A video streaming service can easily replace your cable subscription—and usually for less money. Sling TV lets you watch dozens of live television channels for a moderate monthly fee, explore extensive programming options, rent movies, and fire up a completely free tier of on-demand and preprogrammed content. However, Sling TV doesn't offer nearly as many local channels as rival streaming services, and it lacks the high-end features found in our Editors' Choice winners for live TV, Hulu and YouTube TV.
What Can You Watch on Sling TV?
Sling is available on mobile (Android and iOS), media streaming devices (Apple TV, Chromecast, Fire TV, and Roku), the Xbox, and via the Microsoft Store. Notably missing from this list is the PlayStation 4, a platform that both Hulu + Live TV and YouTube TV support.
Sling TV offers three plans: Orange, Blue, and Orange & Blue. The channels in the Orange and Blue plans overlap, which makes it confusing to choose between them. Most other video streaming services offer a single live TV plan. DirecTV Stream and Fubo could also stand to simplify their channel lineups across the various plans.
The Sling Orange plan offers 31 channels, including AMC, CNN, BBC America, Cartoon Network, Comedy Central, Disney, ESPN, Food Network, HGTV, IFC, TBS, TNT, and Travel Channel. Sling Blue offers about 42 total channels depending on your local media market. While the Blue plan removes ESPN and Disney, it adds Discovery, FOX News, MSNBC, NBC Sports, NFL Network, Nick Jr., and SYFY. You also get FOX and NBC local affiliates in select markets with Sling Blue. You can subscribe to the combined Sling Orange & Blue plan, for a total of 48 channels. Hulu + Live TV's lineup includes about 85 channels, by comparison.
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Local ABC channels are not available without the use of an antenna, which partially defeats the purpose of subscribing to an all-digital streaming service. Note that Sling TV will send you an HD antenna or a Roku Express if you pay for two months of service in advance. If you pay for three months upfront, you get the antenna and an AirTV Player Bundle. The service lacks CBS broadcast channels, but Paramount+ is a relatively cheap way to watch live streams of that network's affiliate stations. Sling TV doesn't carry PBS channels, which YouTube TV does.
Although Sling TV may lack some local content for US subscribers, it is one of the best live TV services for international TV, with channel packages aimed at Asian, European, Latin, and Middle Eastern audiences. Fubo offers a few channel add-ons (International Sports Plus, Latino Plus, Portuguese Plus, RAI Italia, and TV5Monde) for international audiences.
Sling TV allows you to rent movies in either HD or SD resolutions, with varied pricing for each movie. For instance, you can rent popular titles such as Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker in HD for $3.99 (though Star Wars fans will find Disney+ to be a better option). Older and less-popular movies typically cost less. Rentals are valid for 24 to 48 hours after you start playing them, but you have up to 30 days to start watching them. Amazon Prime Video also offers movie rentals.
Watching Live Sports With Sling TV
A good sports streaming service lets you watch all the games you'd get with cable without missing a beat. Unfortunately, neither Sling TV's Orange nor Blue packages are ideal for sports fans, as they split some important channels between them. The Blue package loses all of the Orange's ESPN programming. On the flip side, the Orange package lacks the Blue's FOX and NBC affiliates, NBC Sports, and NFL Network channels. Thus, sports fans are best served with the Orange & Blue plan. However, to get the MLB Network, NBA TV, NHL Network, and the Golf Channel, you need to add the Sports Extra ($11 per month) package. Sling added the Big 10 Network to this package for Blue subscribers. On the plus side, when choosing what sport to watch, you can now keep track of scores across leagues in real time through the useful new Sports Scores interface.
Another problem for Sling TV is its low number of local network and regional sports networks (RSNs). As mentioned, you can get local NBC and FOX affiliates in major areas. However, CBS and ABC locals (without additional hardware) are not available, nor are SportsNet, Bally Sports, and most NBC Sports RSNs. Without these channels, sports fans in many areas across the country can't watch their favorite MLB, NBA, and NHL teams.
Football fans should look for an alternative in our roundup of the best NFL streaming services. There are ways to watch select NFL broadcasts for free, too, such as via the NFL and Yahoo Sports apps. We also have roundups of the best NBA and MLB streaming services. For NHL fans, Sling TV is the only streaming service we've reviewed that offers an NHL Center Ice add-on.
Fubo offers the vast majority of the sports channels of Sling TV's combined plan and recently added Bally Sports (although it notably does not include Turner Network channels). Hulu + Live TV and YouTube TV beat Sling TV for sports coverage by offering all of the major broadcast channels. DirecTV Stream is another good option.
How Much Does Sling TV Cost?
Like many streaming services, the price for all of Sling TV's plans regularly increases. The Orange and Blue Plans cost $40 per month and $45 per month, respectively. The combined Sling Orange & Blue plan is $60 per month.
