Multistreaming

Multistreaming to Twitch, YouTube, and Kick at the same time.

One broadcast, two or three platforms, one OBS source. Multistreaming doubles or triples your discoverability surface without extra streams — but the bandwidth math squares per destination, the tools differ in cost and features, and platform policies differ. Here’s the practical layer.

Platform comparisonTwitch with OBSYouTube with OBS

Three ways to multistream, ranked by practicality

  1. Restream service (recommended start): an external service (Restream, Castr, StreamElements Omni) receives one RTMP push from OBS and repeats it to every destination. Your upload cost stays single, chats optionally merge into one view, and per-platform ingest routing is the service’s problem.
  2. OBS multi-RTMP outputs: OBS can run multiple simultaneous stream outputs (through settings or the Aitum-style multi-output approaches). Zero third-party dependency, but your upload bandwidth must carry one full copy per destination — two platforms at 6000 kbps means 12 Mbps up. Home connections rarely sustain that.
  3. Two OBS instances / second machine: the over-engineered variant; only sensible in a dual-PC setup where the streaming box has spare headroom anyway.

The bandwidth math that decides for most people

Direct multi-RTMP multiplies your upload by destination count. At 4500 kbps video plus audio overhead, each platform costs about 4.5–5 Mbps sustained:

  • 2 platforms ≈ 9–10 Mbps up.
  • 3 platforms ≈ 13–15 Mbps up.

A restream service needs only the single copy plus a small chat-overhead. If the upload speed math is already tight at home, the service route is almost forced. On mobile data, add the mobile streaming constraints on top.

Platform policies you must check (2026 state)

  • Twitch: simulcasting to other live services is permitted, with conditions that amount to “don’t link-jam one platform’s viewers to another mid-broadcast.” Read the current simulcasting guidelines before scheduling; they have cross-linking and exclusivity-of-content nuances.
  • YouTube Live: simulcasting is explicitly allowed. YouTube generally gives simulcasts fewer algorithmic favors than native-first content; that’s fine for pure audience capture.
  • Kick: historically simulcast-friendly; verify current terms since they’ve tightened and loosened before.

Rules drift. The safe pattern: keep your community anchor on one platform, simulcast for reach, and verbally point people to your “home base” off-platform (Discord, YouTube archive) rather than degrading any platform’s experience.

Chat is the real problem

Production is a solved problem; attention-splitting is not. Options:

  • Unified chat via restream tools or a chat-merge overlay — one combined chat panel, color-coded per platform. The sanest default.
  • Separate monitor per chat works until a platform’s chat moves faster than your eyes can serve.
  • A bot bridging chats into your Discord is a middle path that also builds the community archive.

Ignoring chat aggregation is why most multistreamers quietly retreat to a single platform within a month: nobody wants to read three chats.

Quality and config notes

  • Encode once at your common denominator. Sending 1080p60 to Twitch, YouTube, and Kick is one encode; per-platform quality tuning (different resolutions/bitrate ceilings) needs per-output encodes — that’s when CPU/GPU cost stacks.
  • Per-platform audio normalization: the same mix works everywhere, but verify each platform’s VOD playback before locking the chain.
  • VODs diverge: highlights, clips, and archives land on each platform separately. The save-clip-reuse workflow still applies, per platform.
  • Test the full chain with a private unlisted test stream per platform before going live publicly — restream configs fail in boring ways (wrong key, dead service endpoint) that Go-Live is the wrong time to discover.

Useful next guides