Many video streaming services cost as much as a regular cable subscription, defeating one of the main reasons to cut the cord. Lifestyle- and entertainment-focused service Philo offers more than 70 live channels starting at a relatively cheap $28 per month. However, Philo is not in the business of creating original content like Amazon Prime Video or Netflix. Likewise, it doesn’t aim to replace cable entirely, as Editors’ Choice winners Hulu + Live TV and YouTube TV do—it has few news channels and no sports content. Still, Philo performs well across many platforms and might make sense if you enjoy its enjoyable channel lineup.
Philo Plans and Prices
For $28 per month, you can explore every Phili channel. Philo also offers a decent collection of add-ons. For instance, the $11-per-month Starz add-on bundles the Starz, Starz Encore, and Starz Kids & Family channels. Likewise, Movies & More costs $3 per month and features five channels (both the live channel and their on-demand libraries): Cinémoi, HDNet Movies, MGM HD, Reelz, and Sony Movies.
For comparison, Sling TV’s Orange or Blue plans cost $40 per month and $45 per month, or $60 as a bundle. Despite their slightly higher price, Sling TV’s plans have several popular news and sports channels and are a better choice than Philo for most audiences. Hulu + Live TV costs $82.99 per month, YouTube TV starts at $72.99 per month, DirecTV Stream starts at $101.98 per month, and Fubo starts at $79.99 per month.
On-demand video streaming services are much more affordable. For instance, Amazon Prime Video is $8.99 per month, Apple TV+ costs $9.99 per month, and Disney+ charges $9.99 per month. Netflix’s Standard plan (the lowest tier we recommend) and Max are more expensive at $15.49 per month and $16.99 per month, respectively.
If you don’t want to pay for your entertainment, check out our roundup of the best free video streaming services. Some services, like Tubi, focus on mainstream movies and on-demand shows.
What Can You Watch on Philo?
With Philo, you can stream more than 70 channels, including Animal Planet, BBC America, BET, Cooking Channel, Comedy Central, Discovery Channel, Food Network, HGTV, IFC, Lifetime, Logo, and the Travel Channel. Other channels include Cheddar Big News, Hallmark, OWN, PeopleTV, SCI, and Tastemade. AMC+ is integrated into the service. Sling TV’s Orange and Blue tiers are closest in scope to Philo’s lineup. If you don’t care about watching live TV, Max’s lineup includes on-demand shows from many of those same channels.
Note that Philo’s entire lineup works regardless of your location in the US; none are subject to location restrictions. On the flip side, you don’t get any local channels, as you do with Hulu + Live TV and YouTube TV.
(Credit: Philo/PCMag)
As with other live TV services, you can watch much more than just live feeds. If a show or movie runs on a channel, you can likely watch it on-demand. In terms of on-demand TV series, the number of available episodes and seasons varies with each show—sometimes you can only watch the current season, and other times Philo has the full run. Since Philo has many popular movie channels, the service makes it into our roundup of the best movie streaming services. However, cinephiles may want to consider The Criterion Channel or Mubi, as both have larger, actively curated libraries.
Philo also offers a Free Channels section. Here, anyone can watch 100 free channels with preprogrammed content, such as Bloomberg Television, Revry, and Gusto TV. Pluto TV and Xumo offer similar channels.
Philo focuses on entertainment and lifestyle channels, so you won’t find sports networks in its lineup—one way it keeps costs low. For example, CBS Sports, ESPN, FOX- and NBC-owned RSNs, and league-specific channels, such as the NFL Network and NBA TV, are not available. If you are interested in sports, check out our roundup of the best sports streaming services. Philo has sparse news content, but it offers BBC News, Cheddar, and Newsy. Cable mainstays such as CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, and PBS are all missing. Most other live TV streaming services offer far more sports and news channels (in addition to the entertainment channels that Philo has). To be fair, those services also cost significantly more.
Philo is an easy recommendation if you don’t care about news or sports channels. If you do, Philo is still cheap enough that you could subscribe to both it and a cheap on-demand service to supplement coverage.
Getting Started With Philo
Philo is unique because you can sign up and log in to your account with your phone number or email address. However, Philo does not require a password for your account. Instead, it sends you an SMS text or email with a six-digit code (depending on the method you used), which you enter to gain access. This is slightly more secure than a traditional sign-in method because it requires you to have access to the secondary method, but it’s not quite true multi-factor authentication. Traditional implementations require you to sign in with a username and a password first, before sending an additional login token to a linked account.
