20 Best Free Anime Streaming Sites to Watch Anime Online
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Anime watchers can choose from many online digital streaming sites to stream their favorite anime shows and movies whenever they want. That's why we compiled a list of 20 of the best free and paid (with free trial) anime websites you can go to for high-quality streaming.
Important Notice: Nanowerk will not be held liable for data breaches, infected/hacked devices, or ISP logging caused by using unverified 3rd party applications or streaming websites. We do not endorse or encourage piracy at any level or in any form. While looking for streaming websites, all the responsibility falls on you to check the copyright and legal status of the content(s) you access.
Also, for a deeper look at how free tools monetize your data and what to watch for in privacy policies, see our companion article: How Free Tools and Services Use Your Data and What to Watch For.
And while we have checked the sites in our free anime streaming list below, we cannot guarantee they are all safe at the time you are reading this. That's why we can't emphasize enough that you protect yourself with a VPN (Virtual Private Network) prior to visiting these sites. This will hide your streaming activities and protect yourself from website operators, hackers, and your ISP.
Please note: Streaming copyrighted content with a free movie streaming site is an offense, and you may face legal sanctions when caught. While we recommend using a VPN to stream movies online, this should be for those movies that fall within the public domain, as we never encourage using pirated content.
Here is an overview (detailed descriptions are below the table; sorted alphabetically):
List of Best Anime Streaming Websites to Watch Online
| Name | Best For | Regions | Free Trial | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AniWave | Free old and new anime streaming | Worldwide | n/a | Free |
| Amazon Prime | Unlimited streaming of anime with Prime Video | Worldwide | 30 days | $8.99 (per month) |
| AnimeFreak | Large database of free subbed and dubbed anime with easy genre filtering | Worldwide | n/a | Free |
| Animeland | Stream dubbed anime online | Worldwide | n/a | Free |
| AnimeOut | Unique for its 4K video playback, also offers convenient downloading options | Worldwide | n/a | Free |
| Anime Planet | Stream over 45,000 legal anime episodes | Worldwide | n/a | Free |
| AnimeTake | A large online collection of free anime shows and movies | Worldwide | n/a | Free |
| Asian Crush | For die-hard fan of Asian movies and shows incl. anime | Worldwide | 30 day premium trial | Free ($5/month w/o ads) |
| Bilibili | Top anime platform in Southeast Asia with 2,000+ licensed titles and interactive community features | Southeast Asia (global access with limitations) | n/a | Free (Premium available) |
| Chia-Anime | 1000+ high-quality anime clips for online streaming | Worldwide | n/a | Free |
| Crunchyroll | 30,000+ anime episodes and an anime and manga store for fans | Worldwide | 14 days | $7.99/$9.99/14.99 (per month) |
| Gogoanime | Great library of classic older anime titles | Worldwide | n/a | Free |
| HIDIVE | A wide range of titles, including popular classics and new releases | Worldwide | 7 days | $4.99 (per month) |
| Hulu | Great titles from some of the most reputed anime studios in Japan | USA, Japan | 30 days | $5.99/$11.99 (per month) |
| My Anime List | Claims to have the largest anime and manga database | Worldwide | n/a | Free ($2.99/month w/o ads) |
| Netflix | An extensive library of anime movies and shows | Worldwide | 30 days | $9.99-17.99 (per month) |
| Peacock | NBC's streaming service with select anime content | USA | n/a | Free tier, Premium from $5.99/month |
| RetroCrush | Focused on vintage anime, great for older titles | Worldwide | n/a | Free ($5/month+ w/o ads) |
| Tubi | Free streaming of anime shows and movies | United States, Mexico, Canada, Australia, New Zealand | n/a | Free |
| YouTube | No anime list would be complete without it | Worldwide | n/a | Free |
Reviews of the 20 Best Sites to Watch Free Anime Online
AnimeFreak Review
AnimeFreak is a long-standing free anime streaming site that hosts thousands of titles, from classic series to the latest ongoing releases. Both subbed and dubbed content is available across a wide range of genres.
