EKKL vs UP Faith & Family

EKKL and UP Faith & Family both serve Christian and family-friendly audiences, but they are built for slightly different needs. UP Faith & Family is more focused on commercial-free movies and TV series, while EKKL is a broader faith-and-family platform with streaming, podcasts, Daily Devotionals, and community-style features.

EKKL vs UP Faith & Family at a glance

Further details below, but here’s a quick overview:

• Main content: EKKL offers 350-plus curated movies and series, plus podcasts and Daily Devotionals. UP Faith & Family only offers on-demand movies and series.
• Parental controls: EKKL supports up to 10 profiles, each with its own age rating, plus an optional 4-digit parental code. UP Faith & Family has no profiles or parental controls.
• Device access: EKKL is on Roku, Apple TV, Fire TV, Android TV, LG, iOS, Android, and desktop browsers. UP Faith & Family covers the same ground and adds Samsung, Vizio, and Xbox.
• Pricing: EKKL is $9.99 per month or $69.99 per year, ad-free. UP Faith & Family is $5.99 per month or $59.99 billed once annually.

What Is EKKL?

EKKL is a premium faith-forward entertainment and lifestyle platform for families. Its name comes from the Greek word ekklesia, meaning a gathering of people brought together around what matters most.

EKKL launched in July 2026 with a curated library of more than 350 films and series. At its heart, EKKL is built to be more than a video library. Alongside movies and series, it includes podcasts, Daily Devotionals, and community.

What Is UP Faith & Family?

UP Faith & Family is a subscription-based streaming service with on-demand access to movies and series. It describes itself as a streaming home for uplifting entertainment, with shows and movies that are safe for your family and affirm your faith. It emphasizes commercial-free streaming and includes past seasons of UPtv originals.

Founding and Leadership

Ownership is not just trivia. It often shapes a platform’s mission, programming direction, and the kind of stories it is willing to champion long after the credits roll.

EKKL was founded by Michael Scott, who previously co-founded Great American Pure Flix, in partnership with Willie and Korie Robertson and media executive Zach Dasher. That matters because it signals a platform built with a particular audience in mind, families who want entertainment that does not ask them to compromise what they believe.

UP Faith & Family is part of UP Entertainment, LLC, the same company behind the UPtv network, which is why the service carries past seasons of UPtv originals. Philip Manwaring became CEO of UP Entertainment in January 2026, succeeding founder Charley Humbard. The emphasis across the brand stays consistent: uplifting, family-friendly viewing.

Key Differences Between EKKL and UP Faith & Family

Both services serve a similar audience, but they answer different daily needs. Movies and series sit at the center for both, and that shared baseline is real: family-friendly entertainment you can put on without bracing for the moment you have to grab the remote.

Content and Library

EKKL is a broader faith-and-family destination that extends beyond streaming, built so the app still has something to offer on a morning when nobody is looking for a movie. EKKL includes movies and series alongside podcasts and Daily Devotionals, so the mix reaches past the screen. EKKL launched in 2026 with a tighter, curated library of 350-plus films and series.

EKKL leans into faith, redemption, and conviction, with titles including Light of the World, The Blind, Disciples in the Moonlight, the God’s Not Dead films, The Last Supper, Paul’s Promise, and The Case for Christ, alongside series like Duck Dynasty and County Rescue and kids titles like Franklin & Friends and Superbook. EKKL also releases in theaters, with Elijah Peel in August 2026 and Daniel and the Fiery Furnace in September 2026.

UP Faith & Family is centered on on-demand, commercial-free streaming of uplifting movies and series. That focus is the whole product, and it is a clear one. UP Faith & Family is primarily video, with a back catalog built up over years of UPtv programming.

Examples that show up in its identity include Hudson & Rex, Blue Skies, Heartland through Season 19, Sugarcreek Amish Mysteries, Late Bloomer, Love, Alaska, and Jesus Calling.

If your household wants a dependable library of feel-good shows, including romance and faith-favorite titles, UP Faith & Family’s approach is straightforward and familiar. Several of those series stream exclusively there in the U.S.

Parental Controls

For most families, this is the first practical question, and the two services answer it in genuinely different ways.