You can expand Sling’s channel lineup with one of Sling TV's many Extra bundles, which start at $6 per month each. For instance, the Kids Extra add-on bundles family and children's networks like Disney XD, Nicktoons, and Boomerang. The Comedy Extra package includes CMT, Game Show Network, Logo, MTV, and TruTV. Sports fans will want to add the Sports Extra ($11.00 per month) on to get ESPN U, MLB Network, NBA TV, NHL Network, and PAC 12 Network. Note that Sling TV offers a 4-Extras deal, which includes Kids Extra, Lifestyle Extra, Comedy Extra, and News Extra for $13 per month. There's also a Total TV Deal (Cloud DVR, Sports Extra, Kids Extra, Comedy Plus Extra, News Extra, Lifestyle Plus Extra, Heartland Extra, and Hollywood Extra) for $21 per month. You can add premium networks such as MGM+ ($5 per month), Showtime ($10 per month), and Starz ($9 per month), too.
Keep in mind that the prices of add-on packages and the channels you get differ depending on whether you subscribe to Sling Orange, Blue, or both, which can be confusing. Our feature on Sling Orange and Sling Blue explains all the differences.
For comparison, Philo is only $25 per month. That service focuses more on entertainment and lifestyle channels than sports and news, however. Discovery+ is another inexpensive (starting at $4.99 per month) option within this category—it includes shows from Animal Planet, Food Network, HGTV, OWN, TLC, and Travel Channel, albeit without any live TV channels. It's just a little more redundant now that most of its content is now found in the more expensive Max service.
Despite Sling TV's price increase, other live TV streaming services remain significantly more expensive. For instance, Fubo starts at $74.99 per month, while Hulu + Live TV and YouTube TV are $69.99 per month and $72.99 per month, respectively. DirecTV Stream starts at an even more expensive $74.99 per month.
Sling’s Free Tier
Sling now offers a completely free tier with “live” and on-demand content from its channel lineup. You don’t even need to sign up for an account to access this library. At the time of testing, the so-called live TV content seemed to be of the preprogrammed variety, except for the ABC News Live Update channel. The available on-demand content includes mostly incomplete seasons of modern TV shows (Brother vs. Brother; Conan; Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives; Rick and Morty; Teen Titans Go!; The Kitchen; and The Walking Dead) and full runs of older shows (21 Jump Street (1987), 3rd Rock from the Sun, Hell’s Kitchen, Grace Under Fire, and The Commish).
Free movies, meanwhile, include Bernie, Highlander, and Train to Busan. Dedicated film fans should check out our roundups of the best movie streaming services and documentary streaming services for top-notch feature-length titles.
Sling Free’s lineup is most similar to those of Plex, which offers a combination of both on-demand and preprogrammed streaming content. Other free on-demand services worth trying out include Tubi and Crackle. If you specifically want to watch preprogrammed channels of content, consider Pluto TV or Xumo. Our Editors’ Choice winner for free streaming services is Tubi because of its large library of mainstream on-demand content, an honor it shares with Kanopy, which is free with a library card and is excellent for families.
Sling TV's Interface
Sling TV's web interface has a dark color scheme and a modular design. That said, individual elements feel slightly cramped. Hulu + Live TV and YouTube TV offer more visually compelling and informative home interfaces.
As part of a recent redesign, Sling TV gains a new home section with personalized recommendations, a guide with clearer navigation tools, a dedicated DVR tab, and better search features. All of these improvements are welcome. You can create up to five profiles with personalized watchlists and recommendations for each that you can access on any device.
Options across the top menu bar include My TV, Guide, Sports, On-Demand, and Rentals. In the upper right corner of the screen, there's a search bar and your account profile icon. YouTube TV's search is much quicker and more advanced; it lets you combine search terms, such as a genre and a year. In the Account section, you can manage your subscription, choose a streaming quality, set up parental control limits, and manage your DVR recordings.
You can discover content in the My TV and Guide sections, which respectively display what is currently streaming live and let you browse either by channel or using a traditional grid-like channel guide. The channel guide has helpful filters for specific categories, such as Entertainment, Kids, News, Premium, Sling Free, and Sports. Oddly, when we filtered the guide to show channels available on Sling Free, it showed us fewer channels than were available to free users. You can use the guide to view listings and schedule DVR recordings up to six days in advance. You can also subscribe directly to new paid channels.
Once you settle on what you want to watch, click on the entry to get more details or on the thumbnail to launch directly into the stream. A pane pops up with a description of the content, release year, run-time, and genre. Sling helpfully notes what plans or add-ons you need to watch programming not available under your current plan.
Sling Mobile Apps
We tested Sling TV’s mobile app on an Android phone. The app defaults to the My TV section, which shows horizontally scrolling lists of content categories, such as Trending Live, Popular Shows, and Kids' Favorites. The rest of this main interface looks clean and you can now access the search bar and Settings section without needing to open any additional menus. The search bar allows you to search by show, movies, and channels.
Additional menu options on the bottom navigation bar include Guide, Channels, Sports, and More. Oddly, your DVR Recordings are only available from the main My TV screen. From the Settings, you can view your add-ons, set up parental controls, view remaining DVR storage, and edit closed-caption settings.
