Disney+ vs Netflix — South African libraries and features compared

A Disney+ subscription in South Africa will offer less than half the titles available on Netflix but boasts superior features at a lower price.

Disney+ is launching locally on 18 May 2022, with a monthly price of R119 or an annual subscription of R1,190.

Walt Disney Africa recently provided a complete list of all of the content that will be available on the service.

These include popular movies and TV shows from Disney’s Marvel, Star Wars, Pixar, and National Geographic properties.

It will also boast a wide range of adult-focused movies and TV shows from its Star catalogue, including content created by FX, 20th Century Studios, and 20th Century TV.

We compared the two services to see which has the best title selection, account features, and streaming quality.

Disney+ will come with the Star catalogue as standard in South Africa.

The most popular Netflix plan is the Standard option, which offers full HD streaming and is priced at R159 per month.

Netflix’s library is the same across all its plans but differs from region to region based on geographic-specific content licencing agreements.

According to the latest data from JustWatch, the South African Netflix library consists of 5,733 titles, including 3,619 movies and 2,114 series.

An analysis of the Disney+ content list shows that it will offer 2,277 titles in South Africa, comprising 1,332 movies and 945 series and shorts.

While Netflix Standard is R40 more expensive, this works out to around 2.8 cents per title compared to 5.2 cents on Disney+.

Netflix’s dominance in the content range is absolute, but when it comes to features, Disney+ is supreme.

Firstly, Disney+ subscribers can stream supported titles at up to 4K resolution, whereas Netflix’s Standard plan only goes up to 1080p.

With 4K TVs gradually becoming more affordable and prominent manufacturers phasing out full HD sets from their high-end offerings, the new resolution could soon become the standard for middle class and affluent households.

To get 4K support on Netflix, you have to get a Premium plan, which costs R199 per month.

Disney+ also offers support for HDR and Dolby Atmos surround sound on specific titles, features which are exclusive to the Premium plan on Netflix.

As is typical with Netflix, households will likely be sharing their Disney+ subscription, which means simultaneous streams will be important.

Once again, Disney+ has the upper hand, with users able to stream concurrently on up to four devices compared to two on Netflix Standard.

You would have to upgrade to Premium for the same number of simultaneous streams on Netflix.

Disney+ also offers more personalised profiles with their own recommendations — seven versus five on Netflix.

Comparison

The table below compares the libraries and features of Disney+ and Netflix in South Africa.

We have also added two other well-known streaming services in South Africa — Showmax and Amazon Prime Video — to see how they measure up.