Funimation, as well as Crunchyroll, are the two biggest and most well-known dedicated streaming services for anime today. Both provide fans who love Japanese animated films with lots of value. However, if you only sign up for one of the services that you could choose from, which one should it be? Let’s take a look at which one is the best choice for streaming anime.
Pricing
Although you can access both Funimation and Crunchyroll for free, as you’re willing to endure advertisements, there are some limitations.
When we consider the paid options, things become more exciting since both of them now have multiple paid levels.
Crunchyroll
- Its Basic Fan plan is $7.99 with tax each month. It gives unlimited library access and no advertisements. Also, you’ll get new episodes of simulcast series within an hour of when they are aired in Japan. The Digital manga app is also included. a decent manga library and can be streamed only just one device at a time.
- Its Mega Fan plan is $9.99 with tax each month. It allows users to stream on up to four devices and download content to the app to watch offline. The plan also gives you access to special events as well as an exclusive discount on physical merchandise purchased through Crunchyroll’s online store.
- In the end, the Ultimate Fan Plan is the Ultimate Fan Plan. costs $14.99 with tax each month. This will increase the number of streams up to 6 and includes physical rewards like an annually-scheduled “swag bag” and a larger discount once-off in the online shop.
Funimation
- Funimation’s basic plan, dubbed Premium cost $5.99 per month. It includes free streaming of their entire library as well as two streams simultaneously.
- Premium Plus costs $7.99 monthly, allows five streams, and permits offline downloads. Additionally, there are events for members only as well as early access to sales as well as free shipping on orders that exceed $20, as well as member-only special offers.
- Its Premium Plus plan is available as a $99.99 year-long subscription. The only difference is that the free shipping comes with no minimum purchase requirement and you’ll receive an exclusive year-long gift.
The winner is: We think Funimation has the best mid-and entry-level deal.
Interface and Streaming Experience
The two Funimation and Crunchyroll provide mobile apps for Android and iOS as well as browser-based web interfaces and are quite similar. If you’ve ever used Netflix, Plex, Amazon Prime video, or any other streaming service, then you’ll be satisfied using the other Crunchyroll as well as Funimation.
On the streaming aspect of things:
- Crunchyroll has consistently lower streaming speed than Funimation during our tests.
- Crunchyroll isn’t the best, with continuous buffering over the same 40Mbps connection, and frequent interruptions to streaming of lower quality. It is possible to mitigate this with a subscription that permits downloads of episodes.
- The issue with Crunchyroll was present even when tested using each of the Android as well as iOS platforms, as well as on a variety of different connectivity options, including mobile internet.
The winner is Funimation is sewing this winner.
Sub vs Dubs
The issue of which anime is better is the topic of heated debate within the fandom. It is also easier to distinguish from Funimation as well as Crunchyroll. In the past, Funimation has focused on offering anime with dubbed subtitles, whereas Crunchyroll has been focusing on providing the quickest possible anime with no subtitles.
Before that, the Funimation and Crunchyroll collaboration ended in 2018 They collaborated on content. Since that time, Crunchyroll offers dubs on certain films in different languages, like German, Portuguese, and a couple of other languages.
Funimation provides dubs of several more shows but they are only in English according to what we can tell.
The winner is No clear winner here.
- If you are looking for the most shows that are dubbed into English as is possible, Funimation is for you.
- If you are a fan of subtitles or would like your anime to be dubbed in a different language than English, Crunchyroll is the most suitable option.
Anime Selection
It’s not an easy comparison to draw. Both have libraries of similar size as well as Funimation provides older series and Crunchyroll provides more recent content. But each comes with its distinct selection of shows. This means that the choices here are very personal depending on what shows you’d like to see.
Winner, The two have plenty to see in general.
- Crunchyroll is the best option to choose if you are looking to stay up-to-date with all the latest simulcasts.
- Crunchyroll also hosts a large number of original shows which it has helped finance and holds its rights over.
- Funimation is better if are looking to watch classic films.
Regional Availability
Like every streaming platform, there will always be issues with regional licensing to deal with.
Crunchyroll appears to be available in all countries. However, certain shows will not be available on the website if they’re licensed in your area.
Funimation is available only exclusively in the USA, Canada, the UK, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand.
The winner is Crunchyroll through one country mile. Pun intended.
Extra Content
Do these platforms provide content that isn’t anime?
- Funimation doesn’t.
- The plans of Crunchyroll include a manga program that has a decent choice of manga. Crunchyroll is also home to a publishing division for games however, it’s not connected to the streaming subscription that is the primary one.
winner: Crunchyroll’s manga offering is a delightful feature, even though the app is unstable.
The Great Sony Merger
At the time that this article was published, Sony concluded a monumental $1.2Bn purchase of Crunchyroll. This means that Funimation as well as Crunchyroll are now part of this same entity. It’s not clear what this means for the subscribers however, stay tuned because we’ll update this post when something changes shortly.