Moving to a new place & looking to avoid satellite and cable - you could say I'm reluctantly entering the 21st century.
While I've liked the ease - primarily recording stuff to FF through ads - of satellite & cable, it's $240/mo at the new place.
From what I've read, Roku's more user-friendly than Fire Stick, and Roku doesn't bombard you with their own ads or multiple gates to get where you want like Amazon does.
Apparently, events & shows can be recorded on "the cloud" for later watching, and presumably to FF through the BS.
Nevertheless, thought I'd ask the Moparts braintrust for their experiences & suggestions.

I basically watch racing, NBA games, auctions, historical and a few shows...
ESPN, FS1 & 2, MT, Discovery, History Ch, NBATV, TNT, USA, CNBC, A&E, and FX.
An occasional movie is nice, but the stuff I like is harder to find than the blockbuster/greatest hits stuff.

I'm basically an analog guy if you haven't guessed by now, and a moron when it comes to the modern stuff.

I have no experience with Roku. But prior to the Firestick I had been using a variety of android boxes over the years. We have two Firesticks and have no problems using them. But keep in mind the content you get will be based on the Apps you have loaded. Some Apps will be very user friendly because you're paying for them - like "Prime" or "Netflix" but if you load something like "Cinema" or "TeaTV" then you're at the mercy of the streamers, your internet provider, etc, etc... As for advertising, the ONLY place I get any advertising is on YouTube. Mind you, we don't use "Prime" very much so I really can't comment on that.

I think it depends on what you started with, I have both.
I use Roku for Youtube TV / Amazon Prime / NetFlix / ect..................
GF likes Firestick, so she added it to all my TVs, it supports all the same apps.
Neither really do anything, just an interface to download and use other apps.
Sorta like iPhone or Android, just a matter of preference.

She likes Firestick, I like Roku, they both do the same thing.

Bigger question is what kind of internet access do you have there? Other platforms are available.

Internet comes from Sparklight, 100Mbps, but I can get 600Mbps or 1 Gig if I want.
Apparently the WiFi box supplies the sorcery for the TV and the PC.

purely from a hardware perspective, I prefer the roku ultra size instead of the firestick/roku mini things that plug into the back of the tv.
The reason is that all that hardware heats up during use. The roku boxes have more space to dissipate the heat and should last longer.

Good point. I don't need a bunch of features, but the heat thing is something I notice on a lot of stuff.

I have two Fire Sticks, the older one was bought July, 2018 for $20 on deal of the day. Still works fine, 5+ years seems more than reasonable.

To be clear, I don't care much about the cost, compared to the outlay for cable or satellite - if the magic costs me $80 or whatever, so be it.
Am I OK @ 100 Mbps ? That's 10x what I've had up here in the woods, on an ethernet connection; it buffers a lot.

If you actually get 100 mbps...

I just ran a speedtest on my connection, 33 mbps and streaming works fine.

Roku

Both have great features and what is easily installed from their own app stores work great. I see Roku as apple products where you can only download apps from their store. Firestick is more like android where you can sideload things. The apps sideloaded may get buffering/ad issues sometimes. I use TeaTV to watch almost anything out there that's not on Netflix or Prime. Pick up one of each and compare them, they are cheap enough when on sale. I have a Roku TV with a Firestick plugged into the HDMI port.

not much difference in the two. menus will look different but they are still both ubdersized android boxes. the best would be https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/shield/

I went looking for a new device because my Blu-Ray aged out of every app except Netflix and I wanted to be able to use my laptop for other things while streaming.

Went to BB and the first guy I talked to responded to "Roku or Firestick?" with "[some other thing whose name I forget]."
To anyone working in retail: This is not helpful.

Second guy I talked to opened a cabinet and handed me a Firestick. I've been using it for several months and I'm pretty happy with it. Sometimes getting back to the main menu for an app is a bit of work, but overall I'm satisfied.

Roku is the most popular and is what I use. For what you want to watch you will need a live TV package like Sling TV, Hulu Live or YouTube TV. Those are viewing packages the same as cable and satellite but broadcast via the internet. A live TV package this way is cheaper than traditional cable and satellite- but the pricing continually increases. I suggest you get a ROKU device- actually one for each TV and then pay for a live TV package as mentioned above- and maybe an additional service such as Prime or Netflix- whatever your budget allows. Plus there are LOTS of totally free services that are very worthwhile. Free due to the moderate commercial interruptions. Nothing like cable where a 1 hour show is 42 minutes show/18 minutes commercials. A TV antenna is popular too for local news as well as the broadcast stations we grew up watching. BUT- acceptable reception will depend on your distance from the broadcast towers, trees and hills in the line of sight if any. An outdoor antenna is always better than an indoor antenna. I am 44 miles form the towers. I have an outdoor Mohu Sky antenna mounted 10 feet above my roof on the north end gable. I get all 4 networks - ABC, CBS, NBC and FOX. They come in at full signal strength.

Thanks, guys, appreciate the info.
I went with a Roku Ultra, supposedly the best overall audio/video quality.
Leaning towards Hulu, but I'll deal with that in a couple days, when I'm at my new home.

keep us posted

I have a question after reading this. Basically, several months ago we dropped TV from Comcast - our monthly bill was over $300.00 - for 3 cable boxes, internet, & one land-line phone (need that for my business). Anyway, since dropping the cable TV, we are 1/2 of what we were - MUCH relief! The ONLY thing I basically watch on live TV is golf - typically starting in January when the tour begins the year. I've been told live TV like this is accessible through Disney or Hulu & had my wife try to find it for me. She could not figure out how to get live golf. *We are using Firesticks BTW. Is it possible to get live sports like this? How?

This is why I recharge my phone on a floor fan every single time. Even during winter.

How did you watch it before? Don't say "cable". What channels? If it was the networks you can use an antenna to get the local stations. If it was ESPN or a similar sports channel you can still get those separately.