The site makes it easy to find what you're looking for with well-organized genre categories, popularity rankings, and an alphabetical index. You can also browse by status (ongoing or completed) to quickly find binge-worthy finished series.
AnimeFreak also features a manga section where you can read popular titles online for free, making it a convenient one-stop destination for both anime and manga fans.
No registration is required to start watching. As with most free anime sites, expect ads during your browsing experience. Using an ad blocker and VPN is recommended for a smoother and safer experience.
AniWave Review
If you like a clean and easy-to-use website interface and a large collection of anime shows to choose from, then the popular anime site AniWave is going to be a great place for you to binge-watch some of your favorite anime shows.
AniWave offers more than 40 genres from action to vampire. Most of the content can be streamed in high-quality 1080p. Subbed and dubbed versions are available. Some of the most-watched anime are One Piece, Naruto, Black Clover, and Jujutsu Kaisen.
A very useful navigation tool allows you to filter your videos by season, year, quality, type, and language.
The frequent in-between page ads are very annoying, but that's the price you have to pay for being able to watch a huge anime collection for free.
Amazon Prime Anime Review
Amazon Prime is a rival of the streaming giant Netflix, and it offers thousands of shows, movies, and anime options that you can stream anywhere at any time.
A search in the anime category shows more than 230 titles available for free for Amazon Prime members with an additional 700+ titles available to rent or purchase.
A very useful navigation tool allows you to filter your videos by season, year, quality, type, and language.
The Prime Video membership costs $8.99 per month and eligible persons can get a reduced membership of $5.99/month. Even if you decide that's not for you, you can enjoy your 30-day free trial.
Animeland Review
Animeland offers a great collection of dubbed anime from 480p to high-definition 1080p. The site has a very basic layout without a filter function
Lots of ads but you can download clips and movies.
Anime Planet Review
Stream over 45,000 legal, industry-supported anime episodes on Anime-Planet – for free! The site also has a large database of Manga that you can read online.
There is a large fan community (you need to register to participate) with discussion forums, reviews and custom lists.
Very useful filtering options let you search anime shows and movies by name, rating, studio, type, tags, episodes, year/season, and staff.
AnimeTake Review
Animetake is a large online collection of free anime shows and movies.
You can search their catalogue alphabetically, by year, genre, and rating.
Quite a bit of advertising...
Asian Crush Review
If you're a die-hard fan of Asian movies and shows, Asian Crush is your site. Apart from movies, the site has quite a good selection of anime. It also has a blog that offers the latest news updates of the Asian movie industry.
Filtering options are very basic and you can search their catalogue only by movies or shows, by country and genre. You can sort by newest, most popular and alphabetically.
You can register for the premium option at $4.99 a month that allows you to watch ad-free (they have lots of ads...) and get access to exclusive titles and stream wherever, whenever with the AsianCrush app.
Bilibili Review
Bilibili is the leading anime, comics, and games (ACG) platform in Southeast Asia, offering over 2,000 licensed anime titles with multilingual subtitle support including English, Indonesian, Thai, and more.
What sets Bilibili apart from other anime sites is its unique interactive "danmu" bullet comment system, where viewer comments scroll across the screen in real time, creating a shared viewing experience. The platform also has a thriving community of content creators uploading fan-made videos, reviews, and discussions.
Beyond Japanese anime, Bilibili is one of the best places to watch Chinese donghua (Chinese animation), which has been growing rapidly in popularity. Titles like The Daily Life of the Immortal King and Link Click originated on the platform.
The basic tier is free with ads. A premium subscription unlocks ad-free viewing, early access to episodes, and HD streaming. The platform is most popular in Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, Vietnam, Singapore, and Malaysia, though the international version can be accessed worldwide with some content limitations.
Chia Anime Review
Chia Anime offers more than 1000 high-quality anime clips for online streaming. The site has a modern and efficient user interface.
