Disney+ Hotstar Vs Amazon Prime | Full Comparison-Which is Best

Looking to choose between Hotstar and Amazon Prime? This post gives you the complete comparison between the Disney+ Hotstar and Amazon Prime including the content, price, quality, benefits and other factors.

Which OTT makes more sense for you, this post will give you the in-depth information to make the decision. We are not just scratching the surface here.

First of all, a bit of an introduction of these 2 services.

• Disney plus Hotstar is a product of Star TV Family which is wholly owned by Walt Disney while Amazon Prime is obviously a product owned by Amazon Inc.
• As per reports, Hotstar has more than 350 million active users in India (with around 8 million paid users) while Amazon Prime has more than 11 million users.
• Hotstar was launched in India in February 2015, while Prime Video was started in December 2016, Hotstar also got recently re-branded as Disney+ Hotstar in 2020 with exclusive Disney Content added to the platform.
• Both platforms offer a ton of content ranging from Movies, TV shows, Kids Content, Original series in English as well as local language.

Now let’s get down to the main point.

Which one is better – Disney+ Hotstar or Amazon Prime?

While both Disney+ Hotstar and Amazon Prime offer a ton of content and comparable pricing, Hotstar is the preferred choice if you are looking for Live Sports, News, greater volume of content and more of kids preferred stuff. But if you are looking for amazing value for money, flexibility of watching simultaneously on multiple devices and decent mix of quality Indian and English content at cheaper prices, Amazon Prime has a clear edge.

Now before you jump to conclusions, your preferences of content can make or break the deal in your choice between Hotstar and Amazon Prime.

But we will try to evaluate all the parameters to help you in this decision.

Now one more thing to note before we proceed. In this article we will compare Disney+ Hotstar Premium Plan with Amazon Prime. We are not considering Hotstar VIP because it is a limited plan that doesn’t give you the complete access to all content on Hotstar.

Unlike Hotstar, Amazon has only one plan which gives you complete access. So to have more of an apple to apple comparison, Hotstar Premium Plan needs to be matched with Amazon Prime.

Let’s now jump into the detailed comparison between Hotstar Premium and Amazon Prime Plans starting with the Price.

1. Price

Till March 2020, Hotstar Premium and Amazon Prime were both available at ₹999/- per year.

However, from April 2020, Hotstar was re-launched as Disney + Hotstar Premium with a higher price tag of ₹1499 per year. While this helped Amazon Prime @ ₹999 to be the cheaper option for some time.

But again in December 2021, Amazon Prime annual plan price has been hiked to ₹1499.

Hence, it is a price neutral choice between the two.

But hold on.

The bigger question is what is the content you are getting at this price, right? Let’s move to that.

2. Content

This requires a much deeper level of analysis. It’s ultimately the content which will tilt the scale in favour of one over another.

So let’s first see content which is unique to these OTTs

A. Live Sports and News

Both these categories are unique and available only in Hotstar. This is where Hotstar is a clear winner.

Being a product of Star Family, Hotstar gives you plenty of options to watch live as well highlights for all kinds of sports including cricket IPL, Tennis, Football, Badminton, Kabbadi, Hockey etc.

Also, available are all types of news channels from Star Family and others as well like ABP News, India Today, Aaj Tak, Republic TV, Fox News, Fox Business as well as News channels in regional languages like Marathi, Tamil, Kannada,Telugu. This too is available as Live news option.

These 2 categories are non-existent on Amazon Prime. In fact, Hotstar was introduced as a primary sports content platform and took off with the IPL season.

B. TV Shows

This is where both Hotstar and Amazon Prime compete at a much larger level. Both the platforms offer their own unique collection of TV series, where it is becoming increasingly difficult to pick one over the other.

Some of the popular English TV series running on the platforms :

English TV Series- Available only on Hotstar

• How I Met your Mother
• Game of Thrones
• Simpsons
• Band of Brothers
• Homeland
• Big Little Lies

English TV Series- Available only on Prime

• Suits
• Big Bang Theory
• Mrs. Maisel
• Shark Tank
• Seinfeld
• The Good Wife
• Dexter
• The Office
• Young Sheldon

Let’s now move to the Hindi Shows. Here Hotstar seems to be having a wider selection especially having all the newer TV shows coming from Star Channels. Amazon Prime tries to compete by bringing in some throwback classic TV shows to the picture. Also, both the platforms are adding to their list of original series called “Hotstar Specials” on Hotstar and “Amazon Originals” on Prime.

Let’s see some of the popular offering of Hindi Shows:

Hindi Shows on Hotstar

In case of Hindi TV Shows, Hotstar has a clear edge with fresher content. Hotstar offers a ton of live TV shows from channels like Star World, Star Plus, Life Ok.

• All Star Plus Shows- Yeh Rishta kya kehlata, etc
• Dance +
• Mythological shows like Mahabharat, Mahadev
• Sarabhai vs Sarabhai
• Savdhan India

Also, there are also a decent mix of Hotstar Special Shows which are gaining popularity such as

• Hostages
• Special Ops
• The Office

Hindi Shows on Amazon Prime

Amazon prime, on the other hand, has a good mix of older classic Hindi TV shows like

• Fauji
• Yeh Jo Hai Zindagi
• Shaktimaan
• Malgudi Days
• Zabaan Sambhalke

Amazon Originals

Some of the amazon original content is also worth a watch

• The Family Man
• Panchayat
• The Forgotten Army
• Paatal Lok
• Breathe
• Laakhon mein Ek

C. Movies

This is where the competition gets fierce. Both the OTTs have a decent and growing collection of movies that only gets better by the day. While Hotstar has an edge on kids movies with a popular collection from Marvel, Avengers, Toy Story etc. Amazon Prime is has a much diverse collection across genres from both new and old times.

