Beyond Twitch and YouTube: Exploring Alternative Live Streaming Platforms for Independent Creators

Welcome to another edition of the Independent Creator Podcast. Tonight we're diving into live streaming platforms, and I know we've covered this before, but it really bears repeating. With all the recent changes happening on Twitch and YouTube, the two main platforms people think of when live streaming comes up, there are alternatives out there that might actually be better for your content creation journey.

The Twitch Reality Check

Let's start with Twitch. They've made some recent changes, some good, some not so much, and there's a lot of misinformation floating around about what Twitch actually is and what it can do for you.

Recently, Twitch CEO Dan Clancy released a blog post outlining their roadmap for 2025. One section that caught attention was "monetization for all." If you're a live streamer on Twitch, you've probably seen the push for affiliate status or partner status. That's all well and good, but here's what happens: people get their partner status, and then their views fall off a cliff. They end up disappointed and confused about what went wrong.

The monetization for all feature means new Twitch accounts will get monetization capabilities pretty much from day one for bits and subscriptions. Bits are basically exchanging real currency for digital currency you can give to streamers, and subscriptions run about six dollars a month, with streamers getting anywhere from 50% to 70% depending on their subscriber count.

Here's the thing though: the vast majority of live streamers on Twitch don't have the concurrent viewer numbers to make this profitable enough to go full time. I'm not saying what they're doing is wrong, it's just the nature of Twitch. You're one person going up against thousands, hundreds of thousands, even millions of other creators doing pretty much the same thing you are.

Discovery on Twitch? It doesn't really exist the way you see it on YouTube. So while pushing monetization for every account sounds good, it could lead more people to think they can stream on Twitch and become famous and rich. When that doesn't happen within a month or two, they get that sinking realization and quit. Unfortunately, this happens every single day.

Why YouTube Live Has Its Advantages

YouTube does offer live streaming capabilities, and in some aspects, it's better than Twitch. The video player is miles above Twitch. You can join a YouTube live stream and rewind it to the beginning, then catch up at 1.5x or 2x speed to get back to the live point.

You can technically do this on Twitch, but it's convoluted. You have to click on the person's profile picture, go to videos, find the broadcast, click on that, then go back. And it only goes back to where you started watching. It's just not good for live streaming.

My Top Pick: Owncast

If you know me and have watched this podcast or my other videos, you know I'm a big advocate for Owncast. This is a free, open source platform that lets you take complete control of your live streaming journey.

You install it on your own infrastructure, whether that's your own hardware, something you rent from providers like Hetzner or Digital Ocean, or even something sitting in your closet. You can easily put the Owncast software on that hardware and stream from your computer to that server. People can join in, participate in chat, and watch your stream. You have full, outright control over everything.

There's really no minimum server hardware requirement. People have successfully run streams on a Raspberry Pi. Now, will you get high quality? Maybe not. It depends on your hardware and what resolution you want to stream at. On a Raspberry Pi, you might get 480p or 720p because the encoding isn't as data heavy as 1080p or 1440p.

Owncast offers so much that it's pretty much limitless depending on how you want to use it. By nature, it's not a multi channel streaming platform like Twitch or YouTube. This is geared toward single channel content creation, sharing your own content with the world.

It's completely free, open source software with lots of contributors. There are easy download options, and if you use Hetzner, there's even a one click installer. I have an affiliate link below, and you can get Owncast running in 10 to 15 minutes.

Alternative Multi Platform Options

Maybe you don't want the hassle of setting up a server or installing software. That's okay because there are other multi channel streaming platform alternatives.

Beam

Beamstream is a new up and comer that's been around for less than a year. They've positioned themselves as an alternative, though they don't offer a free plan. They have two tiers: you can pay about four dollars a month to stream on Beam, or you can have your channel sponsored by a company.

I stream to Beam myself, sponsored by Logitech G. Do I get any money from this? No, these companies are basically subsidizing streamers on Beam.

What Beam does really well is multi platform streaming capability. You can stream to Beam and have that stream sent to Twitch, Trovo, YouTube, and many other places. I think they support 30 to 40 different platforms. It's essentially a free alternative to Restream, where instead of streaming from your computer to four or five different places, you stream to one place and they distribute it.

