Twitch and Kick have emerged as critical players in a fast-growing gaming world of live-streaming technology. In fact, Twitch dominated the live-streaming sector for several years before Kick appeared in October 2022 to challenge its supremacy.
Twitch is still a preferred destination for game streamers. Even with fierce competition from Kick, millions of visitors still throng the site daily, and there is no sign of slowing down.
In this article, we will discuss Twitch and Kick at length to find out what each of them has to offer.
Let’s get started.
Twitch vs Kick – What Are They?
Twitch
Twitch TV is a video game streaming platform that live streams videos, including esports competition broadcasts, real-life streams, music broadcasts, and creative content.
Operated by Twitch Interactive, a subsidiary of Amazon.com, the American-based company was founded in 2011 and originally started as justin.tv, with gaming as its primary offering.
Justin.tv rebranded to Twitch TV in 2014 after massive success. Later that year, Amazon acquired the live video streaming platform with over 55 million unique visitors viewing over 15 billion minutes of content in July alone.
Creating an account on Twitch is free for viewers or streamers. People love Twitch as they find a sense of community within it. They can also preview games before buying and earn as they watch some of the internet’s best entertainers.
Twitch has had ample time to refine itself and integrate a wide range of features for a better streaming experience. Since its establishment in 2011, Twitch has maintained a solid foundation with comprehensive features to empower streamers.
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Kick
Kick is a video streaming platform that considers itself a worthy competitor to Twitch. Ed Craven and Bijan Tehran founded Kick in late 2022 after seeing the success that Twitch had experienced.
Tyler Nikman, a popular streamer under the username “Trainwreckstv,” who left Twitch following its 2022 crackdown on gambling, co-founded Kick. Until July 2023, Kick had gained a following of about 12 million streamers.
These streamers include popular Twitch streamers like Ninja, xQc, Amourath, Adin Ross, GMHikaru, and Corinna Kopf.
Kick’s features imitate Twitch, although it has a different business model and objective. Kick’s business model aims at loosening moderation while maximizing streamers’ revenue shares.
Kick is relatively new in the market compared to Twitch, Facebook Live, and YouTube Live. However, it does an excellent job of allowing users to stream their favorite videos in real time.
The platform will enable you to stream videos in six categories: games, IRL, music, gambling, creative, and alternative.
Kick allows you to stream games, including single-player narratives and esports tournaments. IRL content includes ASMR, pools, and travel and outdoors. The creative segment covers creative skills, including drawing, arts and crafts, and programming.
Users love Kick as they potentially earn more. Kick gives newbies a better chance to stand out. Kick supports HD-quality streams and has a chat function to allow you to interact with viewers during broadcasts.
In addition to offering a platform to stream videos, Kick allows its creators to save their live content and later upload it for on-demand viewing. If you have interacted with popular live-streaming sites before, you will feel at home with Kick.
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Twitch vs Kick – Features
Twitch Features
1. Live-streaming and earning
As mentioned earlier, Twitch is an interactive live-streaming tool for gaming, entertainment, music, and sports content. Twitch allows content creators to make a living out of streaming, although it still requires you to work to grow your channel and earn more.
Through Twitch’s streaming capabilities, users (broadcasters) can create a dynamic and engaging relationship with the audience.
There is no standard way to stream on Twitch. At its most basic, all you need is a stable internet and a tool to broadcast video to the Internet.
This video encoder tool can be a physical device like Xbox, Nintendo Switch, PS4, or any gaming console. It can also be software such as Twitch Studio, OBS, or Twitch app on iOS or Android.
Like most online platforms, Twitch allows viewers to subscribe, follow, and donate bits (virtual currency) to your channel, which you can redeem for real money. You can also make real money through the Twitch affiliate program or Twitch partnership.
2. Alerts/notifications and saved channels
Image: Twitch Support
Alerts are an exciting ingredient to a streamer’s kit. Apart from notifying viewers when you go live, alerts have a way of expressing a streamer’s personality and sense of humor.
You can set up alerts for Bits donations, subscriptions, or any supportive interaction from the community.
Twitch saves all followed channels to a library that you can easily access through a personal list. As you log in to Twitch, you will receive alerts through your desktop or Android app.
