have open. Close Philo and then go back to it. That solves it. I have Apple and Roku and that only happens when I use Apple.

  2. tawnya says:

    Can I get AMC Premiere with Philo? and watch commercial free?

    1. Stephen Lovely says:

      AMC Premiere is a separate service. Philo will give you access to the regular live channel version of AMC (with commercials). To get AMC Premiere, you’ll have to sign up directly (not through Philo). Hope this helps!

    2. Uncommonsensesc says:

      It’s very doubtful you can watch without commercials! Philo has started making the majority of their shows VOD which means you’re forced to watch commercials if you want to see the show. I HATE VOD/Commercials – HATE them! When Philo was new that was a big selling point for me. I could record/save the shows, watch them at my leisure and not have to watch commercials. The way Philo is set up I can record them but I’m still forced to watch commercials. It’s like they want me to go back to satellite tv!

  3. Jane Averill says:

    I have been using Philo, Prime, Hulu and Locast. I pay about 45.00 total and use for free Pluto and Tubi. Philo has been pretty good, I use it often and have never been billed more than the 20.00. It’s worth the price.

    1. Uncommonsensesc says:

      It’s not bad – but if you love commercials, you will love Philo. Their new philosophy is that if 1 commercial is good, then 5 are great and then we’ll force our customers to watch them and not be able to forward past them. That way we can get the money from our customers and from the advertisers. That works until their customers get aggravated and change services but they haven’t gotten that far yet.

  4. Janice Sims says:

    I enjoy philo it’s a great price all the channels I enjoy but would love to have the fox news I have a the ruku but all they offer is fake news i hope philo will had the fox news

  5. Philo Sucks says:

    Try to cancel the service and then give it 5 stars.Philo customer service sucks.

    1. CashTalksBSwalks says:

      Philo sux terribly.
      I’m know they need to pay for things but it is unbelievably ridiculous having to watch literally TEN adds At every commercial break.
      Watching The First 48 , a show just under an hour there are SIX commercial breaks, with TEN ADDS each one.
      THATS 60 COMMERCIALS IN ONE HOUR.
      ITS NOT WORTH THE MONEY
      .Anyone that says they like this app, is working for Philo or has been paid for that review.

  6. joe says:

    get youtube tv and philo and only pay 70 dollars a month—-cheap

  7. Anonymous says:

    Philo is garbage have the shows I like to watch are blocked by owner or some BS I’m going back to sling

  8. Connie says:

    Philo is garbage have the shows I like to watch are blocked by owner or some BS I’m going back to sling

  9. me cole says:

    I just spent over 40 minutes on chat with Philo. I told them they have false advertising about having a free trial with no credit card required. I spoke to two different people bc the first one disconnected that chat. One of the excuses I got was that if you are signing up on their website, using a computer, that they want to know you are not a bot. I told them it was b.s. bc they could use a captcha, and besides that you still have to enter the verification code that they send you. My biggest problem is that it is not stated on the website that the cc info is required when you try to sign up, it just doesn’t let you do it. I have spent many hours over a couple of weeks trying to figure out what was wrong with my computer. They didn’t care. I told them that if they did not honor what was advertised then how was I to expect any of their customer service to be any better? They didn’t care. I told them I was going to report them to the BBB for false advertising, and that I was going to shop elsewhere. They didn’t care. Fortunately my time on the chat was not totally wasted bc now I know that they don’t care how they are perceived, and I know that they do not care about customer service. If they did, they would have apologized for my trouble and signed me up directly from that chat.

  10. Gary says:

    The cost, service, and variety are well worth the $20. Sadly it becomes all worthless when you can’t understand or follow anything on their ridiculous excuse for a Guide. It makes the decision to unsubscribe very easy. Too bad, I thought I had a winner.

  11. Knightster says:

    Seriously? To all the complainers.. You get many channels for $20. They say over 60 channels. Never took the time to count, but it is a lot of channels for the cost. It’s gone up to $25, still great cost. You can FF commercials, but ONLY the shows you’ve saved and recorded (DVR). The guide isn’t the greatest, but come on… You can figure it out and easily SAVE the channels you like. There are a lot of commercials, but bypass them in DVR mode. Philo is great bang for the buck!!

  12. smith says:

    Always the same commercials on each break, will drive you mad and consider another provider.

  13. Florida says:

    Blah, blah, blah…blah, blah, blah! Go fund someone else and pay a lot more money for lots of channels that are just fill in fluff…..channels that you pay for and never, ever watch!!!

  14. Matt says:

    If you’re a postpaid T-Mobile subscriber, you may be able to get another $10/month discount on Philo for as long as you remain with T-Mobile (https://www.t-mobile.com/support/plans-features/tv-discount#heading3). I was pretty skeptical that this would work, but can confirm that it does. With this added discount, we save $50/month over the Youtube TV subscription we previously had.

    We also bought a $40 roof antenna for our house, and now receive our local network affiliates (plus about 100 other channels) over the air, which mitigates the lack of local news AND improves the picture quality of these stations compared to Youtube TV.

    If you value the convenience of not having to switch between different smart TV apps to reach your content, then this setup may not be your choice. But we couldn’t be happier.

  15. sherry says:

    i have philo i like at first when stated march 2019 could watch any show up 30 days on drv and upgrade my plan keep on there a year .last nite went watch one shows recorder on spet it was gone line up on my tv set put see on my computer and that why went year service so worry be out line up that why went got ruko watch my tv not computer ,i call said ruko up grade there service witch not true just sucks use computer watch show witch do not want to do so might cut them off with different service pay 25 dollars keep show on for year saw on amazon philo has very low rate see why now.

  16. sherry says:

    i post some thing yesterday did not see today i guess not allow tell the truth
    well try one program yesterday have shows were cut off i paid 25 dollars month keep for year.i could not see on tv witch went brought a ruko for so see on tv.so went look for them my computer they were there some show watch on my computer did not want to do
    that why brought ruko.i call them said ruko was upgrade witch were not. very disapponited when philo . very happy witch got first in 2019 now not so much.was great first get they keep changing how see your show i just would leave was before

  17. Bryant Summers says:

    $25 seems like a good deal BUT for every 10-12 minutes of show you watch, they literally play 7-8 minutes of commercials! I’ve never seen any kind of provider play so much!!! I’m 3 days into my free trial and may not even finish it because they show waaaay too many commercials!

    1. Natalie says:

      You have to remember, this is a live TV streaming service. All the shows are live and designed to fit into a specific time frame. The NETWORK inserts the commercials, not the streaming service. They show no more commercials than any other live TV service. An hour long live show on Philo is the same as any hour long live show on any other cable, satellite, or live streaming app.

  18. GS says:

    Horrible Service!

    I dealt with Ike in customer service. They held my credit card ransom after canceling my free trial before the full period. I tried to explain to Ike in their customer service that it’s illegal to refuse to remove a credit card from a service. (I owed nothing BTW). He was rude and horrible. This is not how you succeed in Silicon Valley Ike.

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