Hulu Versus Amazon Prime

Posted by Sonal on June 14th, 2019

Nowadays people seek new options to cut ties and save some money which they spend on monthly cable connection or satellite bills. Many of them prefer an on-demand streaming service as a cost-saving option. In the rapidly expanding market, we often see new players joining the fleet month after month. Various facilities are available in the market which is cost-effective, simple and extremely handy. Those streaming services share many common benefits and features; still there remains a question in mind. What would be the difference between those services? Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon are some of the leading players in the global streaming market. But which one is the best among those? Let’s see it then.

In this article, I have discussed two of the most popular streaming services: Hulu and Amazon Prime. Each one has independent exclusive content, features, plans, and pricing. Both platforms provide add-on channel packages as per user’s requirement.

Packages and Prices:

Amazon Prime:

It offers a one-month trial period to new users. In order to start the trail, the user has to provide a credit card number. The trial period ends after 30 days, and the service is free of cost for the time. After the end of the trial period, Amazon Prime offers service in two main price tiers. Firstly, 9 per annum, and per month. Secondly, the annual price of 9 reduces to when a user is a student. In short, the facility is available for students only. To avail, the discount one has to sign up with a valid student email address. Moreover, Amazon Prime Video Service is available in over 200 countries across the world.

Hulu:

It offers a one-week trial period. If the user does not like the service, it is must to deactivate it before the end of the week. If you fail to do so, you will have to pay for a full month of service. Hulu charges minimal for the ad-based service and for the ad-free service. Even more, users can opt for a live-TV streaming package which costs per month. There are also add-on features like advanced DVR available at extra cost.

Content:

Amazon Prime:

Apart from widely available premium content like Starz, or Showtime, it has an archive of thousands of videos to watch. On Amazon mostly you will get original material. Amazon has around 75 million videos worldwide, including about 40 million in the US. Besides, the streaming service has a vast collection of new releases available to purchase or rent.

Hulu:

At some extent, Disney owns Hulu, and users have access to a superior collection of TV shows. So it can be one of the best replacement for cable TV. Mostly, the user can see shows one day after streaming live on their respective broadcasters. It has a good collection of movies, but the user can set interests accordingly.  

Supported Devices:

A vast range of devices support both streaming services. Hulu offers compatibility and support for many devices like PC, PS3, Nintendo Wii, iOS devices, Android devices and many more. But it does not support modern Internet-ready TVs and Blu-ray players.

On the other hand, Amazon Prime supports Internet-ready TV, Blu-ray player, Roku, Kindle Fire tablet, and iOS or Android phone. Amazon’s streaming service is not available on Chromecast and Chromecast Ultra. Although, Amazon has a cost-effective Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K.

Interface and Ease of Use:

As Amazon is the newcomer in the field, it does not have a well-organized interface, though it is continuously developing. But it enables users to surf Prime Instant Video directly on the Amazon webpage and its different apps. It functions best in combination with Amazon’s Fire TV streaming devices.

Whereas, Hulu offers a comparatively intuitive interface that’s much more uniform. It provides categories such as Keep Watching, TV, Movies, and Kids that ease the user to browse. Even more, users can add their favorite premium movies, channels, and shows on the main interface. As of 2018, Hulu is focusing on enhancing live streaming technology that resulted in the reduction of buffering time by 90%.

Audio-Video Quality:

Amazon bestows 4K Ultra HD resolution and HDR streaming support, which comes by default with its package. The video quality is best, along with that of large TVs. The feature of 4K video quality is not available on Hulu. In case of audio quality Hulu has limited functionality, it offers stereo sound for most of its material. On the other side, Amazon exclusively provides 5.1, 7.1 and Dolby Atoms surround sound encoding on selected video content.

Innovative and Original content:

Hulu’s list of TV shows offers fresher content. Users can subscribe for Hulu’s live TV service available at per month. While Amazon has a functionality, Channels, which enables the user to add select channels that too with the latest content. The service does not charge for Channels, but one has to pay for the latest episodes. In 2018, Amazon spent around the US billion in content.

Other features to consider:

Amazon Prime offers commercial-free TV and movies. Additionally, the membership includes perks like free shipping and exclusive discounts while shopping on Amazon.com. Parents have the functionality to filter a set of channels, on Amazon, for their kids. Both Amazon Fire TV and Amazon Prime have the feature of parental control. In contrast, Hulu does not offer any specific controls for filtering channels.

As of 2018, Hulu had 25 Million subscribers, while Amazon hopes to have 164 million subscribers by 2020.

What’s New in 2019?

Amazon Prime’s new arrival include TBD, Made In Heaven (Prime Original Series), Little House On The Prairie, Seasons 1–9, and many more. It is also planning to launch services on more regional languages, and the platform recently launched sixth language service. Now the streaming service is available in Hindi, Bangla, Tamil, Telugu, Marathi, and Kannada.

In January 2019, Hulu announced a US price drop for its basic plan. It also launched a new pause ad experience, which offers an ad-free experience to users.