YouTube announced its long-rumored YouTube TV nearly two years ago, plunging the online video platform into the competitive world of live TV streaming. On the surface, the $40-per-month YouTube TV looks like a good deal: dozens of broadcast and cable channels (including numerous sports networks), a cloud-based DVR service, up to three simultaneous streams, and more.

But YouTube TV faces a lot of competition in an ever-growing industry. The biggest challengers—DirecTV Now, PlayStation Vue, and Sling TV—offer many similar features to Google's service, and that will undoubtably make it difficult for aspiring cord-cutters to know if they should wait for YouTube's service or take the plunge now. To aid in that decision, here's a breakdown of these four TV-streaming services and their major features.

Specs compared: TV-streaming services (base tiers) YouTube TV DirecTV Now PlayStation Vue Sling TV Monthly price $40 $40 $45 $25 Starting number of channels 55+ 65+ 45+ 30+ Included sports channels ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN3, ESPNU, ESPN News, SEC Network, CBS Sports Network, CSN, NBC Sports Network, Fox Sports, BTN, FS1, FS2, MLB Network, Los Angeles Football Club, Golf Channel, NBA TV, NESN, Olympic Channel, Orlando City SC, Seattle Sounders, Tennis Channel, YES ESPN, ESPN2, FS1, NBC Sports Network ESPN, ESPN2, FS1, FS2, NBC Sports Network ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN3, ACC Network Extra Available add-ons Showtime, Fox Soccer Plus, AMC Premiere, Curiosity Stream, NBA League Pass, Shudder, Starz, Sundance Now HBO, Cinemax, Showtime, Stars, Spanish add-ons, international TV packages (Vietnamese, Brazilian, Korean) HBO, Epix, Showtime, Cinemax, Fox Soccer Plus, FX+, Espanol Pack, Sports Pack Multiple add-on packages ranging from $5-$15/month DVR Yes Yes (in beta) Yes, limited by channel Yes, at an additional cost DVR storage Cloud-based, unlimited storage, videos saved for nine months Cloud-based, 20 hours included Cloud-based, shows saved for 28 days Cloud-based, 50 hours included On-demand Yes Yes Yes Yes Number of simultaneous streams 3 2 5 1 Device compatibility Android, iOS, Chromecast, select smart TV systems including Samsung, Roku, LG, and more Android, iOS, Amazon Fire TV, Roku, Chromecast, Samsung smart TVs Android, iOS, Apple TV, PS3, PS4, Amazon Fire TV, Roku, Android TV, Chromecast Android, iOS, Android TV, Chromecast, Roku, Amazon Fire TV and tablets, Xbox One, Samsung and LG smart TVs, Oculus

The first thing to note about YouTube TV is that it will launch with just one subscription tier. Everything the service offers will be included in the $40-per-month price—at least for now. As YouTube and Google land deals with other networks, we could see YouTube TV expand into higher-priced subscription tiers. But since there's just one plan right now, it makes it easy to compare it to the base-tier packages of DirecTV Now, PlayStation Vue, and Sling TV. In this comparison, we're only looking at live TV-streaming services, not online video streaming services like Hulu, Netflix, or Amazon Video.

The most important factor for all of these TV-streaming services is the array of channels you get for the least amount of money. All but Sling TV offer over 40 channels with their base subscription tier (Sling TV starts off lower than the rest, with $25 for 30 channels). YouTube TV also partnered with local news stations so you can watch local news and weather broadcasts for your area, similar to DirecTV's local offerings. However, YouTube hasn't detailed how extensive these partnerships are, so it's possible some local stations around the country are not included.

YouTube TV is also one of the few services to stream CBS. Sling doesn't offer CBS at all, and Playstation Vue is limited to only some local CBS news feeds across the country. The absence of CBS from these services is likely due to its own streaming offering, CBS All Access. This $6-per-month plan gives subscribers access to live streams of local CBS programming, including new show episodes, on-demand access to over 8,500 old episodes, and limited commercials. CBS All Access appears to be more of an add-on subscription for those who already pay for cable and really love CBS shows rather than an all-in-one solution since it only provides one network's programming.

But CBS All Access also has a $10-per-month tier that offers something none of the other TV-streaming services do: commercial-free viewing. Of course, even with CBS All Access, that comes with an asterisk—live TV will still include commercials, and some shows will have "promotional interruptions."

Even if it's not truly commercial-free, it is worth noting since YouTube TV, DirecTV Now, PlayStation Vue, and Sling TV all have advertisements in both live TV and on-demand content. The only way you can have an ad-free experience on YouTube TV is to also subscribe to YouTube Red, which removes ads on all YouTube content. However, even with a $10-per-month Red subscription, live TV will still have commercials, and we assume content saved to your DVR will also be infiltrated with ads.

What about sportsball?

When it comes to sports channels, YouTube TV has the upper hand. For $40 per month, you get over 20 channels including ESPN, Fox Sports, Comcast SportsNet, and NBC Sports Network. That's the most offered by any base subscription, and you can watch most of those games on your desktop, on TV, or a mobile device. The only exception we know of now is NFL content on mobile devices—Verizon already has a deal with the NFL to stream games on mobile, so you can only watch NFL content on a desktop or on a TV using YouTube TV.