In fact, Amazon Prime has its own list of amazing movies both in English and Hindi, which compete quite well and are increasing at good rate.

We feel Amazon Prime has a much diverse collection while Disney plus seems to be concentrated more in its own studio movie collection.

One big update in 2020 for Hotstar was that it lost a good amount of movies and TV shows which it had under partnership with Singapore based company, HOOQ which had to shut down. Through this tie-up, good amount of content including Warner Bros movies was available earlier on Hotstar. Many popular movies like Dark Knight, Matrix, Ocean’s 11, Sherlock Holmes etc. are out of Hotstar platform.

Amazon- Some of the popular English movies on Prime Video are

• Parasite
• The Report
• Godfather
• Jurassic Park
• Harry Potter Series
• Contagion
• Dark Knight
• Matrix Series
• James Bond Movies (23 titles added recently in December 2021)
• Mission Impossible Series

Big Update: Amazon recently acquired MGM in 2021, which has brought in 4000 films including the famous James Bond Movies.

Hotstar- Some popular English titles

• Avenger Series
• Titanic
• Toy Story Series
• The Fault in Our Stars
• Pirates of the Carribean

Next, let’s see the Hindi Movies from them. The list is quite vast so we are covering a very few popular names here.

Amazon Prime

• Good Newz
• Section 375
• Raazi
• Hindi Medium
• Sonu ke Tittu ki Sweety
• Kesari
• 3 Idiots
• DDLJ
• Dil Chahta Hai

Hotstar

• Angrezi Medium
• Houseful Series
• Bala
• Mission Mangal
• Tanhaji
• Ishq
• Chennai Express

The Movies and English TV show collection from both the platforms are pretty well contested. It ‘s own choice of content that can make you choose one over the other. At the same time, the platforms are continuously adding to their collection. The pace is almost giving a run for the money to cable TV and other OTTs.

3. Multiple users support

If you want to share your account with multiple people within the family or outside, Amazon Prime is a clear winner in this area. Prime Video allows you to use the same Amazon Prime account to watch content (different video) simultaneously up to 3 devices. If you all are watching the same title, it can be on up to 2 devices. It also allows you to make a separate profile for up to 6 family members .

In September 2021, Hotstar Premium in India increased support to allow you to use Hotstar on up to 4 devices (from earlier 2 devices). There is no option to create separate profiles for different members in the family. However, this option to is available in other countries being serviced by Disney plus. So there is a hope that they may bring in these options later.

4. Ease of use and searching content

This is an area where Amazon Prime fares much better than Hotstar. The Amazon user experience and ability to search and access videos is superior. Hotstar seems to be still struggling in this area. However, it is improving with time.

Another thing is the flexibility to have multiple profiles on Amazon Prime which makes thing much more cleaner and controllable.

5. Value for Money

Another area which can be a bit subjective is the what you get for your money. Amazon Prime seems to be have an edge here since Prime membership not only gives you access to videos but also includes the same day delivery benefit on Amazon orders, access to Prime music and books.

But if you are more concerned only about video content, Hotstar as a pure video platform has more volume of content with live TV options. Especially with the live Sports and News, Star TV Channels available, it can even compete with cable TV.

6. Regional Content

Content in regional languages seems to big on both Amazon Prime and Hoststar’s radar as it realizes the importance of local content for Indian audience.

Amazon Prime seems to be having a decent growing collection of both original and dubbed content in Indian languages like Tamil, Telugu, Bengali, Punjabi, Malyalam etc.

Hotstar is also not far behind offering all disney titles dubbed content in Tamil and Telugu. It also has content in number of other Indian Languages like Marathi, Kannada, Malyalam, Bengali.

Also, the TV shows content in Hotstar also carries a good amount of content in regional languages.,

While it is a close fight, we see that Amazon Prime slightly better off in their mix of regional content.

7. Streaming quality, buffering

At times you may struggle with low data bandwidth, here again, Amazon Prime seems to stream well and buffering is not much to bother you at all.

Comparatively, Hotstar looks to be more data intensive.

Video quality wise both are pretty decent, but the data load seems to favour Amazon Prime.

Final Thoughts

Both Disney Hotstar and Amazon Prime have their own USPs which makes them special and unique.

While many of the factors compared above are very important, the choice of content is a critical factor in picking one over the other.

If you have kids, the Dinsney edge with Hostar makes a big difference. Then again is the Live Sports – Especially for fans of IPL, Football, Tennis and other sports. Also, is the ton of news and Star channels on offer.

But Amazon Prime with its super value for money package, sleeker interface, amazing mix of Indian and English content catering to all age groups makes a very strong case also. Add to that, the other benefits of Prime Membership make the price super attractive.

We feel both the OTTs have a unique and distinct advantage and will continue to have consumers opting for both services, depending on their taste of content.

Note: Images, Logos are used only for representative purpose only and belong to respective owners