Filtering options are by genre, studio, type, season, latest, popular and you can search alphabetically.
The Chia Anime site does not store any files on its own server and all content is provided by third parties. That can make video load time slow.
Crunchyroll Review
CrunchyRoll is the biggest streaming service for all kinds of anime shows with over 30,000 episodes. The best thing about it is that it uploads an episode only an hour after its Japanese release. It also has a large selection of Manga.
The site allows you to add reviews and share videos on Facebook and Twitter. Supported languages are English, Dutch, French, Italian, and more.
While the standard version is free, it only gives you access to a limited number of shows and manga. You can subscribe to the Fan plan for $7.99, the Mega Fan plan for $9.99 per month, or the Ultimate Fan plan for $14.99/month. All three plans offer a free 14-day trial.
Crunchyroll also provides experiences to deepen fan engagement and community through social, events, games, consumer products, content distribution, content creation, and manga publishing.
GogoAnime Review
GogoAnime is known for a great library of classic older titles and many new ones as well. It is completely free and a great place to watch anime without paying anything.
GogoAnime offers genres like action, cars, horror, drama, game, kids, and more. You can watch recent releases, dubbed, and Chinese animation series.
If you don't find your favorite show, you can also request the clips you are interested in.
HIDIVE Review
HIDIVE is an independent anime streaming company that acquired the rights to over 500 series, movies, and OVAs.
Besides simulcasts, dubs, exclusives, and even live-action titles, HIDIVE gives you more anime streaming options: switch between censored and uncensored anime; change the color of your anime subtitles; chat with your fellow fans while legally streaming anime in HD.
If you don't find your favorite show, you can also request the clips you are interested in.
Subscriptions cost $4.99 per month but there is a free 7-day trial
Hulu Review
Hulu is an online streaming service owned by The Walt Disney Company and Comcast. It holds licenses to great titles coming from some most reputed anime studios in Japan. The site is home to one of the largest streaming galleries of content among premium online content platforms. Suffice to say, it is also home to some of the best anime titles, too.
With Hulu, you can download titles and play anime on any device you own, iPhone, Tablet, or laptop.
MyAnimeList Review
MyAnimeList, a.k.a MAL, claims to have the largest anime and manga database and community.
MAL is also an anime social networking website with forums and over half a million users a day. You can read reviews from other people before starting a new anime series. Also, you can find people of the same interests as you and form a fan club.
As the site name suggests, you can create lists of anime series that you will watch. MAL also hosts contests to challenge users into completing their lists before others.
You can watch your favorite online anime for free, but a premium subscription at $2.99 per month lets you get rid of ads and has some extras on how you can interact in the community.
Extensive filtering options allow you to search by genre, themes, demographics, studios, rankings and seasons.
Netflix Review
No list on premium online anime would be complete without Netflix of course. Watch Netflix anime on your smartphone, tablet, Smart TV, laptop, or streaming device, all for one fixed monthly fee. Plans range from $8.99 to $17.99 a month. And there is a free 30-day trial.
Netflix has an extensive library of anime shows and it has reportedly invested lots of money into this segment of its programming, producing original series and movies, as well as making big-ticket licensing acquisitions for world-famous franchises like Neon Genesis Evangelion, Cardcaptor Sakura, Saint Seiya, and others.
Most anime are available in English Dub Audio and the rest are available with Japanese Audio with English and other language subtitles.
Peacock Review
Peacock is an ad-supported streaming service from NBCUniversal. While primarily known for TV shows and movies, it also features a selection of anime content, particularly classic titles and some newer releases.
The free tier offers limited anime content with ads, while the Premium tier ($5.99/month) unlocks more titles and Premium Plus ($11.99/month) removes most ads.
RetroCrush Review
RetroCrush is focused on vintage anime and is a great option if you're into older titles. The platform specializes in classic anime from the '70s, '80s, and '90s.
The service is free with ads, but you can upgrade to an ad-free experience for around $5 per month. RetroCrush features both subbed and dubbed content.