Philo offers dedicated apps for mobile platforms (Android and iOS) and media streaming devices (Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, Android TV, and Roku) devices, but not for game consoles. Hulu is unique in its support for the Nintendo Switch.
Philo on the Web
Philo uses a dark design with blue and white accents. Although it uses a lot of rounded corners for elements, it still looks sharp. Across the top, the interface displays three top-level header items: Home, Guide, and Saved. A search bar and the profile settings section are accessible from the upper-right-hand side of the screen. The search tool is powerful. When you enter a query, it searches for channels, movies, shows, and episodes as well as descriptions. The full-screen search results page is useful because it enables you to drill down into the search results by content category.
The User section is divided into two sections, Settings and Account, but both are a bit bare. From the Settings page, you can edit your name, email, or phone address. You can toggle two settings here: Start Channel Playback From Live (as opposed to from the beginning) and Do Not Sell My Personal Information (which relates to the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018).
(Credit: Philo/PCMag)
The Home section highlights noteworthy shows in a top-level slider, while side-scrolling lists of different program categories populate the page below. For example, one row contains new content from shows you’ve saved, and another displays trending series.
One cool part of the interface is that the play button (which appears on top of content thumbnails) shows the playback progress of live programming. So, for example, an episode that is a quarter of the way over will show a circle around the play button with a quarter of it highlighted. Clicking the icon in the bottom-left corner of a thumbnail lets you view more info about the programming and browse through related content. However, you cannot directly add something to your DVR library without clicking it.
In the Guide section, you can browse all the channel offerings for current, past, and future programming. Philo has improved the organization of this page substantially since the time of our last review. Channels are now listed alphabetically down the left-hand side of the screen, with easy-to-read programming blocks in the middle. Philo now lists the programming date if you scroll away from the current one, but there’s still no easy way to jump back. Oddly, scrolling through past and future content happens on a per-channel basis; the rest of the guide still shows the current programming for all the other channels.
We like that Philo includes the ability to favorite channels (hover over the channel logo and select the heart icon), which moves those channels to the top of the list for easy access. The See More button is also useful for getting more details about the upcoming programming for a specific channel. Click on a channel’s logo to see the current programming guide on a branded page and browse top shows and movies.
The last section, Saved, groups together all the shows and movies you save in one area. When you click on a show, as in any other section, it displays all the available content. In a later section, we explain how Philo’s DVR storage works in more detail.
Philo on Mobile
We had no issues signing into the Philo app on an Android smartphone. Philo’s Android and iOS apps are nearly identical and maintain the web interface’s attractive look, sporting the same dark background with blue and white elements. The app performs well, and we did not experience any lag or stutters when navigating its sections or when streaming content.
(Credit: Philo/PCMag)
A bottom navigation bar houses six icons: Home, Guide, Top, Saved, Search, and one for your account profile. All these categories are functionally identical to their web counterparts, but the account section is pretty bare. You need to visit Philo’s website to update your subscription settings. You cannot download saved shows for offline viewing.
Playback Experience
The web playback interface is clean and simple. In addition to the standard playback and volume controls, you also get buttons for saving a show to your DVR, toggling closed captions, and setting the playback quality (auto, low, medium, or high).
When you launch a live stream, you either need to start at the very beginning or jump to the live broadcast; you can only select a point in between once you reach it through playback. Philo includes a Start Over and Live button on either side of the screen. Philo’s mobile playback interface resembles the desktop one. The only difference is that you can drag your finger from either side to scrub through programming.
(Credit: Philo/PCMag)
Philo does not list any network speed requirements for streaming purposes. According to a company representative, it supports all common browsers and should run fine on most internet connections. If you do plan to use Philo from a mobile device, make sure to connect to a Wi-Fi network, since data streaming costs could add up quickly.
Philo’s live TV streams top out at 720p/30fps, while on-demand content supports up to 1080p resolution. Many on-demand video streaming services offer some content in 4K, as do Fubo and YouTube TV for live streams. Philo supports standard Surround 2.0 audio. Note that because Philo uses live channel streams, you have to watch all the ads with live broadcasts.
We tested Philo’s performance over a home Ethernet network (200Mbps download). When we selected a live broadcast of the Animal Planet show My Cat From Hell, the stream launched quickly and continued without any stutters. Switching channels did not trip up the service, either. Similarly, after we saved Godzilla (2014) to our account, Philo had no trouble starting or maintaining the stream at high quality.
