Is Disney+ Worth the Subscription?

If you visited this page prior to the release of Disney+, you’ve likely found a combination of previews and reviews that used what we knew about Disney+ back then to speculate about its future. Over the years, Disney+ has significantly become the space for its original films as well as shows from other franchises. If you’re into the magic of Disney and don’t mind a few browser bugs, Disney+ might be your new favorite streaming platform.

Disney+: All the Magic of Disney in One Place

What You Can Watch On Disney+

Just as Netflix discovered that creating original content was the most cost-effective way to run a streaming service, so has Disney — and it didn’t just settle for what it already had, either. As a prelude to its big entry into streaming, Disney acquired most of 21st Century Fox’s assets in a blockbuster deal. The result is what is inarguably the most impressive stable of media properties on the planet.

When it first launched, Disney+ provided limited content through its trial launch in 2019. Now, Disney is making full use of those properties with Disney+, becoming the “forever home” of Disney, Pixar, Marvel Studios, and Star Wars films. Existing Marvel Studios films and its upcoming “Phase 5” and “Phase 6” original shows and films are included in the package. Star Wars fans will have access to existing Star Wars films, the “Star Wars: The Clone Wars” animated series, and new content like the Disney+ original series “The Mandalorian” and a new season of The Clone Wars.

The Disney+ library has become better, too. Recent releases like “Star Wars: Young Jedi Adventures,” have proven themselves worthy of their spot in the Disney canon — and their spot in the Disney+ library, too. Though the release pace isn’t as blistering as it is with some of Disney’s competitors, the Disney+ releases have quality on their side. Virtually everything Disney+ adds is excellent. That’s in contrast to mass-producers like Netflix, and reminds me more of the quality-over-quantity approach of Max, another service I love.

All of this makes Disney+ a must-subscribe service for Marvel fans, Star Wars fans, and Disney fans. It also makes a strong case to families — Disney is marketing it as a family-friendly streaming service, free of the more serious content that Netflix offers (Disney is keeping that stuff on Hulu) and bursting at the seams with the family fare that Disney built its brand on.

The one negative for Disney+ on the content side of things is that the service’s library is smaller than the one available through Netflix. Of course, Disney+ is also cheaper than Netflix (more on that later), so perhaps this is to be expected.

Even with all of its licensed content, Disney needs some hits among its originals to compete in an increasingly fractured streaming marketplace. Good news: The new Disney+ originals seem pretty solid. “The Mandalorian” hasn’t matched the all-time highs of the Star Wars franchise (it’s a high bar!), but it also didn’t rank low, either. It had a bit of a Marvel Studios vibe to it — consistently solid, if not particularly risky. “The Mandalorian” feels as expensive as a Max show without feeling as daring, but its competence and quality keep it from feeling as uninspiring as many of Netflix’s all-too-numerous and all-to-forgettable originals have lately. The sense I get is that Disney+ will make shows you’ll love watching, if not shows that you’ll want to revisit in 10 years or which shape the future of TV. If you like the sort of stuff that Disney has been making for Star Wars and (particularly) Marvel fans for the past few years, then you’ll probably dig this, too. And if this is indicative of the quality of the many planned original series on Disney+, then the future is bright for this streaming service. (By the way, despite my cynical takes on the Rotten Tomatoes era, I really did like “The Mandalorian!”)

As some viewers have noted on social media, Disney+ is not always the most careful steward of the legacy programming it has in its vault. Old episodes of “The Simpsons,” for instance, have been variously cropped and stretched in order to fit modern widescreen TVs. Old-school Mickey Mouse shorts have been cleaned up significantly and lack some of their old analog glow.

Disney+ has a smaller library compared to Netflix, but its brand-name content makes it a worthy competitor. If there’s anything to complain about, it’s the fact that Disney+ perks have come at Netflix’s expense — that the halcyon days of a cheaper Netflix that included just about anything you could want from Disney, Fox, and other media companies are now gone thanks to the arrival of streaming services like Disney+ and NBCUniversal’s Peacock. A streaming service landscape that has fractured along media company lines is arguably not the best one for cord cutters.

But 2011 Netflix is gone. Here in 2023, Disney+ represents a pretty big chunk of content under one roof at a time when that is rare and getting rarer.

Disney+ Features and Specs

It’s a breeze to sign up for Disney+. Just start a free trial on the Disney+ website and then log in on whatever device you’d like to stream on. You can also sign up through Roku or another platform — though I wouldn’t recommend that right now, for reasons that we’ll cover in just a moment.

On my first visit to the Disney+ app, I made a username and chose an icon. Or, at least, that’s what was supposed to happen — but my app (on Roku) was having trouble. I got the username down eventually, but the app would not load the icon options, so I was stuck with the generic old-school Mickey Mouse that the app defaulted to. (Later, after the first-day rush, I was able to change my icon. Disney fans will be happy to know that there are a ton of options.)