It's available on multiple platforms including web browsers, iOS, Android, Roku, and Amazon Fire TV.
Tubi Review
Tubi is the largest free movie and TV streaming service in the US, supported by ads. The platform works spectacularly well across all devices and provides quality content in high resolution.
It also features a large selection of free online anime. Although its catalog is not as comprehensive as other platforms on our list, it still offers great choices of some of the best anime to come out of Japan.
You can stream movies, TV shows as well as anime in high quality, with an ad block shown every 15 minutes.
Unfortunately there is no good way to filter anime shows.
YouTube Review
No anime list would be complete without YouTube. While not a dedicated anime platform, YouTube hosts a surprising amount of legal anime content.
Many anime studios and distributors have official YouTube channels where they upload full episodes, often for free with ads. Channels like Muse Asia, GundamInfo, and Nozomi Entertainment offer extensive libraries.
YouTube also features anime movies, OVAs, and older series that have entered the public domain or are officially distributed for free viewing.
What is Anime?
Anime is a style of Japanese animated entertainment featuring colorful characters, imaginative stories, and fantastical themes. It is typically produced in the form of television series, movies, and OVAs (original video animations) and is characterized by its distinctive visual style and complex narratives. The genre covers a wide range of themes, including action, romance, science fiction, and fantasy, and is enjoyed by audiences of all ages around the world.
What is the Difference Between Anime and Manga?
Anime and manga are two distinct forms of Japanese popular culture, but they are often closely associated with each other. The main difference between anime and manga is the medium in which they are produced and consumed. Anime is an animated form of entertainment, while manga is a printed or digital comic. However, many anime shows and movies are based on manga series, and anime adaptations are often very popular in Japan and around the world. Both anime and manga are important parts of Japanese popular culture and have a large and dedicated following.
Anime is Japanese animation of stories that are often based on manga, so it tends to have similar stylistic aspects to manga—though in full color and featuring great voice actors.
Anime refers to animated works that are typically produced in the form of television series, movies, and original video animations. It is characterized by its distinctive visual style and complex narratives and is typically aimed at a wide range of audiences, including children and adults.
Manga refers to Japanese comics and graphic novels. While manga has similarities to American comics, there are some stylistic aspects that distinguish them, such as bigger eyes on characters and more speed lines in action scenes, and they are typically done in black-and-white, with lots of cool visual sound effects.
Manga is typically produced in serialized form and is read in right-to-left format. Manga covers a wide range of themes and genres, including action, romance, science fiction, and fantasy, and is enjoyed by readers of all ages.
What are Anime Streaming Sites?
Anime websites are online collections of various animated movies, cartoons, and TV shows. You can browse these websites to find anime in all categories such as action, comedy/slice-of-life, drama/tragedy, psychological, history, military, supernatural/magic, romance, and many more. Many such sites allow you to filter anime by season, year, quality, and language.
Like movie and TV show streaming sites, anime streaming sites are basically meant for watching anime shows, movies, and series online. However, several sites also include manga to read online and various forms of community interactions such as uploading of clips, forums and fan boards. Some anime websites feature their own anime merchandise stores.
If you choose a free anime site, it always will come with ads and the user interface may not be very easy to use. If you go for premium anime content, you will have to pay a monthly subscription fee. So, there are trade-offs for both options and in the end, it depends on your requirements, what you can afford, as well as whether you are a regular anime watcher.
Did You Know?
In Japanese, anime (a term derived from the English word animation) describes all kinds of animated works, regardless of style or origin. Outside of Japan, anime is colloquial for Japanese animation and refers specifically to animation produced in Japan.
Did you know that more than half of the world's animated TV shows are Japanese anime? The anime industry consists of over 430 production companies, including major studios like Studio Ghibli, Sunrise, Gainax, Madhouse, Gonzo and Toei Animation. Since the 1980s, the medium has also seen international success with the rise of foreign dubbed and subtitled programming.