The Channel area lets you view content specifically from your add-on channels and those in your plan, while the channel guide allows you to filter by genre and air date. On-demand content and rentals are accessible via the More menu icon.
Sling TV Features and Playback Experience
Sling TV’s playback screen is typical, with an information bar at the top and playback controls on the bottom. You also get a 10-second rewind button and a 30-second fast-forward button. However, you cannot select the playback resolution for either live or on-demand content. Note that the sliders and buttons for adjusting time are only available for some content, such as your DVR content. Clicking on the arrow at the top of the playback bar brings up a navigation menu that shows a guide to upcoming programming. Sling TV’s playback screen on mobile looks like a scaled-down version of the one on the web. Thus, it looks a bit cluttered, especially if you expand the guide from the bottom of the screen.
Sling Orange subscribers can only stream to one device at a time, but Sling Blue users can stream to up to three. If you have Sling Orange & Blue, you can stream to up to four devices at once, which is better than average. Hulu + Live TV and YouTube TV, for example, respectively limit you to two and three simultaneous streams by default. Both Hulu + Live TV and Fubo offer add-ons that expand this support considerably.
Sling now gives you 50 hours of DVR storage for free. Recordings remain available for as long as your subscription is active. For an additional $5 per month, you can increase the storage limit to 200 hours. Sling TV notably allows you to fast-forward through commercials when you watch recordings.
For comparison, YouTube TV keeps titles for nine months, but imposes no storage limits. Fubo keeps 250 hours' worth of content indefinitely, and lets you expand that via an add-on. DirecTV Stream allows you to save 20 hours of content for up to nine months. Hulu + Live TV enables subscribers to save unlimited hours’ worth of content and keeps it as long as your subscription is active.
Sling TV's live streams appear to be capped at 720p; the service does not publish details about the streaming resolutions and frame rates it supports for live content. The service does not support 4K streams. While it's relatively rare for a cable-replacement-type video streaming service to support this resolution, some do offer it for select programming. Fubo, for instance, will air select NFL games in 4K. Both YouTube TV and Hulu + Live TV support 1080p live streams on select platforms.
Sling TV recommends internet connection speeds of 5Mbps for single-device streams. For households with multiple internet users, your internet speeds should be at or above 25Mbps. We tested Sling TV over an Ethernet connection (200Mbps download) and had no streaming issues. At the time of testing, we were able to watch live 2019 NBA Final games and news shows without any trouble. We also watched a stream of a Women's FIFA World Cup matchup over a much slower Wi-Fi network on an Android phone; the stream launched quickly and looked crisp in playback.
Accessibility and Parental Controls
On the accessibility front, Sling TV's closed-captioning features are par for the course. You can make adjustments to the appearance of the text, edges, background, and window, but only on some platforms (web excluded). You can't make these changes directly from the playback screen and must instead head to the settings section to do so. We don't like the positioning of the closed captioning for some on-demand shows; the captions appear close to the speaker on screen, rather than in a consistent spot and are several lines deep. It's very distracting. During live broadcasts, the captions were also several seconds behind the action.
Some on-demand services offer enhanced capabilities. Apple TV+, Disney+, Netflix, and Prime Video, for example, host content with Audio Descriptions, or narrations of on-screen events that might not be discernible from a scene's dialog alone. Audio Descriptions are typically only available for on-demand content.
Sling TV lets you set parental control restrictions based on content rating and for purchases, which we appreciate. However, you cannot restrict access to entire channels with these settings nor can you apply these restrictions to specific viewing profiles. That means that you will need to enter the parental control PIN whenever you want to bypass these settings. In addition to the benefits they can bring to a parental control system, profiles help keep recommendations relevant to individual users based on their watch histories.
Using Sling TV With a VPN
A virtual private network (VPN) is an excellent way to protect your privacy online. However, many video streaming services, such as Sling TV, may block VPN users due to content licensing restrictions or other geographic-based policies. Since Sling TV is only available for users in the US and Puerto Rico, this rule applies to people in other countries using a VPN to access its region-locked content. However, when we connected to a US-based Mullvad VPN server, we had no trouble launching and watching live-stream or on-demand content from a mobile device and a web browser.
You will likely have a tough time finding a VPN that works with every one of your video streaming services since they actively look for new ways to detect and block VPN traffic. Some VPN services maintain dedicated servers for various streaming services, but this shouldn't be your main concern when choosing a VPN. Instead, you should look for a VPN that will best protect your privacy.
Is Sling TV Right for You?
Sling TV's combined Orange & Blue Plan is cheaper than most other live TV services, but the cost of this plan has increased over time. On one hand, we like its lineup of national channels, free tier, improved DVR capabilities, and reliable streaming performance. However, a lack of robust local programming channels and inconvenient distribution of channels between the Orange and Blue plans are drawbacks. Our Editors' Choice winners for the live TV category are Hulu + Live TV and YouTube TV. Hulu is a great value considering its live and on-demand component, while YouTube TV excels for its top-notch interfaces and channel offerings.
Sling TV is a reliable live TV service that offers numerous channel options and a useful free tier, but it lacks some local stations.
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