Creating an account is free for viewers at beamstream.gg. The service is perfectly doable. They offer a studio option similar to Twitch's creator dashboard, though more streamlined. They don't offer as much analytics as Twitch or anywhere close to YouTube, but they're slowly implementing new features. Since this is relatively new, they're working hard to provide the best streaming experience they can.

Moonbeam

Another up and comer is Moonbeam. I don't have an account because they're currently in alpha testing. I covered Moonbeam last summer, and what they're doing is basically taking elements of Discord and combining them with live streaming in a better way than what Trovo attempted.

Trovo tried to be a Twitch competitor while adding Discord capabilities, but Moonbeam is building this concept from the ground up. They're creating community spaces where your streaming community can live, similar to Discord servers, but with integrated live streaming capabilities.

Their alpha testing is going really well, so they might move to beta sooner than expected. I'm guessing we'll see Moonbeam fully public sometime this summer, maybe by the end of the year. We'll definitely cover all the features when it becomes available.

SharePlay

SharePlay is another multi channel option that's been around for about two years. To be truthfully honest, they haven't done much. They opened up a beta phase that's easy to access, but the circle of content creators streaming to SharePlay is very, very tiny.

Right now, looking at their website, there are only two people streaming on the entire platform. I've been part of SharePlay for almost two years. During the alpha phase, they were more engaged with the community, rolling out new features and running tests. Lately, it's just plateaued.

I hate to say this, but SharePlay isn't really a viable alternative. It's there and available with a small dedicated community, but that's about it. If you want a very tiny community, give SharePlay a try. You'll need to join their Discord server to get an invite link to their beta phase.

PeerTube

On the free, open source side, PeerTube offers live streaming capability. I like to call PeerTube a jack of all trades, master of none. They're very good at providing free software for video hosting platforms, but their live streaming capability, while functional, is temperamental.

Many people will tell you the same thing. When streaming to a PeerTube instance, your stream might suffer from dropouts, stuttering, or just lower quality enjoyment. This depends heavily on the server hardware the PeerTube platform is running on.

The software itself is very good. You won't find a better alternative to YouTube and Vimeo for video hosting than PeerTube. Video hosting is great, transcoding is excellent, and it shares on the Fediverse. The live streaming capability is just tacked on because people asked for it since they viewed PeerTube as a YouTube alternative.

My Rankings

If I had to rank these platforms, it would be Owncast, Beam, PeerTube, then SharePlay. I can't include Moonbeam since I don't have experience as either a viewer or streamer.

Owncast tops my list because it provides great infrastructure and connects to the Fediverse. When you start a live stream, it automatically posts to Mastodon or the ActivityPub system. PeerTube can do this too, though you have to manually copy and paste.

Why This Matters

The reason I wanted to cover these five options is that live streaming isn't just Twitch and YouTube. I highly suggest people give these alternatives at least a month or two as a viewer to experience what's available beyond the usual platforms.

As I mentioned at the beginning, Twitch is making lots of changes. Some are good, like monetization for all. Sometimes decisions aren't so good. You need to be aware of what's happening in the live streaming world and not put all your eggs in one basket.

I've done this before, and countless others have too. When Mixer shut down, so many people were left wondering what to do next. Some went to Trovo or Glimish. Glimish had great promise but was plagued by mismanagement and eventually shut down. Again, people using it as their only platform were left looking around.

Keep this in the back of your mind: do you have a game plan? Do you have plan B and plan C just in case Twitch shuts down? There's no such thing as too big to fail. Amazon could decide Twitch isn't making money and flip the switch. Suddenly, hundreds of thousands of streamers would be wondering where to go or whether to give up streaming entirely.

This is why I wanted to highlight these alternatives. Have them in the back of your mind as options.

If you enjoyed this episode or have questions or comments, let me know in the comments below or join our forums at indiecreator.community. All the links are down below.

Have a good night, and I'll see you on the next episode. Later taters!

The Independent Creator