Viki Standard Subscription [+]
Jun 01 2026
Viki is a streaming service for Asian dramas - Korea, China, Taiwan, Japan and Thailand. Unless you're looking for something specific there's enough free ad-supported content (even good content) to be satisfied especially if you view other streaming services.
One of the key things is that nothing is dubbed (because that's expensive) but everything has fairly good crowd-sourced subtitling in several languages. I've never found the subtitling to be bad and often they add subtitles for written words on screen (Netflix rarely does) or add a quick explanation for a term (especially for Chinese terms that can mean two things they'll point out which one is meant). So in general it's the best subtitling of any streaming service.
Standard is $8 per month (or $80 per year). Listed benefits:
Another benefit of Standard is P-in-P which isn't enabled in Free tier.
Avoiding ads is kind of nice. Viki has many ad breaks, each 5-ads long (though you can skip an ad after a few seconds), and there is no time limit for an ad (I've seen ads that are 20-minute informercials). Since I mostly watch on my desktop the 720p videos are nice -- 480p definitely has artifacts on a desktop monitor.
I hate the Viki on desktop. It's like a really bad and laggy version of the mobile app and doesn't even support keyboard shortcuts (i.e. space to pause/play or left and right to skip 10s). But I found that Viki on a desktop browser is actually quite nice. UI is responsive. it does auto-start next video unless you click on X (and you have like three seconds to do so). It also shows you which shows require a subscription which the mobile/desktop apps do not show.
So at this point I think Viki Standard + Desktop Browser is a good experience. Right now $120 per year for Plus doesn't seem worth the upgrade (if I had a family then it would be a must for simultaneous viewing).
One of the key things is that nothing is dubbed (because that's expensive) but everything has fairly good crowd-sourced subtitling in several languages. I've never found the subtitling to be bad and often they add subtitles for written words on screen (Netflix rarely does) or add a quick explanation for a term (especially for Chinese terms that can mean two things they'll point out which one is meant). So in general it's the best subtitling of any streaming service.
Standard is $8 per month (or $80 per year). Listed benefits:
- No ads
- Access to full library (Plus tier used to say you get some Kocowa shows too but doesn't say that anymore)
- 720p videos (Free is 480p which is fine one a phone or tablet, Plus is 1080p)
- Stream to televisions (I don't need it since I don't have a television)
- Play on one device at a time (Plus is four devices)
- (Plus also allows you to download videos to watch offline)
Another benefit of Standard is P-in-P which isn't enabled in Free tier.
Avoiding ads is kind of nice. Viki has many ad breaks, each 5-ads long (though you can skip an ad after a few seconds), and there is no time limit for an ad (I've seen ads that are 20-minute informercials). Since I mostly watch on my desktop the 720p videos are nice -- 480p definitely has artifacts on a desktop monitor.
I hate the Viki on desktop. It's like a really bad and laggy version of the mobile app and doesn't even support keyboard shortcuts (i.e. space to pause/play or left and right to skip 10s). But I found that Viki on a desktop browser is actually quite nice. UI is responsive. it does auto-start next video unless you click on X (and you have like three seconds to do so). It also shows you which shows require a subscription which the mobile/desktop apps do not show.
So at this point I think Viki Standard + Desktop Browser is a good experience. Right now $120 per year for Plus doesn't seem worth the upgrade (if I had a family then it would be a must for simultaneous viewing).