Tubi Review

Tubi or not Tubi? That is the question I set out to answer in this Tubi review. I like streaming services, and I love a free price tag. However, I usually find that the content offered by free streaming services falls flat, especially when compared with the wide array of blockbuster and original content available on services like Max and Hulu.

When I saw that Tubi had partnerships with MGM, Paramount, and Lionsgate, they had my attention. I was hopeful that they would finally be the free service I’d been looking for. So how did they do against the big-name paid services? Do they even stand out amongst other free services like Pluto TV and Crackle? I was ready to find out, and I hope you are, too!

Tubi Pros and Cons

What You Can Watch on Tubi

Tubi works like pretty much any other on-demand streaming service. You go to the website or download the app, and you are ready to start watching content. In other words, it’s like Netflix with ads. You can create an account (more on that later), but you don’t have to. The only content they have that is not on-demand is a relatively new feature called “News on Tubi” — a set of live streaming news channels that have only rolled out on a few devices at this point.

I came to Tubi looking for great content, and they did not disappoint. They don’t do original content, and most of their content is at least four years old. But those are limitations I’ve come to expect from free services. What I didn’t expect was the sheer number of movies that I’d been meaning to watch — and now had access to for free! Tubi says there are 20,000 titles on their service, and it certainly feels like that many to me.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and its sequel, After Earth, and Batman vs. Robin all immediately got added to my watch list, along with about two dozen other movies. After scrolling a bit, I came across the “Not on Netflix” section, which had some more great options that – unsurprisingly – were not available on Netflix. These included films with Sasha Baron Cohen, Jason Statham, and Nicolas Cage.

Do you like reality TV? It’s okay, you can admit it here. I’ll admit to enjoying a cooking or singing show once in a while if you do. I think I found enough reality TV on Tubi to keep me going for quite a while. Two of Gordon Ramsay’s shows are there, as are The Masked Singer, Hoarders, The Bachelor, and many others.

Although reality TV is definitely where Tubi shines, that’s not all that I watched: As a sitcom junkie, I was also happy to see Anger Management and Grounded for Life in Tubi’s library, too.

If you are looking for classics, this is probably not the place to find them – the selection of older TV shows did not seem as extensive as those of other free streaming services.

I’m an unashamed cartoon fan, so I also looked into the Tubi Kids section. They have The Adventures of Batman – the ones from the 1960s! Once my nostalgia moment was over, I took a look through the rest of the section and found How to Train Your Dragon, Free Birds, and a few other favorites. Their anime section was also impressive for a free service, but it can’t compete with Crunchyroll. If you are looking for content for younger kids, Tubi does have preschool and baby sections as well.

How It Felt to Use Tubi

If you’ve used Netflix, you’ll feel right at home with the Tubi interface. It’s simple, clean, and very easy-to-use. In short: I love it.

The available titles are all displayed in categories either by genre or common options like “Most Popular” or “Recently Added”. Unlike with some services, there is no option to filter the titles or rearrange them by, for example, alphabetical order. There is, however, an option to search. Having tried out other free services that didn’t have this, Tubi reminded me just how important a search bar can be. I was immediately able to find all 12 Nicolas Cage movies that are on the service. I’m not sure if that’s good or bad, but I found them.

Browsing for TV shows turned out to be more difficult. Tubi’s web interface has TV shows mixed in with the movies instead of in their own section. Tubi seems to have far more movies than TV shows, so the shows tend to get lost in the mix. Fortunately, the mobile app has separate TV and movie sections, so I was able to find TV show options more easily there. This was the only significant feature of the mobile app that I couldn’t also find on the web browser app, but it was available on other streaming devices, like the Fire TV Stick.

It turned out this wasn’t the only usability feature that was missing on the in-browser app. When I started using my Fire TV Stick Tubi app, I noticed the additional menu options for categories and channels. The channels option was particularly exciting because it gave me the ability to find all of the Fox content, including titles that I had missed when browsing through Tubi’s library in my browser. I just hope Tubi brings these features to its in-browser app eventually!

I wanted to find other things to complain about with the interface, but I just couldn’t. Try as I might, nothing about it was glitchy or even cumbersome. The most critical thing I can think of to say is that the pause, rewind, and skip forward buttons sometimes appear over the closed captions. When I’m digging that deep for a complaint, I’m not sure I should even bother to complain at all. In my view, Tubi has a great interface that makes for an even greater user experience.

I’ve been pleasantly surprised by low commercial counts in free services before, but Tubi took it to a new level. I would often watch for more than 30 minutes without seeing a single commercial. When they did pop up, it was usually in groups of two to three. Don’t get me wrong, I’d rather that number was zero, but I consider Tubi’s ad load to be absolutely reasonable for a free service.

Tubi Features and Streaming Quality

The video quality on Tubi was decent, but it was nothing to write home about. Most titles are available in 720p HD, but none are in full 1080p HD. There are also several that are only in standard definition. In the browser app, you can adjust the video quality at will between whichever options are available. On other devices, there is no option to adjust, and some of the quality was clearly SD where I had hoped for HD.

Both the audio and closed caption languages seem to be limited to English in almost every case on Tubi, with the exception of a few Spanish-language movies and TV shows. I couldn’t find a single English title with non-English subtitle options. I also found several titles that didn’t have subtitles at all.

Tubi gives you full control over the closed captions wherever they’re available: You can change the background, size, color, font, and transparency at will. I usually don’t find features like these to be useful, but increasing the font size does have its advantages at times.

As with most free services, account creation is not required for Tubi. I went ahead and created one anyway to check out the features. If you are concerned with privacy, though, you could watch Tubi forever without signing up. Signing up for an account offers two main advantages for most users: the ability to mark items to watch later and the ability to pause a show and continue it later on the same or different devices.

If you’re a parent, I’d recommend creating an account: You’ll need one if you’re going to use Tubi’s parental control features. I was impressed that these features were included at all. This is another place where Tubi feels like more than just another free streaming service.

Tubi Platform Support

Tubi is available on pretty much any device you can think of. They have an in-browser app for your computer, mobile apps on iOS and Android, and apps for streaming devices like Roku and Chromecast. They even have apps for Xbox (Xbox One, Series X, and Series S) and PlayStation (Playstation 3 and 4).

The interfaces in Tubi’s apps do vary somewhat from device to device. In my opinion, the additional ways of looking for titles that are available on streaming devices make for a much more pleasant experience.

The only other major difference between the Tubi experiences on different platforms emerges when Tubi rolls out new features, which often appear on a select set of devices early on. That’s happening right now with the new “News on Tubi” live stream feature, for example: It’s only currently available on Android, Roku, and Amazon Fire devices, but it will be available on all Tubi devices eventually.

Tubi Value

In my book, an experience this good with a $0 price tag is a great value. What more can I say? As much as I would like to get some content from the last three to four years, Tubi more than met my expectations for a free service. There is no paid ad-free option, which is something to keep in mind if the ads are a dealbreaker for you. Barring that, I think you’ll agree that this service offers a pretty great value given its non-existent price tag.

Tubi Review: My Verdict

I judge a free service by whether they waste my time and whether they offer more annoyance than value. Tubi isn’t perfect. I would like a few more ways of browsing the titles, and I would love some newer (and preferably full HD) content.

But, overall, I’m really happy with what I found. Tubi won’t become my main streaming service anytime soon, but that’s the beauty of the free price tag — I can keep this service around without adding to my expenses. Given my experience with Tubi, this was a no-brainer: Tubi’s app has earned a permanent spot on my streaming devices.