Nebula is an independent streaming service built by Creators. It features thoughtful videos, podcasts, and classes tailored for our audience — ad free. When using the Nebula app, you’ll enjoy access to:
• A full catalog of videos, podcasts, and classes from all of our creators
• Exclusive Nebula Originals every month
• Nebula Plus — Extended cuts with additional, exclusive content
• Notifications when your favorite creators release a new video
• Video downloads for offline viewing
Not to mention you’ll have our eternal gratitude for supporting independent creators.
Some content may be presented in its original 4:3 format.
Once upon a time, this app was great. Now, it is unusable. Once a video starts, it refuses to acknowledge almost all of my taps. It will not go into full screen, and getting it to stop or start is all but impossible. No other app is behaving this way, and the behavior continued immediately after I restarted my phone. This is the greatness I paid for????
App is frustrating to use. I love the videos, but the app is erratic at best. I can’t scroll through my library without it randomly firing down the list. Then I can’t find the video that I was going to click y… It’s just gone from the list…. An option to disable audio playback when I turn the screen off would be very appreciated. I find it to be a glaring omission.
6/21/22: Moto G4+ | (updating my 4/8/22 review) | The app has spoiled me. Being able to enjoy content without ads is glorious. Still got complaints, though. It needs to 1) have the pause button appear quicker and remain longer for when we need to go frame-by-frame, 2) stop jumping to a different video when the screen is touched while in fullscreen mode, 3) have the new runtime visible when moving the video ahead or backward, EDIT: 4) stop popping up other tabs like they’re ads while Fullscreened
App is incredibly bad at managing bandwidth. I have a very slow connection when I cannot access WiFi (< 1 MB/s). On YouTube, I can watch videos at 480p or sometimes 720p without latency. On the Nebula app, even after setting the quality to 240p, I can't watch anything. I don't understand how this app is so bad with data management but it is sadly the case. Also, some common sense features like showing the time you're about to move to during scrubbing/scrolling are just not there. Disappointing.
Love the content. Can’t seem to pause a video without a new one playing though. Please fix asap. Also, lower priority, the library tab is a horizontal scrolling line with the rest of the page below it blank, until I hit “see all” then I get a full vertical page. Why can’t the library tab just BE a full vertical page?
I’ve used at least 3 versions of this app and they still can’t keep track of which video they’re downloading/have downloaded in the UI, and when I tap screen widgets, it still mis-registers them most of the time. These are trivial to test for, which seriously calls into question competence let alone quality control. The latest update crashes frequently just scrolling through my video list. Do they even care about doing a good job?
I love the app and it used to run perfectly. Over the past month though, it began crashing a ton and even at times froze my phone to the point that I had to do a force restart. I don’t know why this began and I have had the same hardware as before, but it definitely has made for a very frustrating user experience.
I like this app. It has the creators I enjoy at a price that is awesome. The only real complaint I have is that it doesn’t function as well as its competition. The biggest addition I would love to see is an auto-play feature to keep the learning going for hours. EDIT: After an update I can no longer lock my screen to listen to videos. They are video essays, LET ME LOCK MY SCREEN
Good content but the app has some notable technical difficulties. Mainly, videos constantly buffer and have problems playing smoothly. No, it’s not my internet. I have both 5G mobile internet and gigabit wifi at home. YouTube, Netflix, and other much higher resolution streaming services do not buffer anywhere near as often (or ever). Expand your server bandwidth or improve your net code because it’s annoying to have videos free every 30 seconds or so to buffer
The content gets 5 stars the app gets 1. Has Nebula considered creating an API? I bet a 3rd party or open source group could create a better app consistent with Nebula’s spirit. The biggest problem is the unrecoverable freezes returning to a video previously in progress. The app also lacks features like picture in picture. It’s still worth the download to support creators, watch exclusive content, and avoid ads.
Trying to cast some videos results in it attempting to load only to give up. If you add a video to the que it will load and skip the entire video as well. This has been the case since I first subscribed with the Curiosity Stream bundle over a year ago now. Overall the experience is very inconsistent and annoying. If it wasn’t free with curiosity stream I’d probably be upset about paying money for a service that feels like it isn’t properly maintained.
Love the content available but the app itself has problems. Random crashes, lag when starting next video sometimes becoming a crash, searching for content can be a chore, doesn’t label already watched content, and the download feature sometimes refuses to function or says it downloaded only to not show up in the library later.
The app is ok, at best. The app refuses to be in Portrait mode and just stays in Landscape mode, which is very frustrating. I have a couple shows saved/downloaded, but when I go to the “Saved” tab, it tells me I don’t have anything saved. I have to manually search the show because of this. Also the videos playing cannot be formatted to fit my screens device and it sucks to see black margins on the video sides. The app lacks severe structure. Please fix this.
