Hidive vs Crunchyroll: Which Anime Streamer Actually Earns the Subscription

How I Tested This

I ran both subscriptions side by side for six weeks. From mid-March through the last week of April 2026, in a small flat in Surry Hills, Sydney, with a Hisense TV running the official Apple TV apps and a six-year-old MacBook Air for the laptop tests.

What I actually watched while testing:

• Frieren: Beyond Journey's End simulcast catch-up on Crunchyroll (episodes 21–28).
• Princess Principal: Crown Handler movies on Hidive.
• The full Madoka Magica Rebellion rewatch on Hidive (uncensored sub).
• Solo Leveling Season 2 weekly drops on Crunchyroll.
• Made in Abyss: Dawn of the Deep Soul on Hidive.
• One Piece Wano arc dub catch-up on Crunchyroll.

I tracked weekly costs, ad load, app crashes, search quirks, dub vs sub coverage, and whether the simulcast schedule actually matched what was advertised. I also pinged a friend in Brisbane who runs a Crunchyroll Mega Fan account so I could verify the four-screen concurrent streaming claim. It works, mostly.

What Hidive and Crunchyroll Actually Are

📖 Definition. Crunchyroll is the largest dedicated anime streaming platform in the English-speaking world. It launched in 2006 as a fan upload site, went legit, was bought by AT&T, and is now wholly owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment after the Funimation merger closed in 2022. The Funimation library was folded in by early 2024.

Hidive is the smaller, scrappier alternative. It launched in 2017, owned by Sentai Filmworks (the licensing arm) and acquired in 2022 by AMC Networks. It does not try to compete on simulcast volume. Instead it leans on the back catalog Sentai built across the 2000s and 2010s plus a steady stream of uncensored, niche, and indie licenses.

Both are legal. Both pay licensing royalties. The difference is one is a Sony-owned giant and the other is a focused niche service that knows it cannot match the giant on volume so it competes on what the giant won't bother with.

Library Size and Simulcasts: The Numbers

📊 Here are the numbers I cross-checked against Tom's Guide, the official press kits, and the Reddit r/anime megathreads from March 2026.

Crunchyroll is bigger by every volume metric. That is not interesting. The interesting fact is that 6 simulcast number for Hidive — they pick a small slate every season and dub or sub it well, instead of trying to catch every show airing in Tokyo on Friday.

Pricing Compared, Including Tax and Bundle Tricks

📊 Pricing as of April 2026, pulled from each company's pricing page on April 24th and cross-referenced with the Crunchyroll February 2026 price-hike announcement.

A note on the Crunchyroll Fan tier ad situation that the marketing copy hides. As of April 2026, even the $9.99 Fan tier shows pre-roll ads on selected titles, mostly newly licensed simulcasts during their first two weeks. You only fully escape ads on Mega Fan or Ultimate Fan. This was added quietly in the February 2026 update. I missed it the first month and assumed my Apple TV was glitching.

Hidive's single-tier $9.99 plan has no ads anywhere, ever. That is one of the genuine reasons people switch.

⚖️ The honest comparison: if you would otherwise pay Crunchyroll Mega Fan ($13.99), Hidive is $4 cheaper per month for an ad-free experience but with one tenth of the catalog. If you would pay Crunchyroll Fan ($9.99 with ads), the price is identical and Hidive has fewer ads, but Crunchyroll has the simulcast monopoly.

Three Things Crunchyroll Beats Hidive At

1. The simulcast slate is genuinely a different product. When a new season starts, Crunchyroll has the show within hours of the Japanese broadcast. Hidive licenses a curated few. If you keep up with airing seasons week by week — Solo Leveling, Frieren, Apothecary Diaries, Dan Da Dan — you cannot reasonably substitute Hidive for Crunchyroll. I tried for the first two weeks of testing and just ended up watching nothing on Hidive.

2. The included manga app. Mega Fan and up gets you the Crunchyroll Manga app with 30,000+ chapters, including Solo Leveling and most of the Shueisha catalog. Hidive has no manga product at all. If you read along with what you watch, that bundle is genuinely valuable.