Football should be an area where DirecTV has an advantage over YouTube TV thanks to its NFL Sunday Ticket package, but you can't purchase that if you only subscribe to DirecTV Now. NFL Sunday Ticket is only available to full DirecTV subscribers, but the company has hinted at plans to have the NFL Sunday Ticket as an add-on to its streaming service in the future.

DirecTV Now has also been plagued by glitches and outages since it launched at the end of 2016, and many of those frustrations have centered around blocked or unstreamable sports games. It has sometimes been unclear whether the problems were caused by technical issues or by licensing discrepancies, but DirecTV details in a help article that some regional games thought to be included in the service may not actually be available due to licensing restrictions.

We didn't know how smoothly YouTube TV would perform when it first came out. It has had a few bumps in the road (including an outage in the fall of 2018 that Google compensated for by giving subscribers one week of free service), but otherwise performance seems to be reliable even as the service has expanded to cover more cities. But remember: all TV streaming services like YouTube TV require a reliable Internet network. If your home network or Wi-Fi is spotty, the quality of your TV streaming will suffer.

YouTube TV may offer the most complete lineup of channels available in any base package, but it doesn't have the most channel options. That title is split between DirecTV Now and Sling TV. DirecTV Now offers more than 125 channels when you subscribe to its $75-per-month package, but that puts it closer to regular cable prices than the rest. Sling TV has three basic tiers with over 30, 40, and 50 channels included, plus 24 add-on packages available that include other sports, comedy, kid, and foreign language networks.

Sling is definitely the way to go if you watch a lot of foreign-language TV since it offers Spanish, French, Italian, Hindi, Chinese, and Arabic channels, but DirecTV Now offers a lot of specialized and affiliate channels including BBC World News, CNBC World, Discovery Life, Disney Junior, and Nat Geo Wild, among others. But you get what you pay for—all of those perks are in add-ons or expanded packages of both DirecTV Now and Sling TV. Similar to regular cable packages, extra channels require extra money.

Arguably YouTube TV's standout feature is its cloud-based DVR service. You can record as many shows as you want, simultaneously, and all of that content gets saved to your cloud DVR. There are no time- or storage-based limits, either, letting you record endless amounts of live TV to watch at a later time.

PlayStation Vue and Sling TV both have cloud DVR services as well, but they're more limited. Vue only stores your shows for up to 28 days, and Sling's optional DVR gives you 50 hours of recording time but it costs extra. DirecTV Now finally introduced its cloud DVR service after months of waiting, but it only gives you 20 hours of recording time. YouTube TV keeps your recorded content for nine months before it deletes the oldest stuff, so you won't feel rushed to catch up on old Empire episodes.

Splitting streams

Another important-yet-subtle feature is the ability for multiple people to use the same TV-streaming account at once. Individual, simultaneous streams let members of the same family or household pay for just one account while being able to watch different shows at the same time.

YouTube TV was a bit misleading about this when it first debuted. Included in a $40 subscription are six individual profiles, meaning six different people could log in to the same YouTube TV account and receive personalized recommendations, record shows using the DVR, and more. However, a subscription is only allowed three simultaneous video streams, so a six-member household won't be able to watch different content at one time. This likely won't be a huge problem if all six members are part of a family living under one roof together, but it will complicate things if six friends who live separately wanted to split a YouTube TV account.

But YouTube isn't the only company fudging the details about simultaneous streams. PlayStation Vue supports five streams at once, but there are some hidden caveats to that. Each PlayStation Vue account can support up to five connected devices at once, meaning you can download the Vue app and log in to your account on five devices (which should cover all of the devices in your home, including a smartphone, tablets, TVs, and consoles). But each household is only allowed to have one PS4 and one PS3 streaming at the same time, and you can't stream to two PS4 or two PS3 consoles simultaneously. If you follow that rule, you can still load up to three more simultaneous streams on PCs and mobile devices.

Sling TV is more transparent, but it has the worst policy for its base subscription tier. You only get one stream with Sling Orange, but if you upgrade to Sling Blue, you'll get three simultaneous streams. DirecTV Now doesn't hide the fact that you'll get two concurrent streams with your subscription—but if you pay an extra $5 per month, you can get a third stream.

It's clear YouTube spent time studying its competition before announcing YouTube TV. The service fills a lot of holes found in DirecTV, PlayStation Vue, and Sling TV, but it also has some holes of its own. Currently the biggest issue for YouTube TV is lack of tier variety: there's only one subscription offering, so it probably won't be the service for you if it's missing even one of your must-have channels.

YouTube TV has a solid array of channels, and since its inception, it has added additional channels into its one subscription tier as well as new add-ons users can pay extra for. YouTube TV also includes its YouTube Red Original content, but it's unlikely that will draw as many customers as networks such as HBO or Starz. It may have the least variety of all competing TV services, but users get a lot in their $40 monthly fee.