Kill cable with these 19 streaming devices and services

Survey data shows most people plan to abandon cable within 10 years — but why wait?

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The cord-cutting movement is here, and thanks to all the available services out there, it's easy to replace cable with one or a variety of streaming options.

First we'll look at the best online apps and services to watch movies and TV shows, and then we'll show you the best hardware you can buy to put all that multimedia on your big screen.

cable tv cord cutting illustration
Skye Gould/Tech Insider

These solutions are the next best thing to live TV — and you'll be saving much more money in the long run.

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First, let's look at the best apps and services...

Hulu Plus, Amazon Prime, Netflix, HBOGo taking over traditional television and cable
Skye Gould/Business Insider
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1. Netflix

The Netflix logo is shown in this illustration photograph in Encinitas, California October 14, 2014.  REUTERS/Mike Blake
The Netflix logo is shown in this illustration photograph in Encinitas, California Thomson Reuters

Netflix is a best place to start if you want to be able to stream movies and TV shows — including a growing number of Netflix originals — on almost any device you could think of. New content drops each Friday.

Price: $9 per month ($10 per month starting in May)

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2. HBO Now

hbo now
HBO

HBO has some of the best content out there, but prior to last year you had to be a cable TV subscriber to enjoy the content. Well, HBO finally listened to fans last April and unveiled HBO Now, a monthly subscription service for people who don't have HBO in their cable package, or any cable package at all. If you've never seen "Game of Thrones," "Silicon Valley," or any of the incredible HBO shows over the years like "The Sopranos" or "Six Feet Under," do yourself a favor and buy this service. You won't regret it.

Price: $15 per month

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3. Amazon Video

amazon instant video
Amazon Instant

Amazon lets you buy or rent more than 150,000 movies or TV shows from its massive library, but in April the company announced you can subscribe to its video service for just $9 a month (that's cheaper than Netflix). That said, if you have Amazon Prime, you're getting Amazon Video plus a host of other sweet perks for less than $9 a month — so if you want Amazon Video, you might as well buy Amazon Prime.

Price: Rentals cost up to $6, purchases cost up to $20; Monthly subscriptions cost $8.99 a month; Amazon Prime costs $99 a year ($8.25 a month)

 

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4. Hulu Plus

Hulu
Hulu.com

Hulu Plus is still one of the best ways to watch TV shows from the major networks, including NBC, ABC, BBC, and FOX.

Price: $7.99 per month

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5. YouTube

YouTube Red
YouTube Red

YouTube is the biggest library of video content on the internet. Whether you want clips, viral content, music videos, or entire movies or TV shows, YouTube has billions of hours worth of content for you to enjoy. If you want more premium content, however, YouTube now has a premium service called YouTube Red, which lets you watch videos without ads as well as shows and music you can't get elsewhere.

Price: YouTube is free; YouTube Red costs $9.99 per month

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6. Vimeo

Vimeo
Vimeo

Like YouTube, Vimeo has a ton of high-quality video content. In particular, Vimeo is a hotbed for indie films and music videos, and it's all HD and ad-free.

Price: Free

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7. Vevo

vevo office tour
Madeline Stone / Business Insider

Want music videos? You won't miss MTV or VH1 when you've got access to Vevo's massive music video catalogue from more than 50,000 different artists. It's free and all available in HD.

Price: Free

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8. iTunes Store

itunes movie store
iTunes

If you're looking for music, movies, or TV shows, Apple's iTunes Store  — one of the first digital stores — offers almost everything you could think of. It has all the movies the same day they're released on DVD, and it has nearly every TV show, too — you can buy episodes individually, or purchase the Season Pass to save a little bit of money and ensure that each new episode downloads immediately. And, if you have an Apple TV, you can stream anything in your iTunes library to your big screen using AirPlay.

Price: TV shows cost up to $2.99 per episode; films cost up to $19.99; Season Pass costs vary based on location and number of episodes

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9. Google Play

google play
The Google Play store, on desktop play.google.com

Like the iTunes Store, you can find almost any movie, TV show, song or album on Google Play. The massive library has over 22 million songs, and thousands of movies and TV shows to rent or purchase.

