I bought a Roku for the hardware but stayed for the free streaming library

Derek Malcolm

Wed, July 15, 2026 at 7:45 PM UTC

The Roku Channel app — Corbin Davenport / How-To Geek

I'm no Apple fanboy, but I'm not afraid to admit that when it comes to streaming devices, Apple TV has been my go-to for years. One sits under the TV in my main home theater; my family uses iPhones and iPads, and it's the hub of our entertainment at home. But when I needed streaming devices for the older TV at our family cottage and for a second TV at home, the math got ugly — Apple's box currently costs over $200 new, and multiplying that across rooms that will mostly run rainy-day movies and the occasional Netflix binge felt like overkill.

So I bought a $50 Roku Streaming Stick 4K , and then another one. Sorted. But what was supposed to be a budget compromise surprised me — the brand's free streaming service I'd been scrolling past became the thing I use most.

Come for the hardware

Affordable, simple, and capable

Person holding Roku streaming stick 4K — Roku

Roku's current lineup runs from the $40 Streaming Stick Plus to the $100 Roku Ultra , which means I could put streamers on two extra TVs for less than the price of a single Apple TV. Sure, I could go secondhand, but even older Apple TV HDs on Facebook Marketplace can hit the $70 mark.

My pick, the $50 Streaming Stick 4K, was all I needed, though. It has 4K with HDR10+ and Dolby Vision, long-range Wi-Fi (the cottage TV is off the back, in our guest cabin, where my wife prefers I watch my stories), and a pocketable design that plugs straight into an HDMI port and draws power from the TV itself. No wall outlet, no mess of cables, and I've even taken it with me when traveling.

Mostly, though, it just gets out of the way. Setup takes minutes; all my streaming apps are there, even Plex for accessing my library at home. The home screen is a simple grid of apps rather than a billboard, and AirPlay 2 support means I can connect my iPhone to it, too, for some Apple TV-like functionality like casting to it and playing music and podcasts. Bueno.

Stay for The Roku Channel

The free app I ignored surprised me

Every Roku device puts The Roku Channel front and center, and for months I found it annoying. I shuffled the icon to the bottom of the menu and treated it like the game that comes with a new console — free and skippable.

A slow cottage weekend fixed that. The Roku Channel is Roku's free, ad-supported streaming service, and the scale is bigger than I'd assumed. It has a sizable library of more than 80,000 movies and shows, over 500 live TV channels, and no subscription required. It competes with Tubi and Pluto TV in the free ad-supported streaming television (FAST ) area (it's actually No. 1 among them, according to Nielsen ) and offers an ever-rotating library of new and classic movies and shows (I'm old, so I appreciate the old stuff), news, and live sports.

To be clear about why it exists, though — Roku is an advertising company , and this library is the lure. But since I've gotten used to the ad-supported, "cheaper" tiers of my pay services like Disney+ and Paramount+, the commercials on The Roku Channel seem less annoying at $0.

What I've actually been watching

Rainy-day viewing, sorted

The Roku Channel home page on a TV — Derek Malcolm / How-To Geek

Fair warning, this is a FAST service, complete with loads of filler. But the hit rate surprised me. I've gone from Sicario to Moonlight to Platoon , then cleansed the palate with Stargate and Meatballs . It's perfect rainy-day cottage fodder that we tap into a lot.

The series shelf runs even deeper — a bottomless well of cooking and reality TV ( Hell's Kitchen ), British comedies like The IT Crowd and The Inbetweeners , dramas like The Fall and Wentworth , and classic sitcoms that streaming forgot. I lost a weekend to Three's Company and Who's the Boss reruns (Eh oh! Oh, eh!).

The original slate is short but sweet. Weird: The Al Yankovic Story (Daniel Radcliffe) is just brilliant, which is why it won the Emmy for Outstanding Television Movie, and the new Kevin Hart action comedy, Die Hart, has some genuinely funny moments. One of the service's acquired titles, Toast of Tinseltown (Matt Berry), is branded in the U.S. as a Roku Original, but either way, it's just a chef's kiss.

One honest gripe, though: titles rotate monthly, and browsing can feel like a yard sale. But it does have clever organizational categories like New This Month, Not on Netflix, and Hidden Gemsthat you don't often see on other streamers.

You don't even need a Roku

How to watch it even without the hardware

Here's a twist that's more for you than me — The Roku Channel doesn't actually require a Roku device. You can access it in a web browser at T heRokuChannel.com , in Roku's mobile app, and through apps on Amazon Fire TV devices and TVs, Samsung smart TVs, and Google TV devices. The holdouts? There's no app for LG TVs — or, ironically, for Apple TV. But that's OK; I do most of my Roku Channel viewing at the cottage anyway.

You learn something new every day

My Apple TV isn't going anywhere — it still runs my main home setup, and I'll probably still overpay for another one when the latest model drops this fall (supposedly). But I've stopped thinking of the Rokus as a compromise. The hardware got me in the door, but the free library made me stay.

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