Hulu reviews
What users love and hate, from real reviews
A streaming service with a deep library and next-day TV that users love for its content but hate for the ads inside a paid subscription and a chronically buggy player.
What users love
A huge library and next-day streaming — this is what people love
Despite all the app gripes, fans praise the vast selection of shows, movies and series, new episodes the day after airing, and originals like The Handmaid's Tale. Many watch Hulu nearly every evening.
I love Hulu because there are so many movies & shows that I can watch that I can't with any other streaming platforms.
I can always find something good to watch on Hulu
Hulu has a wide variety of content for the whole family.Great genres, selection of shows and movies.
Strong for anime and sports — but live streams collapse mid-game
Anime fans rate Hulu's subs and dubs above Crunchyroll, and sports viewers value the live games and playoffs. It's a genuine strength of the library.
Hulu's subs and dubs are far better than anything from Crunchyroll I'm enjoying Bleach Thousand Year Blood War.
I love that I can watch my favorite anime and cartoons when I want.
I'm so happy Hulu has WWE Wrestling. Hulu is definitely one of the best movies/Sports app around.
What users hate
You pay for the subscription and still drown in ads
The number-one complaint: ads run even for paying users, often two-minute breaks every few minutes of show. People literally time it and conclude a third of their paid viewing is spent on commercials.
12 ads in a 45 minute video, even with PAID membership.. IN THIS ECONOMY? DISRESPECTFUL.
I am on my 4th ad 11 minutes into this show. That feels incredibly excessive. Do I really need a minute of ads every 3 minutes of show?!
feels like a third of my time using this app goes to watching ads and the rest is a show i already paid a subscription to watch
The "ad-free" tier still shows ads
A distinct fury comes from people who paid extra for the ad-free version or got it via a phone plan: ads appear anyway, sometimes through ESPN. Users call it a lie and outright fraud.
too many ads, even when you pay extra for the no ads version. I thought there would only be ads for the live TV part of it. But the regular streaming is filled with ads.
Why is it taking me to ESPN when I'm paying for no ads through T-Mobile yet I'm seeing ads. THIS IS 🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨FRAUD!!!!!!!!!!🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨
I can't get it without ads. even if I'm willing to pay more
The player constantly loses your place in a show
A years-old bug: on resuming a series the app either restarts the episode, jumps to its last two minutes, or skips ahead to the next one. People restart the app just to fix playback.
Hulu absolutely fails as a streaming app, in that it always resumes episodes at the last two minutes or so upon a rewatch. This issue persists across multiple kinds of devices.
It never keeps track of what episode you are watching of a TV show and I have to constantly restart it to get playback to work correctly.
When I leave the app and come back to my show, it ALWAYS starts at a completely different spot
Freezing, buffering and crashes instead of watching
A very common complaint: endless buffering, freezes every few minutes and crashes across phone, Fire TV, Xbox and smart TVs. Users stress that other streamers work fine on the same connection while Hulu doesn't.
super glitchy! I have it on my TV along with other streaming apps. hulu is the only one to freeze every 5 minutes and occasionally crash. yes, it's fully updated
it never lets me watch a show. its always buffering
Videos keep glitching and closing cant watch a full episode of anything without the playback failing
The Disney merger turned login into a nightmare
After logins were merged with Disney, users can't sign in, get kicked mid-show and forced to re-login — sometimes several times a day and weekly. Some can't even cancel because they can't get in.
They emeshed Disney logins with Hulu and made login nearly impossible.
horrible! ever since they connected with Disney I can't log in. it's been over a year.
Also makes you sign in every week for no reason.
Content is locked behind endless add-ons and "upgrades"
Users are frustrated that movies and shows once included now require separate add-ons, and live TV is gated behind a pricier ESPN plan. They feel pushed into paying twice over.
any movie i search for is locked behind yet another "add-on", if they even have it.
HULU APP IS BROKEN! EVERYTHING in MyStuff say I need an add-on to watch it!?!
the only way to get the live TV is to get the ESPN plan and then have to pay for the HBO Max and other channels separately which almost tripples my cost
Casting, activation and multi-device setup are broken
Bought on the phone but can't watch on TV; trying to activate a device hits endless steps; casting breaks and cross-device sync glitches. Simple actions become a quest.
Just want to activate on another device. why is this so difficult??
if you purchase Hulu on phone and can't get it on my tvs.
I try to cast to my phone, but the stream keeps breaking, and I can't cast again.
Audio description turns itself on, and the sound misbehaves
A known, unfixed bug: the monotone AI audio-description voice turns on even when the setting is off. Plus ads blast far louder than the show, the first seconds after a break are muted, and voices don't match lips.
the app will randomly start narrating the beginning of shows, even though the 'Audio Description' setting is off
My biggest gripe is that the audio description plays without being turned on.
commercials come on SO LOUD THAT I HAVE TO TURN THE VOLUME DOWN TO 0
Billing is opaque: overcharges, a hidden payment page, no way to cancel
Complaints about inflated auto-charges, double billing and being unable to cancel. The payment page is hard to find and often throws 404s, and support is effectively unreachable.
Hulu is getting bad with overcharging people on their billings. With tax included they have over changed me $10.60 for almost a year
you cannot cancel the subscription.So I will never, ever ever again.Get hulu
Out of all the streaming services, Hulu has the worst payment page.
Navigation and UI lag behind rivals
The interface is called confusing: hard to find a specific episode, easy to accidentally exit a show, no skip-intro button, and autoplay cuts off the ending to push the next one. Often compared unfavorably to Netflix.
hard to log in, change profiles, pretty awful. UI is awful compared to Netfilx for example
It's hard to find specific episodes if you want to rewatch something.
it's 2026, and the app hasn't added a feature to skip intros