Price: TV shows cost up to $1.99 per episode; films cost up to $19.99; Season Pass costs vary based on location and number of episodes

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10. Sling TV

sling tv
Sling TV

From satellite TV company Dish, Sling TV gives you a small package of 10 channels that you can stream on your phone, tablet, computer or TV. The 10 channels you can currently watch include TNT, TBS, CNN, Food Network, HGTV, Cartoon Network, Adult Swim, the Disney Channel, ESPN, and ESPN2.

Price: $20 per month

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11. Plex

plex
Wikipedia

Do you own a ton of media — movies, TV shows, etc. — but you don't know how to get it up on your TV? Try Plex, which works with every desktop, mobile and gaming platform you can think of. It lets you store your media collection in the cloud so you can access it on any of your devices, anywhere. It also knows what you're watching across all devices, so you can easily pick up where you left off on another device. It also gives you access to a ton of online content and apps like Vimeo and TED Talks.

Price: $4.99 a month, $39.99 a year, or $149.99 for a lifetime subscription

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12. Crackle

jerry seinfeld crackle upfront
TubeFilter

Sony-backed Crackle offers a surprisingly robust library of movies and TV shows, particularly if you're a fan of classic comedies or even if you just want to watch Jerry Seinfeld's excellent webseries "Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee." Best of all, you can watch it on almost any device you could think of — and it's all free.

Price: Free

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13. CBS All Access

CBS
CBS Corp. President and CEO Leslie Moonves delivers a keynote address in 2007. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

If you're a big fan of CBS programming but don't want to pay for a big cable package, CBS now offers subscriptions to view shows on a monthly basis. The company launched the service in October 2014.

Price: $6 per month

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14. Bloomberg TV

Bloomberg TV

Need your news fix? Bloomberg TV live streams its on-air programming around the clock both online via its website and various apps.

Price: Free

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15. Google (or your favorite search engine)

Google Chrome 2
AP/Paul Sakuma

You might not find that favorite movie or TV show of yours on one of the major services, but there are always new sites and apps cropping up every day. So, if you're looking for a certain movie, TV show, or anything else you might see on TV, try searching for the title on Google, or your other favorite search engine.

Price: Free

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Now that you've seen all the apps and services, you'll probably want a streaming device to get all of that media onto your big screen...

Apple TV Universal Remote
espensorvik / Flickr Creative Commons
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16. Google Chromecast

red chromecast
Matt Weinberger/Business Insider

Chromecast is one of the cheapest ways to stream media from the internet or your computer onto your TV. Google's cheap streaming dongle plugs into your HDMI port on your TV, and all you have to do is pick up a phone, tablet or computer to cast those programs. It also supports a host of apps from networks like ESPN and ABC, as well as internet favorites like Hulu Plus, HBO GO, and the game streaming network Twitch.

Price: $35

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17. Apple TV

apple tv
Apple/Tech Insider

Apple’s TV set-top box has a ton of built-in apps for streaming video and music, and but the latest Apple TV actually has an App Store, which means developers are constantly adding content all the time. The new Apple TV is also pretty nifty with its Siri Remote, which lets you navigate the Apple TV and control playback with your voice. Also, if you have iTunes or any Apple device, you can access any of your movies, music, and TV shows right from Apple TV.

Price: $150 for 32GB, $200 for 64GB

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18. Roku

roku 3 with remote
Steve Kovach/Business Insider

Roku is one of the best streaming set-top devices you can buy. The company sells five different devices — Rokus 1 through 4 and the Roku Streaming Stick — which are all designed to appeal to customers that want different form factors or different price points. We highly recommend the Roku 3, which comes with 1080p and ultra-fast WiFi support, as well as the ability to broadcast personal media to your TV via the Roku app and a headphone jack for private listening.

Price: Roku 1 costs $50; Roku Streaming Stick costs $50; Roku 2 costs $70; Roku 3 costs $100; Roku 4 costs $130

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19. Amazon Fire TV

Amazon Fire TV Comparison
Lisa Eadiccico

If you're an Amazon Prime member, Amazon's streaming box is a great way to stream all the content from Amazon Video, but it's also got powerful processors to handle voice search functionality, and even games. If you're already heavy into the Amazon ecosystem, this is the right streaming hardware for you. Thankfully, Amazon offers two flavors of this hardware: the cheaper Fire TV Stick, and the more expensive Fire TV, which can handle gaming and supports expandable storage.

Price: Fire TV Stick costs $40; Fire TV costs $100

Disclosure: Mathias Döpfner, CEO of Business Insider's parent company, Axel Springer, is a Netflix board member.

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