You don't need a cable bill to keep watching History. Here's every way to stream it online, and how to do it for free.
Reviewed and updated August 2026 by our cord-cutting team · 7 options
History was originally a place for purely historical shows, but now it's more geared toward reality TV shows like Pawn Stars and Alone.
You can watch History on Sling TV Blue, Sling TV Orange, Philo, Hulu with Live TV, or Spectrum TV Stream.
The cheapest option to watch History is Philo for $25/month.
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Yes, with a free trial. History is on DIRECTV, and you can watch it free for DIRECTV's 5-day free trial. Cancel before it ends and you pay nothing.
DIRECTV plans
No, not free. Sling TV carries History but has no free trial, so you pay from day one — at $45.99/mo it's the second-cheapest way to watch History on this list.
Sling Blue is the better option for History viewers who also want to stay updated on the history being made today. That’s because it streams more news programs than Sling’s other plan, Orange, on account of it carrying local channels. However, you do have to pay an extra $5/month if you do get local channels where you live.
There's no ESPN on the Blue lineup, and local channels only come in a handful of markets.
Sling TV plans
Yes, with a free trial. History is on Philo, and you can watch it free for Philo's 7-day free trial. Cancel before it ends and you pay nothing.
With over 90 channels for as little as $28, Philo’s price is tough to beat. Sports fans or local TV viewers might not appreciate the narrow lineup, but those who love watching History would be happy to find it there along with other reality TV channels.
It carries no sports and no local channels, so it only covers entertainment and lifestyle networks.
Philo plans
Yes, with a free trial. History is on Hulu + Live TV, and you can watch it free for Hulu + Live TV's 3-day free trial. Cancel before it ends and you pay nothing.
Hulu with Live TV is the fastest and most convenient way for Hulu users to get live TV channels without having to test out other unfamiliar streaming services. It offers a great mix too: along with channels like History, NatGeo, and Lifetime, users also get live sports from channels like ESPN and NFL Network as well as local channels like FOX, NBC, CBS, and ABC.
It caps you at two simultaneous streams, the fewest of the big live-TV services; lifting that cap costs about $10 more a month.
Hulu + Live TV plans
Our breakdown of Hulu + Live TV →
No. Fubo doesn't carry History.
No. Paramount+ doesn't carry History.
No. Peacock doesn't carry History.
No. Frndly TV doesn't carry History.
No. YouTube TV doesn't carry History.
No. Disney+ only streams the Disney family (ABC, FX, Nat Geo, ESPN and the Disney kids channels), and History isn’t part of it. For History on demand, the HISTORY Vault add-on on Amazon Prime (below) is your best bet.
No. HBO Max only streams the Warner Bros. Discovery family (HBO, Discovery, HGTV, TNT, CNN and the rest), and History isn’t part of it. For History on demand, the HISTORY Vault add-on on Amazon Prime (below) is your best bet.
Yes, with the HISTORY Vault add-on. Add it through Prime Video Channels for $4.99/mo and you get the full HISTORY documentary and series library on demand without leaving the Prime app. It’s on-demand, so there’s still no live History feed, and you need a Prime membership ($14.99/mo) or standalone Prime Video ($8.99/mo) underneath it.
Prime Video itself won’t have the live channel, but its Channels store rents the network’s own app as an on-demand add-on, billed through Amazon.
The honest way to watch History for free is a free trial, and the trick is not to spend them one at a time. Start one, then start the next when it ends, and you can string together a few weeks of free live TV back to back, usually enough to cover a tournament or a playoff run without paying for a month.
If you're cutting cable for History, odds are you want A&E too. It's a sister channel, so every service above that carries History carries A&E as well, and the same free trials get you both. See our full guide to watching A&E without cable for the per-service breakdown.
| Service | From | Free trial | Plans | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DIRECTV |
$94.99/mo | 5 days | 4 | Get it |
| Sling TV |
$45.99/mo | None | 3 | Get it |
| Philo |
$28/mo | 7 days | 1 | Get it |
| Hulu + Live TV |
$82.99/mo | 3 days | 2 | Get it |
History and the US services that carry it are geo-locked to the United States, so your login stops working the moment you leave the country. A VPN fixes that: connect to a US server and the service sees a US address again. The catch is that streaming platforms actively block most VPN traffic, so the VPN you pick matters far more than the service does. These three reliably get back in:
A huge US server network (thousands of IPs across 15-plus cities) with SmartPlay DNS baked into every server, so streaming just works without extra setup. The best value of the top tier on a two-year plan.
Best for streaming History with: Hulu + Live TV, Sling TV, Philo
Get NordVPN →The budget pick, and the one to get if the whole household travels: it allows unlimited simultaneous devices on one account, plus a Smart DNS for TVs. Reliable with the on-demand and lifestyle services.
Best for streaming History with: Hulu + Live TV, Philo
Get Surfshark →Whichever you pick, connect to a US city first, then sign in to History or the service that carries it as normal. Choose a VPN with a money-back window so you can confirm it un-blocks History before you commit.
No. History is a cable channel and doesn't broadcast over the air, so an antenna can't pick it up. An antenna only gets the free broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, PBS, The CW), which pair nicely with one of the services above; check which of those reach your address here.
Every service that carries History runs on the major streaming platforms, so you can watch on just about any TV, phone, or console. Here's how, device by device:
On Roku, you can watch History through DIRECTV, Sling TV, Philo, and Hulu + Live TV. To set it up, add the channel from the Roku Channel Store, sign in, and open History in the live guide.
On Amazon Fire TV, you can watch History through DIRECTV, Sling TV, Philo, and Hulu + Live TV. To set it up, download the app from the Amazon Appstore, sign in, and open History in the live guide.
On Apple TV, you can watch History through DIRECTV, Sling TV, Philo, and Hulu + Live TV. To set it up, install the app from the App Store, sign in, and open History in the live guide.
On Android TV & Google TV, you can watch History through DIRECTV, Sling TV, Philo, and Hulu + Live TV. To set it up, grab the app from the Google Play Store, sign in, and open History in the live guide.
On Chromecast, you can watch History through Sling TV, Philo, and Hulu + Live TV. The gap: DIRECTV doesn't offer a Chromecast app. To set it up, cast it from your phone or use the built-in Google TV app, sign in, and open History in the live guide.
On Samsung & LG smart TVs, you can watch History through DIRECTV, Sling TV, Philo, and Hulu + Live TV. To set it up, install the app from your TV's own store (Tizen or webOS), sign in, and open History in the live guide.
On phones & tablets, you can watch History through DIRECTV, Sling TV, Philo, and Hulu + Live TV. To set it up, download the app from the App Store or Google Play, sign in, and open History in the live guide.
On game consoles, you can watch History through Sling TV and Hulu + Live TV. The gap: DIRECTV and Philo don't offer a game consoles app. To set it up, download the app from the Xbox or PlayStation store, sign in, and open History in the live guide.
Cheapest is the question everyone starts with, and it's the wrong place to stop. A $35 plan that drops History the month after you sign up hasn't saved you anything. So the first number we pay attention to is the real one, what you owe after the introductory month ends, not the figure in the ad. From there it comes down to whether the channels you actually want sit in the base plan or get stranded in an add-on, how the service behaves day to day (a slow app and a useless DVR wear on you faster than you'd expect), and how much of a fight it puts up when you decide to leave.
Whatever lands at the top of a list like this is the service that gets most of that right for the most people. Once in a while that's also the cheapest one. Usually it isn't.
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