#
Streaming Sites
If you're planning to stream content from your computer, we suggest using Miru, an application which lets you stream anime torrents, giving you both the convenience of streaming and quality of torrents.
Most unofficial streaming sites contain unwanted or annoying pop-ups/ads that may impact your viewing experience. We suggest you use a reliable content blocker such as uBlock Origin.
#
Popular Sites
- Anitaku (previously Gogoanime)
- Self-hosted site with a vast library. Majority of scraper sites will source from here
- HiAnime (previously Aniwatch/Zoro)
- Self-hosted site with higher quality compared to Anitaku while maintaining an extensive library. One of the only unofficial streaming sites with soft subtitles
See The Index for a more comprehensive list of unofficial anime streaming sites.
Looking for official streaming sites? See r/anime's list of legal streams.
#
Picking a Site
The best way to pick a streaming site is to choose one that suits your needs and preferences. These are some factors that you may want to take into consideration:
#
Self-Hosted vs. Scrapers
Beware of fake streaming sites! These are scrapers with copied interfaces and are oftentimes not reflected of the original site. Always pay attention to the URL of the website. You can always find legitimate sites on The Index.
A self-hosted site is a streaming site that hosts the content on their own servers.
Typically, self-hosted sites allow for significantly better video quality compared to scrapers or other sites. They also generally pick good BD releases or fansubs for some shows. However, some self-hosted libraries can be more limited.
A scraper is a site that grabs content hosted on existing self-hosted sites and uses it for their own site, similar to how manga aggregator sites operate.
This allows for anime libraries equivalent in size to self-hosted ones, without the need for the scraper to host content themselves. Additionally, site owners can implement their own UI or features, which may be preferred over the original site.
Majority of sites will scrape from Anitaku, a popular self-hosted streaming site.
Examples of scraper sites: AllAnime and YugenAnime
#
Video Quality
While streaming sites will offer worse video quality compared to alternatives such as torrenting, DDL, XDCC, or even legal streaming, not all streaming sites are made equal.
You can see for yourself in the quality comparisons linked below:
#
Quality Tier List
- AllManga - Scraper site with great video quality when scraped from VRV, making them on par with SubsPlease/HorribleSubs torrent releases. However, not all shows use VRV, resulting in Tier 3 quality
- HiAnime - Formerly Aniwatch/Zoro
#
Other Factors
There are a multitude of other factors that may affect your decision in picking a site. Here are some brief recommendations based on some factors that aren't covered in The Index and are often not taken into account:
Animepahe is very consistent at picking good BD releases with fansubs.
animepahe has some of the smallest file sizes compared to other streaming sites.
Anitaku's are relatively small when compared to sites like HiAnime.
Anitaku has some of the largest libraries available.
Additionally, HiAnime has one of the best libraries when it comes to older and rarer shows.
HiAnime is one of the only streaming sites that use soft subtitles, with the other alternatives being legal streaming sites.
Users often care about the UI and site features. As this is completely subjective, we suggest you visit and try out the collection of sites from The Index and find what you like best.
Additional factors, like the ability to download, comment, use MAL-Sync, and more can be identified on The Index.