Comparing three cloud game streaming platforms

A (now outdated) blog post that compares the cost and overall quality of three popular cloud game streaming services: Stadia, Geforce Now, and Amazon Luna.


Note: This article is extremely outdated (published May 23rd 2021) and it has only been included as part of the blog to act as some form of content.

I am going to be comparing 3 platforms for cloud game streaming: Geforce Now, Stadia, and Amazon Luna, in this blog post. The pros and cons of all the platforms will be listed in this post.

The platforms will be compared based on these categories:

  • Latency: How much lag there is between your actions and it showing up on the screen. The lower the latency, the better.

  • Quality: How good it looks, visually.

  • Price: Cost of the service.

  • Experience: The user interface, ease of access, and overall thoughts.

The platforms have been tested with the game "Destiny 2" to make an accurate and fair comparison as it is available on 2/3 of these platforms (Geforce Now, Stadia). It is not available on Amazon's Luna platform as it is a very new platform and does not have a large collection of games as of yet, so I will be playing the games "Ghostrunner" and "Metro Exodus" to test the capabilities of Luna.

Disclaimer: Try using an Ethernet cable or a stable 5GHz connection to get the best experience.

This is all tested using my devices in the California region, you might have better or worse results in your area, so before buying, you can try out all of the services in the list, with a free trial (all of them have some sort of free trial). Make sure to cancel your subscription once you are done trying them out or the trial period is almost over because they are recurring subscriptions.

1. Geforce Now

First up on the list, Geforce Now, a cloud game streaming service that has been around since 2015, making it the oldest on the list. Geforce Now is a great platform and it has support for a long list of games. I have personally been using this platform a lot as it is really, really good. This platform provides a free version that allows you to play in 1-hour sessions but with slightly worse hardware than the paid version (no ray tracing support), the free version has been used for testing.

Latency: There is close to no latency on Geforce Now, making it a great experience (though I would not recommend playing competitive shooters on any of these platforms).

Latency Score: 9.5/10

Quality: The quality of Geforce Now is also great, on my 1366x768 laptop screen. Geforce Now limits the quality to 1080p at 60fps; so I wouldn't recommend using it much on a 4K television (which I tried) as it upscales it from 1080p to 4k, which causes pixelation. In terms of FPS, I think that 60fps is more than good enough for AAA titles and role-playing games, though it does make a difference while playing shooters like CS:GO.

Quality Score: 9.5/10

Price: Geforce Now has a free version and a paid version, the free version allows you to play for free in 1-hour sessions, but you have to wait to be able to play the games of your choice and does not provide RTX (ray-tracing) support. The paid version comes in at $9.99 a month or $99 a year which removes the time limit, skips the wait, and allows you to enable RTX. Personally, I was completely fine with waiting and being able to play in 1-hour sessions without RTX, so I think Geforce Now has done a great thing by providing a free experience so you can play games away from your gaming rig at home.

Monthly Price: $9.99/month

Yearly Price: $99/month

Price Score: 10/10

Experience: Geforce Now provides a great experience; the UI is simple, allowing you to easily link your Steam, Epic or Origin accounts to play any of your PC games away from home, for free or for paid. Geforce Now is my go-to platform if I am traveling and cannot carry my entire gaming rig, I can just carry my laptop and play any game I would normally play, away from home.

Experience Score: 10/10

Tips and Tricks:

  1. If you are using a stable ethernet or 5GHz connection (it is recommended) then you can usually increase the quality without increasing latency. This can be done by clicking the 3-line sandwich menu, then clicking on 'Settings' and in the 'STREAMING QUALITY' section, you can select 'Custom' from the drop-down and set all off the bars and dropdowns to the maximum allowed option.

Overall Score: 9.8/10

Geforce Now is an amazing platform that I have personally been using for a while now as well, it provides you with amazing quality, close to no latency, for free (or paid). So, I gave it the number one spot.

2. Stadia

In the second place, Stadia, the cloud game-streaming service by Google. Stadia also has a long list of games, a lot of which are free with Stadia's pro membership. It is a very balanced streaming platform and is perfect for casual players.

Latency: Stadia, like Geforce Now, has very low amounts of latency, it's very enjoyable to play games like Jedi Fallen Order at Jedi Master difficulty and still parry on time, though there are a few minute stutters.

Latency Score: 9/10

Quality: Stadia has amazing quality, the free version of Stadia limits the quality to 1080p 60fps, but the pro version allows you to play at 4k 60fps, which is insane for a cloud game-streaming platform. Stadia works well on everything in terms of quality, even on TVs because of the high resolution it provides.

Quality Score: 9.5/10

Price: Like Geforce Now, Stadia provides a free version and a paid version (for which there is a free trial). The free version has 3 free games - Destiny 2, Crayta: Starter Edition, and SUPER BOMBERMAN R ONLINE - but you can buy more games from the Store too. The paid version comes with a lot of free games alongside - Jedi Fallen Order, Hitman 1, Resident Evil 7, Everspace, etc. - and you can also buy games from the Store. The pro version also lets you play games at 4k which is really great!

Monthly Price: $9.99/month

Price Score: 10/10

Experience: Stadia is a very good platform for casual gamers, and the UI is really clean and simple to use too. I have been using Stadia's free trial to play Jedi Fallen Order and Destiny 2 and it is very enjoyable, would recommend it if you are traveling somewhere and just want to play some games.

Experience Score: 9.5/10

Overall Score: 9.2/10

3. Amazon Luna

In the last place, we have Amazon Luna, which is a fairly new cloud-gaming service by the well known online-shopping company, Amazon. As it is a fairly new service, the list of games is not as long as other services on the list, but it is still a worthy contender. Currently, the platform is still in beta but you can easily get access by filling out the form on the Luna page.

Latency: As the platform is fairly new, the latency issues might get better over time, but at the moment, Amazon Luna has a lot more latency than any other platform on this list. Playing games on Luna is fun but I would definitely not recommend Ghostrunner, which they provide as a free game when buying their Luna+ membership, as there are a lot of stutters and input glitches. Metro Exodus, on the other hand, was still fine as it does not require very complicated movement.

Latency Score: 6/10

Quality: Just as for the latency on the platform, the quality could also be better, compared to the other platforms, but it is not bad at all and does look pretty good.

Quality Score: 7.5/10

Price: Luna has two types of subscriptions, one which is a normal Luna+ subscription with a decent amount of games which is $4.99 a month, and a Ubisoft+ Luna subscription which provides almost all games from Ubisoft (The Division, Assassins Creed, Far Cry 5, etc.) which is $14.99 a month. I would say this is actually pretty well priced for the number of games you get. There is also a free trial for Luna+ if you wish to try it out.

Luna+ Price: $4.99/month

Ubsioft+ Price: $14.99/month

Price Score: 8/10

Experience: Luna provides a good experience when playing, but as it is still in beta, there are many glitches and the UI is not polished, but over time, Luna could end up being a great platform. What could work better for Luna is to have it on a different page than Amazon as it would just feel much better and cleaner.

Experience Score: 7/10

Overall Score: 7.2/10

Luna is a pretty new platform, meaning that it will take time for it to get better, but at the moment, Luna is not as good compared to the rest of these platforms, which is why I gave it last place.

Thanks for reading to the end!