DVR and Other Features
Philo works differently than other services when it comes to DVR content. Instead of adding a single episode or program at a time, you add entire shows, and Philo makes all the available content ready for binge-watching. Philo does not impose storage limits on your DVR content and retains content for up to a year. Even free channels enjoy unlimited DVR recordings for 30 days.
Again, Philo does not let you download saved shows for offline viewing. Many on-demand video streaming services, including Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, and Max, support offline downloads, but we have not tested any live TV services that allow you to do so with DVR content.
You can save shows and movies from as far back as two weeks, but previously aired shows are only available for playback if they were broadcast in the past 72 hours. In any case, saving a TV show or movie makes it easier to determine if and when it will air again.
One thing to note is that some saved shows and moves still include ads, which means you’ll have to deal with some annoying interruptions. For example, the actual run time for Captain Phillips is only 2 hours and 14 minutes, but the playback bar showed a total run time of 2 hours and 32 minutes (a lot of ads). Philo’s help page details how your ability to skip ads depends on the channel and whether the programming is available on demand. A representative from Philo explains, “When you save a show or movie, anything currently airing or scheduled to air will be recorded to your DVR, and you can skip the ads. You cannot skip ads on anything that aired before you saved it.” The representative also noted that all DVR content should be able to be fast-forwarded.
For comparison, YouTube TV imposes no DVR storage limit and keeps shows for nine months. Fubo lets you record up to 250 hours of content and keep it as long as you subscribe. Hulu lifted its storage limits. Sling TV’s base DVR limit is 50 hours. DirecTV Stream limits you to 20 hours of storage by default. You can pay to upgrade the storage capabilities of DirecTV Stream, Fubo, and Sling TV.
(Credit: Philo/PCMag)
Philo supports up to three concurrent streams, which is about average. DirecTV Stream lets you stream on up to 20 devices on your home network simultaneously. You can add up to 10 profiles to Philo, which makes it ideal for larger households. Each profile gets personalized recommendations and distinct saved content libraries. Disney+, Netflix, and Prime Video also support multiple viewing profiles.
Previously, Philo had discussed plans to introduce social features, such as co-watching capabilities, but nothing is currently available. In the meantime, Hulu, Netflix, Plex, and Prime Video have all added co-watching features.
For more on streaming, check out five reasons to ditch your video subscription and keep cable. Learn how to pick streaming services that fit your budget, and enjoy all sorts of reality show trash. Read why streaming services have a moral obligation to archive their catalogs. Finally, check out our recommended streaming video guides if you don’t know what to watch.
Accessibility and Parental Controls
Philo offers a Closed Captioning (CC) toggle on its playback screen. On the web, you can’t change the text’s size, color, or positioning. Other platforms do include some customization options. YouTube TV offers more consistent options across platforms. Amazon Prime Video and Netflix go one step further with their audio descriptions feature, an audible narration option that relays scene changes and other on-screen actions.
Despite offering the ability to create profiles for each user, Philo lacks parental control options. Sling TV is among the few live streaming services to offer parental control tools for restricting content by rating. Many on-demand streaming services, including Max and Disney+, implement such features.
Can You Watch Philo With a VPN?
If you’re concerned with privacy and security, you should use a VPN on all your devices and at all times. Unfortunately, some video streaming services don’t work if you are connected to a VPN, sometimes due to content licensing deals or geographic restrictions. Philo, for example, is only available to users in the US. You could try to find a VPN that works with all your favorite services, but remember that access may be inconsistent. Some video streaming services are strict about blocking VPN traffic and may implement new policies that prevent access.
We tested Philo by connecting an Android phone and desktop PC to a US-based Mullvad VPN server and trying to stream content on Philo. We did not have any issues launching live streams or watching saved content. When we tried a server in Sweden, Philo blocked our access. Again, your experience may vary.
Verdict: Low-Cost Live Television
Many live streaming services claim to offer the best selection of shows or networks, but few cost as little as Philo at $28 per month. With a subscription, you get access to more than 70 entertainment and lifestyle channels, along with on-demand content from those providers. General audiences looking for a cable replacement should note its lack of news and sports channels. Still, its price might be low enough to justify subscribing to it in addition to an on-demand option, such as Netflix. If you truly miss the content variety a traditional cable subscription offers, Editors’ Choice winners Hulu + Live TV or YouTube TV are more well-rounded services.
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The Bottom Line
Live TV streaming service Philo offers a valuable mix of entertainment and lifestyle channels at a reasonable price, but it has few news networks and no sports content.
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About Jordan Minor
Senior Analyst, Software
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About Ben Moore
Managing Editor, Software