On EKKL, control lives at the profile level. An account supports up to 10 profiles, and each one carries its own age rating: Kids, Older Kids (7+), Teens (13+), Young Adults (16+), or Adults (18+). That setting filters what the profile can see. Alongside it, a 4-digit parental code paired with a profile lock keeps a profile closed until someone enters the PIN, which is what stops a younger child from simply switching over to a parent’s profile.

Two things worth knowing before you set it up. New profiles start at Adults (18+), so the age rating is something you choose rather than something that arrives pre-set. And the lock is applied to each profile individually, so a household with four kids means four quick setups rather than one master switch. Five minutes at signup, and the rest of the year takes care of itself. Kids and family titles also live in their own Kids & Family category, and every account includes two simultaneous streams across up to five registered devices.

UP Faith & Family takes the opposite approach. There are no user profiles, no PIN, and no age-based filters. The service does keep a browsable “Kids Only Zone” collection, but it is a content category rather than a locked mode, so a child can navigate back out to the full catalog.

That is less of a gap than it first sounds, because the entire UP Faith & Family catalog is pre-vetted as family-appropriate. Curation is the control. For a household where everyone is watching from the same shelf, that works fine.

Where it matters is a house with a wide age range. If a nine-year-old and a sixteen-year-old need different home screens, EKKL’s per-profile ratings and PIN do something UP Faith & Family does not currently offer.

Device Availability

Device support is rarely the reason a family wants a service, but it is often the reason a family quits one.

EKKL is available on Roku, Apple TV, Fire TV, Android TV, LG TVs, iPhone, iPad, Android phones and tablets, Mac, and Windows. Two things to plan around: the EKKL web player runs on desktop and laptop computers rather than mobile browsers, and offline downloads are targeted for late 2026. EKKL is currently available in the United States only.

UP Faith & Family’s official device list includes Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, Android and Google TV, Samsung, LG, Vizio, Xbox, iOS, Android, and web browsers. It is available in the continental United States.

Beyond Streaming: How the Experiences Differ

UP Faith & Family is, in many ways, exactly what it says it is. A subscription streaming service built around commercial-free, uplifting movies and series.

EKKL is different by design. Not simply a place to watch, but a broader faith-and-family destination that pulls multiple parts of a believer’s media life into one home: streaming, podcasts, Daily Devotionals, and community. Select podcasts are available completely ad-free.

That difference is not small. It changes how you use the app when you are not in a “watch something” mood.

And perhaps that is the real dividing line. Do you want one entertainment app, or do you want a platform that tries to carry faith beyond Sunday morning into the rest of the week?

EKKL Daily Devotionals

EKKL’s Daily Devotionals are brief, six to eight minutes, and structured in a simple rhythm: Still, Word, Prayer, Declare, and Worship.

They also invite you to choose a theme, including Peace, Hope, Love, Joy, or Inspiration, and that choice shapes the rest of your experience that day. The goal is not to add another heavy thing to your day; it is to offer a daily touchpoint that feels doable.

Trust, Safety, and Brand Positioning

This is the part families usually feel before they can articulate it. Will this service make family viewing simpler, or will it create one more round of second-guessing?

EKKL builds trust around being a trusted home for quality stories and authentic voices, with content chosen so that family viewing is less stressful for people of faith. The promise is not perfection. It is relief. A sense that you do not have to brace for what is coming next, backed up by controls you can set for each child.

UP Faith & Family frames trust with more direct “safe for your family” language: feel-good streaming, faith-affirming movies, and clean romance. It is often described in the exact ways parents and grandparents talk about it: confidence that you can avoid profanity, gory violence, or nudity when you just want something uplifting on the screen. 

UP Faith & Family stays centered on safe, commercial-free streaming for everyone in the house at once. EKKL reaches further, building a faith-forward ecosystem around the stories and giving each viewer their own lane inside it.

Pricing

Pricing is where many households make the final call, not because cheaper always wins, but because value has to match how you actually use the service.

EKKL is $9.99 per month, or $69.99 for a year, which works out to about $5.83 a month. 

UP Faith & Family lis $5.99 per month, and $59.99 billed once annually, which works out to about $4.99 a month. 

Both options are ad-free and include HD streaming with no long-term commitment. 

UP Faith & Family is the less expensive way to get a deeper library, but if you want streaming plus podcasts, Daily Devotionals, per-profile controls, and a broader member experience, this is EKKL’s value.