The content is fantastic and I love being able to support creators more! However, the app itself is so inferior to the YouTube app that I’m now forced to choose between a poor user experience or risk missing Nebula-exclusive snippets of content. Issues include: – No mark for which videos have been watched – No History tab so after (frequent) crashes, I’m forced to scroll through an entire channel to continue my video – Library tab should default to list view – Other bugs/crashes (no space left)
The content within the app is amazing. However, the app itself is sadly very, very broken. Just last week I got a Nebula subscription, excited for all the knowledge and information I was going to binge. But when I downloaded the app and began using it just a couple days ago, I very quickly found it is dysfunctional mess. It’s an absolute shame that the amazing content creators weren’t provided a platform for their content that’s actually on par with the quality they put out into the world.
The amount and quality of content is great and there are so many unique creators worthy of support. However, the app runs very poorly. I’m on an S20 – a relatively new model. I frequently experience crashes and bugs. Bugs include videos often freezing and needed to be closed and re-opened to play and the screen rotation not working properly. The interface is also very clunky. I hope that there are improvements made to the app because currently the technical deficiencies are holding it back.
Good content, but a poor experience. The app frequently needs to buffer when streaming works fine on other services. The video interface, such as jumping to different positions is frustrating. The content discovery is painful to use. Unless you do a search for the exact video, then it’s hard to find the type of content you’re looking for. Yes, I could watch on Nebula, but it’s much easier to watch on YouTube instead.
The service itself is great, but the app experience leaves much to be desired. It lacks basic features which feel standard at this point, and many of the features it does posess are broken in some way. The search function, for instance, often fails to work. Similarly, a video must be fully closed before another is selected or it will fail to load. The orientation often gets stuck in one way, and on multiple occasions the entire app has stopped responding to input. Bad app for such a good service
The app is great, works well, no problems loading or casting videos, very knowledge based content, but if you want to find something specific you better have the name of the video or series cause finding specific content is not easy. You can kind of save stuff but it will just get lose with everything else you’ve saved. Not good for find specific creator and their series. Needs a lot of work on categorizing and organizing. Other than that the app is working just fine.
Content is amazing when the app works. I don’t know whether the problems are mainly on the back end (circle spins forever buffering and the video never starts) or in the app itself (random crashes while watching the videos) but it’s clear that the nebula team has not been able to complete the engineering necessary for a VOD app/service to run reliably in this day and age.
Really happy with the app. Great content (especially for the insane price I got) and a great way of supporting creators. I wish it had further functionalities like the ability to save videos in a playlist (not just download them) so that I could for example have a watch later playlist for videos I don’t want to subscribe for or donwload but want to watch later… but the app is very polished and optimized (far better than the mess that is Curiosity Stream as of writing). 5 stars.
I love nebula for its purpose and reasons to exist but the app is a poor experience that needs improving. I need to constantly force close the app because it freezes (it claims it needs to buffer but it really just freezes) on the 2nd or 3rd video that I try to watch. Additionally it will also freeze if I minimize the app and then return to it. Either way there’s a problem every time I want to use the app and it doesn’t seem to actually have improved in the last year or so that I used it. Sad.
Casting from the app is flawed; it rushes through the titles then empties the queue (I use chromecast on a Roku TV). The browser player can’t cast to Chromecast, nor can the site use Chrome’s tab-based Chrome casting. When attempting to cast a Chrome browser tab on MacOS (v12.2.1),the video shows for a few seconds before disconnecting. Writing this here because I don’t really want to send an email about the web app, and I’m sure someone will read this first 👋🏾
A splendid streaming service with excellent content, and few bugs (the largest one being the occasional inability to switch between mini view on the bottom of the screen to standard view. Other than that, it’s great! The one thing it needs is a “watchlist” feature, rather than downloading videos for later viewing. For the actual “pros,” this platform is fantastic compared to Youtube. Obviously, no ads, no need to pay extra to be able to have things like listening to/watching content, etc.
I really like Nebula, but I wish the app and site had the ability to either share a link to the video, or create play list or a watch later list. Sometimes I see a video, but I don’t have time to watch it. A quick way to save it (other than downloading it) would be great.
Good content, poor app. Clunky, unresponsive, poorly designed and implemented. Search results, if they show up at all, are repeated. Listings are not tabular or brief, and the list resets to the top after scrolling down through dozens or more entries each with its own large image, requiring a repeat of the process.
App constantly buffers and if you try to watch another video, you better close out the other video you were just watching or it’ll never play. Every other streaming service works fine. I also noticed Discovery also resets when you try to search for something a second time, which makes no sense. I like the Nebula Originals from content creators I watch, but if I can’t watch them then there’s no point to watching Nebula on my phone…
I love the idea of the service service, I want to support it, but the app is kinda rough. Lots of issues restoring state, leading to crashes when searching or navigating and flaky Chromecast integration. Also what’s up with the “My videos” tab having one row? Is there a way to see videos grouped by people you subscribed to?
The app works great, it support most of the basic features you need for a video streaming app. I wish it would have richer features around browsing. Like creator playlists or video groups or at least a better recommendation engine. It’s hard to find related videos when they are part of a series. Or to find new creators that are similar to the ones I follow already. I know these features are hard so keep up with the good work I’m looking forward for the coming improvements.
