While both the Chromecast and the Roku have their charms, and advantages, I prefer the Roku because of the remote control and the abundance of free apps that are easy to find.
Roku offers smart TV features without needing a smart TV
Endless entertainment!
That's how Roku's Canadian website describes their service, a hardware and software-based solution that competes head to head with such other systems as Google's Chromecast. And they're right about the "endless" part, at least to a point: there's so much stuff you can access with your Roku it might make your head spin.
The downside to all of this, if you can call it a downside, is that some of the content isn't free and a lot of the stuff that is free adheres strictly to Sturgeon's Law, which I paraphrase as saying "90 per cent of anything is crap."