3. The store and merch perks. The Crunchyroll Store has the official figure and apparel range, Mega Fan gets a discount, and the loyalty points are real. I bought a Frieren plushie at 10% off using Mega Fan points in March. Petty, but worth saying.

Crunchyroll's downside on the Fan tier — and it is a real downside — is the ads. They added them in February and the marketing copy still calls Fan "ad-light." It is not. It is ad-medium.

Three Things Hidive Beats Crunchyroll At

1. The Senpai catalog and uncensored versions. If you want the original uncut versions of Made in Abyss, High School DxD, Mahou Shoujo Site, or anything where censorship was added for cable broadcast and TV airing, Hidive carries the Sentai uncensored masters. Crunchyroll only has the broadcast cuts. This is the single most-cited reason adult anime fans subscribe.

2. The older Sentai-licensed back catalog. Princess Principal, Akame ga Kill, Food Wars, Konosuba, Bofuri, Cautious Hero, Made in Abyss, Magia Record. These were Sentai licenses before Crunchyroll grew up. Some are now on Crunchyroll too (it gets confusing because of the Sony parent company), but a lot still aren't, and Hidive's older indie catalog is genuinely deeper for early-2010s shows.

3. No ads on the base plan. $9.99 = zero ads, full catalog, no upsells. That is not true on Crunchyroll Fan anymore. After February 2026, if you pay $9.99 for Crunchyroll you still see ads on simulcasts. On Hidive at $9.99, you don't.

Hidive's downside is the catalog hole on newest shows. The Fall 2025 and Spring 2026 simulcast seasons were embarrassing on Hidive — six shows total in Spring 2026 versus 42 on Crunchyroll. If you started anime in 2023 and your taste is mostly current-season stuff, Hidive will feel empty.

Where Each One Disappointed Me

⚠️ Crunchyroll on Apple TV. The app crashed three times in six weeks, always mid-episode, always on a freshly-released simulcast. Reddit r/Crunchyroll has a megathread on the same crash bug going back to 2024. The fix is force-quitting and resuming, which loses your last 30 seconds of position. Annoying.

The other Crunchyroll fail: search remembers what you watched five years ago and still recommends it harder than your current open series. I watched one episode of Naruto in 2021. The recommendation row still leads with Naruto, every time.

⚠️ Hidive's catalog gap on the latest seasons. Three of the eight shows I planned to watch during testing simply weren't on Hidive at all. Solo Leveling Season 2, Apothecary Diaries Season 2, Frieren — all Crunchyroll exclusives. Hidive's app told me each show "may be available in your region soon," which is the polite way of saying "we don't have the license."

The other Hidive fail: the search bar is useless if you misspell a series name. Crunchyroll fuzzy-matches, Hidive does literal string matching. I had to Google "Bofuri" to spell it right before Hidive would find it.

How to Pick Between Them

🧭 If you only want one subscription and you watch anime more than once a month, here is the actual decision tree, in order:

1. Do you watch current-season simulcasts (Solo Leveling, Frieren, Dan Da Dan, Spy x Family)? If yes → Crunchyroll, every time. The Spring 2026 simulcast slate was 42 vs 6. Not close.
2. Do you watch mostly older anime, Sentai-licensed series, or uncensored versions of titles like Made in Abyss or High School DxD? If yes → Hidive. The Senpai catalog and the older licenses are why this service exists.
3. Are you buying for one screen, no ads, $9.99? Hidive wins on user experience (zero ads, single tier). Crunchyroll Fan at $9.99 has ads after February 2026.
4. Do you want manga included, four streams concurrent, and offline downloads? Crunchyroll Mega Fan $13.99. Hidive has no equivalent.
5. Are you splitting with a family or flatmates? Crunchyroll Mega Fan or Ultimate Fan with shared password is the better economic split — four to six streams divided among three people. Hidive's two-stream limit is the wrong shape for sharing.

I picked Crunchyroll Mega Fan after the test. The simulcast slate decided it. If I were a different kind of fan — older catalog, uncensored sub, no ads, one screen — I would have kept Hidive.