First off, the content is great, but the app itself has a lot to be desired. No way to change video quality (which always seems to play in low for some reason), no playlists or or auto play, can’t pause or play using the buttons on my bluetooth headset, and plenty more QOL issues. There’s potential here, but it just needs to be presented in a better, more usable package.
I would like to give this app a higher rating, but it is incredibly buggy. The stream buffers often or stops. The app sometimes crashes when browsing. The video timeline bar is difficult to pull up. The app layout is nice. It’s very compact and to the point. The creators’ video list could be designed a bit better. It could have the videos lumped into sections instead of having to scroll through the entire selection to view an early video. I’ll be happy to update the rating if stability is fixed.
To be quite honest, I haven’t spent much time with this app, but only because it’s extremely frustrating to use. I want to support creators that I like and enjoy the videos they post, but this app is keeping me from doing that. I primarily watch videos on my television and I was glad to see that Nebula has Chromecast capabilities. Unfortunately, every single video that I watch through the Chromecast has multiple timepoints where the video gets stuck and will not progress. It’s not a problem with data or connectivity because I can manually skip ahead a few seconds and the video progresses normally (at least until another sticking point) but then I miss out on 10-20 seconds of the video because there’s no reliable way to advance the video by a set amount. On some videos this happens only once, but on some videos this will happen 5 or more times, which will usually result in me ragequitting the app for the day. The video playback problem is the most glaring issue with the app, but there are also some usability issues. A lot of the cards on the Featured page contain text and logos that are laughably small and mostly unreadable with tons of blank space around them. It looks like these cards are just sloppily resized versions of the channel banner images. Also, when I scroll through these cards, they snap in a very frustrating way. If I drag my finger to the left and advance the cards just a little bit, the whole set of cards will snap all the way over to the left when I lift my finger off the screen. But if I drag my finger to the right, I have to fully expose the card on the left before it will snap into view when I lift my finger. My suggestion is to not have any snapping at all and to just allow the user to smoothly scroll horizontally. I understand that this app cannot compete feature-wise with the big content platforms like YouTube or Netflix, but please make it less of a chore to use.
Love the content, but got to talk about the feeling of the app itself. I keep accidentally scrolling down or up when I mean to swipe left or right. Might have to do with the way I hold the phone, but having each category stick a bit more would make it feel better. If you could fix that I’d be able to give you a 5-star! Love the privacy policy bullets by the way. Will keep an eye out to see if they start going missing haha
The content of Nebula is amazing and I am so happy that creators are on a different platform than YouTube. The issue though is that the app has some issues: 1. Sometimes when I click on a video in the featured page it doesn’t open 2. The videos in the categories sometimes have nothing to do with the category itself More Minor Issues 3. There’s no way to change video quality, playback speed, etc. 4. I can’t save videos (like to a watch later playlist) without downloading it. Edit: I love Nebula
I really want to like this app more than I do. It’s buggy and hard to use, slow, etc. For example, it does not auto rotate in full screen and the pop out player frequently hangs or doesn’t even display the video that is playing. The search function is barely functional, I’ll search for legal eagle and his channel won’t show up. I also follow several creators on nebula, but when I go to the follow pge it doesn’t show the most recent videos from creators. In a year, it hasn’t improved.
Love the shows. Hate the app. I would genuinely love to use this app more but the layout is so inefficient and creators videos aren’t all listed under one name, sometimes they will be listed under one channel/genre and not the other. It makes it really hard to find things I want to watch without knowing what I’m looking for before hand. Not to mention the player is buggy and unintuitive. Please fix the app and take some cues from YouTube.
People are pretty much saying the same thing, and I’m echoing it. The content is good. But the software is AWFUL. Trying to cast from the website was either out of sync, or stopped playing. The dedicated player was at least more stable, but where are the controls? I played one video, and that’s all I could do. Add to queue didn’t work. Playing another video afterwards didn’t work without disconnecting. Where’s the scrubber bar? Where’s the queue? How much testing did this go through?
Love the company and the creators they have on, but the app has always proved to be a frustrating experience. While the UI’s aesthetic itself looks fine, the stability of the app on Android leaves much to be desired. I’ve found it especially hard to get a stable connection to my chromecast as the video ends every 30 seconds to a minute. Hopefully more time and resources can be given to make it a smoother experience.
The content is great but casting results in unreliable playback at best. If I have a queue open it’ll just randomly skip to the next video and if I’m playing a single video playback will just stop in random places. The standalone app isn’t much better. The interface is fine I guess, but I really just want to be able to watch my content without any issues.
The service is great and the browser version works like a charm. The android app is a bit of a mess unfortunately. I can’t seem to cast to my Shield/Android TV without it freezing every 10 to 30 seconds. That practically forces me to watch Nebula content on my computer, or my phone. That’s almost a no-deal for me. Either the app’s casting needs fixing, or an Android TV app needs to be made.