The world of mobile entertainment and digitalization has enabled the rise of streaming platforms like Prime Video and Netflix. With the evolving environments in the world, these streaming platforms are expanding at an unbelievable pace. The movie streaming and OTT platforms like these are competing with each other and giving tough choices for the consumers as well. Out of all the existing platforms, these two are the major giants in the race. Through this article, we’ll help you to decide which is best – Amazon Prime Video or Netflix.
Let’s look at a variety of factors, and compare & contrast them. To decide which is best – Amazon Prime Video or Netflix.
1# Size of libraries
Both the media platforms support seamless streaming of movies and TV Shows. These libraries of media include shows from all over the world, with a variety of genres and languages. But with regards to the exact size of libraries, Netflix has a huge number over 100,000. Whereas Prime video contains only over 40,000 to 50,000 shows. In this regard, Netflix has an upper hand in terms of variety and quantity.
2# Subscribers
Netflix being a bigger giant on international grounds has about 220.67 million paid subscribers from all around the world. And Amazon also has over 200 million subscriptions, thus giving equal competition to Netflix. This would suggest that both the platforms are going hand-in-hand for the consumers. It’s a known fact that people are shifting to OTT platforms from all around the world, and this wave just keeps increasing with time.
3# Streaming Devices
Each Amazon Prime member has access to three simultaneous devices for streaming. The same media can only be streamed simultaneously on two devices. This restriction does not apply to Netflix; if you are a Premium tier user, you are free to view the same content simultaneously on up to four devices. When you are going to choose a plan for your whole friends gang or family, you would want to access the media and movies from anywhere. This means that you should be able to access your subscription from multiple independent devices and have fun according to your likes. Both Prime Video and Netflix allow for this.
4# Content
When we talk about movies, it’s a fact that Amazon Prime has more movies than Netflix. Sadly, many of the movies that Amazon sells are B-grade classics or straight-to-video garbage that you will probably never want to watch. There are some greater hits scattered among those films, but even these are most likely at least a few years old. The films that Netflix does offer are typical of a higher standard despite the fact that it offers fewer movies overall. One interesting thing about Prime video is that abstracts certain movies as rentals. It wouldn’t be part of your regular subscription, but you could be able to rent them accordingly for a certain period of time.
Netflix is by far the leader in terms of television shows. It not only offers a wider variety of series programming, but several of its original shows have also been among the most popular in recent years. For that matter, even Amazon Prime Video offers a decent domain of original shows.
However, we can get an overall outlook in terms of quality, and conclude that Netflix offers higher quality and range of content and media. This conclusion can be based on the popularity, content range, originality of shows, and standards of production and streaming.
5# Pricing
If we talk about prices and ranges, Netflix has tiered subscription plans. On comparing both ranges for a similar domain or tier, we can conclude that Amazon Prime Video is way cheaper than Netflix.
The standalone Amazon Prime Video package and the Basic Netflix subscription are your least expensive choices in terms of the annual cost. However, you can purchase the entire Amazon Prime subscription with a plethora of benefits for just $12 more per year than you would pay for Netflix’s most affordable plan.
6# Closed Caption Compatibility
Both the platforms support subtitles or CC compatibility for almost all the shows that are streaming on the platforms. This allows any person or subscriber to watch a foreign film or show without having to worry about the language or region barriers. The platforms are enabling global standards for entertainment beyond any barriers.
7# Audio Quality
Netflix enables Dolby digital 5.1 audio. And similarly, even Amazon Prime video provides all HD movies/TV shows encoded with Dolby Digital 5.1. Along with video quality, these high audio quality standards provide an immersive and blissful audio-visual experience for the consumers.
8# Additional benefits
With Netflix’s premium subscription plans, we could access all the high qualities of video and audio and premium standards of downloads, streaming, etc; Other than these, there are no additionally added pros to Netflix’s premium subscriptions. This is because Netflix is an individual media streaming platform that is not a subsidy or product of any other multi-domain organization like Amazon Prime.
Amazon Prime Video, on the other hand, provides you with much more benefits for a premium Prime subscription. A prime subscription not only gives you access to high streaming standards, but also enables free shipping of products, Prime Music, free kindle content access, and many more deals for online shopping options on the Amazon Prime platform. All of this comes with a prime membership.
9# Downloads
The amount of content that can be downloaded is one area where the two services diverge. While Prime Video has a 25-download limit, Netflix allows up to 100 downloads at once. On all platforms, you get the same amount of time to watch them, though. After 30 days, downloaded content must be watched. After starting to watch, you have 48 hours to finish it before the download becomes inactive.
10# Time to Decide
If you have followed up till here, you now have a fair understanding of both the platforms on various domains or factors. Now, it’s up to you to decide which is best for you – Amazon Prime Video or Netflix.
To take a better decision, always have these thumb rules in mind, while analyzing your choices. The main aim is to choose a platform based on your purpose. For instance, if your aim is to have a cost-saving and economic platform, you should go for an Amazon Prime video subscription. This allows you to stay in an economically friendly state and also provides you with other additional benefits as discussed previously. We advise choosing the Basic Netflix subscription or the standalone Amazon Prime Video tier if you want to spend as little money as possible.
The monthly fee for Netflix allows for the ability to sign up, pause, and reactivate the service as needed. Currently, Netflix’s catalog is larger than Prime’s. The distinction might become less noticeable in the future as Prime continues to broaden its collection of content.
In terms of originality or freshness of content, and quality or quantity standards, we would suggest you go with a Netflix subscription. In the end, though, we strongly advise selecting the Basic Netflix package and the full version of Amazon Prime. If you do, you will receive both the vast range of content that Netflix offers and the benefits that come with Amazon Prime.