How to Save on Either

The straightforward routes:

• Annual prepay. Both services discount roughly 17% if you pay yearly. Crunchyroll Mega Fan annual is $139.99 (works out to $11.66/mo). Hidive annual is $99.99 ($8.33/mo). The catch is you commit a year up front.
• Family / flatmate sharing. Crunchyroll Mega Fan = 4 simultaneous streams. Crunchyroll Ultimate Fan = 6 streams. Splitting Mega Fan three ways is roughly $4.66/mo per person. Both services tolerate flatmate sharing as long as billing is on one card.
• Shared subscription marketplaces. GamsGo and similar group-buy services run shared Mega Fan plans starting around $4.50/mo per slot. I have used GamsGo on the Crunchyroll account I share with my partner since January, no issues so far. The full breakdown of how shared subscription marketplaces actually work is in my Crunchyroll cheaper alternatives guide and the broader cost-splitting math is in the family plan calculator.
• Hidive 7-day free trial. Genuine, no card-required trial for the first seven days. Worth running once just to test if the catalog has the older shows you actually want before paying.

What I would not bother with: VPN tricks for "regional pricing" on either service. Crunchyroll has the same USD price worldwide now, after the unification rollout in late 2025. Hidive has always been USD-flat globally.

FAQ

Q: Can I subscribe to both Hidive and Crunchyroll at the same time?

Yes, and roughly 8% of anime viewers in the US do, according to the Anime News Network 2025 subscription survey. Combined cost is roughly $20–$24/mo. I did this for the test. It is the most catalog you can have for under the price of a single Netflix Premium.

Q: Is Hidive worth it just for the uncensored Made in Abyss?

If that is the only reason — probably no. $9.99/mo for one show is not a great rate. But Hidive's catalog has a lot of older Sentai licenses you forget exist until you see them in the catalog (Princess Principal, Bofuri, Konosuba, Akame ga Kill). The 7-day trial answers this question for you in 7 days.

Q: What is the cheapest legal way to watch Frieren in Australia?

Crunchyroll Fan tier at $9.99/mo (with ads), or a shared GamsGo Mega Fan slot at roughly $4.50/mo. Frieren is Crunchyroll-exclusive globally. There is no legal Hidive option for it.

Q: Does Hidive offer a student discount?

No, neither does Crunchyroll for monthly plans. Crunchyroll briefly offered a student rate via SheerID in 2022 and silently retired it. Both services bet on the annual prepay being the de facto student discount.

Q: Do prices include tax?

No. Both services bill in USD, list prices exclude tax, and your country's GST/VAT is added at checkout. In Australia that is 10% on top, so Crunchyroll Mega Fan at $13.99 USD is roughly $23.50 AUD per month after GST and currency conversion.

How I Verified the Pricing

Cross-checked against:

• Crunchyroll's official pricing page (crunchyroll.com/welcome) — captured April 24, 2026
• Hidive's pricing page (hidive.com/plans) — captured April 24, 2026
• Tom's Guide "Best anime streaming services 2026" article (March 28, 2026 update)
• The r/anime megathread "Crunchyroll Feb 2026 price increase discussion" (3,800+ upvotes)
• Reddit r/Hidive sticky post "What's actually on Hidive in 2026"
• Anime News Network "Spring 2026 simulcast schedule" coverage

If pricing changes after this article posts, the dates above tell you when it was last verified. Crunchyroll has changed prices three times in two years, so there is non-zero chance of another bump in 2026.

About the Author

I'm Jim Liu. I run a small portfolio of subscription-and-savings sites from a flat in Sydney — SubSaver is the one you're reading. I write about subscription services I personally pay for and have actually used, not affiliate-dump articles cobbled from press kits. The Crunchyroll Mega Fan and Hidive accounts I tested with are my own. I cancelled Hidive on April 26, 2026 after writing this. The Crunchyroll account I kept, billed annually, shared three ways with my partner and one flatmate.

If you want more like this: how to get Crunchyroll for less and what changed when Crunchyroll raised prices in February.