With my account created, I decided to check out Disney+ on other platforms. That’s where I ran into trouble. Signing up for Disney+ may be easy, but getting your account straight on multiple platforms is a little tougher. If you sign up through a platform like Roku and then try to sign in on another device, you might run into issues. I did; judging by what I saw on social media, I wasn’t the only one. The issue was worked out eventually, though, and I was in.

Disney+ features titles in rows, much like Netflix. But it adds a few content discovery features that are welcome. The bad news is that Disney+, like most streaming services these days, seems pretty convinced that its users don’t care about being able to quickly sort titles by genre or other obvious factors. That said, Disney+ does offer a few big shortcut buttons that will direct users to pages full of content from one of Disney’s big brands. There’s a “Star Wars” button that will send users to a page of Star Wars options, a “Marvel” button that leads to a Marvel Studios page, and so on. Content is still broken down into rows within those specific pages. It was also possible to sort content into categories like “originals,” “movies,” and “series,” as well as to explore themed “collections,” via the Search page.

The app was well-designed, but not always responsive. I didn’t experience any streaming issues and the overall design of Disney+ made it easy to find shows I wanted to watch, but I did experience some serious slowdowns during that process. Disney seems to have done a better job of keeping its streaming smooth than it has of keeping its app experience that way.

There are things worth complaining about here, but no deal-breakers. The Disney+ app works, and that’s enough. Besides, people don’t care too much about the app; it’s the content that has made Disney+ such an important arrival.

Disney+ Streaming Quality & Compatibility

The Disney+ launch drew a lot of fans — more fans, as it turned out, than Disney was actually prepared for. On launch day, Disney+ suffered from various glitches that generated social media buzz and a few unflattering headlines.

But a little trouble during huge crushes of traffic is not unusual, and it’s not necessarily reflective of how a service will perform on a day-to-day basis. In our trials since launch day, Disney+ has performed admirably. It has streamed content smoothly and reliably. That includes 4K content, even over a Wi-Fi (as opposed to wired) connection.

Speaking of 4K content, Disney+ has a fair bit of it, and it’s available to every subscriber — there’s no Netflix-style hierarchy here. While Disney+ doesn’t offer 4K content for every title, there’s a decent amount of it to enjoy, and it’s a nice plus for Disney+.

Disney+ Platform Support

Disney’s platform support was superb from the launch. It almost wasn’t: As recently as a week before its big debut, Disney+ lacked a Fire TV app. But a last-minute deal with Amazon secured the Disney+ experience for users of that very popular home streaming platform and completed the Disney+ collection of launch-day apps for major platforms.

As of this writing, Disney+ is available on Roku, Fire TV, Apple TV, Chromecast, and Android TV. It’s also available on iOS and Android mobile devices as well as desktop via the web app. Even video game systems are covered — PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, to be exact (sorry, Nintendo Switch fans).

Disney+ Pricing & Value

The price of Disney+ is one of the aspects of the service that really sets it apart. Rather than tackle Netflix with a service at a similar price point, Disney is undercutting its more established competitor with a cheaper service.

Disney+ costs $7.99 per month, which is cheaper than Netflix (for reference, the most popular Netflix subscription costs $13.99 per month). That said, Disney+ announced that it will increase its ad-free tier plan from $10.99 per month to $13.99 per month in October 2023.

And Disney sweetens even that deal by providing different ways to save. If you’re willing to pay for a full year upfront, you can get Disney+ for its annual rate of $79.99, saving yourself about 16 bucks a year. And if you want more than one streaming service from Disney, you can get three of them – Disney+, Hulu (the on-demand, with-ads version), and ESPN+ — as a bundle for $14.99 per month (starting in October 2023). Perhaps not coincidentally, that’s almost the exact same price as Netflix’s most popular plan.

Disney+ being offered at a low cost is a virtue in this space. To be clear, you’re not necessarily getting more for your money than you would with Netflix; remember, the library provided through Disney+ is smaller. But as streaming becomes more fractured, more cord-cutters may want to juggle multiple subscriptions. In that world, the leaner and cheaper Disney+ makes sense simply because of its price point. Besides, Disney has an answer for those who want an all-in-one experience at Netflix’s price point: The aforementioned Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+ bundle is perfect for those whose budget expectations are still scaled to Netflix’s price.

Verdict: Should You Subscribe to Disney+?

Disney+ has its flaws, but it overcomes them easily on the strength of its content. That sweet, sweet Disney IP is more than enough reason for fans of franchises like Marvel and Star Wars to come rushing to Disney+. Throw in “The Simpsons,” classic Disney animated features, and some solid new original programming, and you have a great streaming service — one that costs less than competitors like Netflix, to boot.

If there’s anything to complain about here, it’s less about Disney+ and more about the streaming landscape in general. With streaming segregated by media companies, the biggest media company on the planet has an obvious advantage, and Disney+ delivers. Disney+ is an absolutely essential streaming service, but it’s okay if that doesn’t excite you.

At the end of the day, though, this is the world we’re living in. A bunch of different streaming services are vying for our attention and our money. Based on our experience, we think Disney+ should be among the ones that get yours.