You can find your notification inbox in the upper-right corner. The inbox is home to all your notifications, alerts, new products, gift subscriptions, and more.
If you log in as a Twitch user, your inbox is labeled “My Twitch,” which displays all notifications regarding events, actions, or activities.
As a creator, your inbox is called “My Channel,” which displays all essential notifications to your channel, including achievements and new products.
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3. Mod View
The mod view is a fully customizable channel mode with all you need to moderate your channel. The mod view is made of movable and resizable widgets to help you manage everything without losing sight of the stream or your chat.
Your mod view has four sections. Its central grid is filled with widgets for your higher-priority tasks, while the left-side dock displays all necessary stats and less-frequented tasks. Another section is a panel for your details and quick actions.
Lastly, your mod view has an area for you to submit feedback or read updates on Twitch’s new features.
Kick Features
1. Chat replay on VOD
Chat replay on VOD was one of the highly-requested features by users. Its decision to prioritize the needs of its users positioned it as a robust user-centric platform that would go out of its way to ensure that its offerings resonate with the community.
Chat replay on VOD features past broadcasts on your channel. Once you finish live streaming, Kick saves a replay that lasts up to 30 days on your channel. If you wish to delete a stream replay, simply click on the cross symbol at the top right of your videos tab.
2. Kick chat and chat badges
You can control most aspects of your stream from the chat window within your channel. Kick allows you to modify your channel or assign a member of the community power to moderate your channel to make streaming more enjoyable.
Moderators can help you remove chat messages and ban or unban users. You can add or remove moderators from your chat through the Creator dashboard or simply type a command in your chat room.
Other significant Kick chat features are VIP and OG chat badges. You can give these special badges to the most valuable members of your Kick community.
Once you award these badges, they remain visible at the beginning of the member’s username when they type a message in the chatroom.
However, you can only award members a badge if they follow your channel. You can award up to 50 VIP community members, while the OG badges can serve up to 25 members.
3. Viewer engagement
Streamers on Kick are always looking to make their streaming exciting by increasing viewer engagement.
Kick makes it easy to achieve all this by setting subscription and follower alerts. You may need a third-party tool like BotRix to set up alerts.
You can boost your viewer engagement by using a catchy title on your profile, engaging with your audience during live streams, and collaborating with other creators.
Twitch vs Kick – Pricing
Twitch Pricing
Twitch offers subscription prices based on the cost of living where you live. Local subscriptions enable you to build communities and grow revenue as more viewers become your supporters.
Local subscriptions allow viewers to pay a minimum of $4.99 monthly to support your channel. Twitch offers additional levels for supporters to provide more support at $9.99 or $24.99 monthly.
Twitch also features Gifted Subscriptions, where viewers can gift you a one-month subscription to your channel. Another option for Twitch is Prime Gaming as part of Amazon Prime.
Prime Gaming includes multiple perks for viewers, including a free channel, numerous in-game perks, downloadable games, and Twitch channel subscriptions. You can download the free Twitch app for your desktop, Android, or iOS.
Kick Pricing
Kick channel subscriptions are only available for Kick partners and affiliates. A Kick subscription costs $4.99, and you can cancel it anytime from your subscription page.
Kick accepts various subscription payment options, including VISA, Mastercard, and American Express.
You can download the Kick app for free on Google PlayStore for Android or AppStore for iOS.
Twitch vs Kick – Similarities and Differences
Similarities
Twitch and Kick are similar in functionality and visually. Similar aspects between the two platforms include color schemes, menus, chat functions, and category browsing. It’s no wonder the two platforms have recently dominated online conversations.
The two live-streaming platforms have become a favorite to many, offering options for users to seamlessly subscribe to their favorite creators’ channels, send tips, or have real-time conversations.
Twitch and Kick target millions of active internet users worldwide. Notably, the two platforms appeal to young people between 16 and 22, who are enthusiastic about esports, video games, and entertainment.
Since the platforms are loved by the younger generation, the two have set strict measures prohibiting users from content depicting partial or full nudity.
For Twitch, the policy has been active since 2020. Any streamer found violating the policy is flagged down or banned from using the platform. On the other hand, Kick’s community guidelines prohibit explicit content, violent content, hate speech, and fraud.
Both Twitch and Kick support monetization. A standard method of making money on both platforms is through subscriptions. You must attain affiliate status to start charging your audience a subscription fee.
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Differences
Twitch has well-established policies for advertising on the platform. Twitch only allows creators to promote their products through well-defined advertising. On the other hand, Kick has yet to establish advertising policies.
Kick has fewer requirements to attain affiliate status than Twitch. Kick only requires 75 followers and five streaming hours to become an affiliate.
On the other hand, it will take you 50 followers, eight streaming hours, and streaming on seven different days with an average of three viewers to become an affiliate of Twitch.
Twitch has a 50/50 revenue split with streamers, with more prominent streamers able to negotiate a 70/30 stream. On the other hand, Kick has managed to maintain a generous revenue split of 95/5 on subscriptions.
The most significant factor that sets Twitch apart from Kick is gambling rules. Twitch has strict restrictions on gambling matters and prohibits streamers from broadcasting gambling sites without licenses. But Twitch allows online poker, fantasy sports, and sports betting streaming.
Things are different with Kick. While it has almost similar gambling rules to other users with Twitch, Kick allows its creators to stream a range of gambling sites based on the specific laws and regulations in their country of origin.
Twitch is more vast than Kick. According to TwitchTracker, the platform records over 2.5 million viewers daily on almost 100,000 channels.
While the numbers seem impressive, they reduce the odds of newbies succeeding on the forum. On average, Kick records about 100,000 viewers daily on about 7,000 channels.
Twitch banned multistreaming in June 2023. However, Kick does not restrict its creators from broadcasting their content on other streaming platforms. Kick takes advantage of the disgruntled Twitch streamers by settling their termination fee.
Twitch vs Kick – Pros and Cons
Twitch Pros
- Twitch offers opportunities to monetize your channel. You can earn through ads, sponsorships, donations, or merchandise sales.
- You can use Twitch as your creative outlet. Twitch allows you to stream videos, express your personality, and share your passion with the world.
- Twitch is an excellent platform to build a community.
- The platform allows you to learn from other streamers by watching what they do and noting tips and tricks of their gaming style. You can also join a community of streamers to collect feedback on improving your channel.
- Streaming on Twitch promises a broader reach than most platforms.
Twitch Cons
- Twitch poses a potential burnout if you do not maintain a proper life-streaming balance.
- You need a lot of commitment to monetize your channel and consider it a reliable source of income.
- It can be challenging to moderate content and channels on Twitch. You risk receiving negative feedback, including trolls and cyberbullying, from viewers who are tricky trolls to dispose of.
- Twitch only keeps your content for 24 hours. Additionally, you cannot share the streamed content elsewhere within 24 hours. Breaking this rule could lead to the suspension of your account.
Kick Pros
- Kicks allows you to stream games with friends or a team.
- Kick aims at becoming the most streamer-friendly platform. Hence, it has fewer regulations for creators to comply with.
- Kick believes in streamer empowerment. With only 75 followers and five streaming hours, you can become an affiliate on Kick.
- It allows you to save your live stream for on-demand viewing.
- It offers creators a relatively larger share of earnings compared to its competitors. It provides a 70-30 revenue split and a 100% revenue split on its donation platform called Kicks.
Kick Pros
- It is still in beta, so it may lack some essential features.
- Its fewer regulations could lead to abuse of the platform.
- Kick is still evolving and needs to refine most of its rules.
Final Thoughts: Twitch vs Kick – Which is Better?
It’s safe to say that both Twitch and Kick promise an exciting streaming experience. They are all loaded with enticing perks, meaning it’s never a waste to invest your time streaming your favorite videos and engaging with communities on the platforms.
However, thanks to its creator-centric approach, Kick emerges as a favorable platform. The recent backlash on Twitch has made many streamers believe that the platform is headed in the wrong direction.
While Twitch announced that it would scrap the new advertising rules to redeem its image after a backlash that saw streamers leave the platform, the move rubbed streamers the wrong way significantly since it constrained the way streamers generated revenue.
While Kick might still be in its beta stage, it is committed to fostering effective engagement between creators and the audience as it continues evolving and strives to provide streamers with higher returns with user-friendly experiences.
Additionally, often, Twitch gets saturated, prompting smaller streamers who need help finding an audience to opt for Kick.
