Twitchvs
Discord
Discord: Your place to talk and hang out
Twitch
Where gaming lives
As of 30 August 2026, Twitch has a free plan and paid plans start at $4.99/month. Twitch is a video live streaming service that focuses on video game live streaming, including broadcasts of esports competitions, in addition to offering music. Softwr lists it under Gaming. Twitch is made by Amazon.com Inc, launched in 2011, available on Web, iOS, Android, TV and console.
Overview
What Twitch does
Twitch is a video live streaming service that focuses on video game live streaming, including broadcasts of esports competitions, in addition to offering music broadcasts, creative content, and more recently, 'in real life' streams.
What people use it for
- Gaming live streams
- Content creation
- Community building
- Esports viewing
- Creative streaming
Related searches
The honest half
Where it falls short
Concrete and checkable, so you can decide whether any of them matter to you. This is the half of a review a vendor will not write about Twitch.
- Twitch's own App Store description discloses that the app includes Nielsen's proprietary measurement software contributing to third-party market research (Nielsen TV Ratings), with an opt-out only available via a separate Nielsen privacy policy page.
Cross-shopped
What people choose instead of Twitch
Each pairing was judged by two reviewers asking whether a buyer would genuinely weigh the two against each other. The ones that failed were deleted rather than published.
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PlayStation Plus: Monthly games, online multiplayer and more
Pricing
What Twitch costs
Taken from the vendor's own pricing page. Prices move, so check before you buy.
Free
Free
- Watch live streams
- Chat participation
- Follow streamers
- Mobile app access
- Basic emotes
Turbo
$8.99 /mo
- Ad-free viewing
- Expanded emoticon set
- Priority support
- Chat badge
- Extended broadcast storage
Capabilities
Features
Live streaming
Chat interaction
Video on demand
Clips and highlights
Channel subscriptions
Donations and bits
Extensions
Mobile streaming
OBS Studio
Integration with OBS Studio
Streamlabs
Integration with Streamlabs
Amazon services
Integration with Amazon services
Discord
Integration with Discord
Behind it
Who makes Twitch
- Company
- Amazon.com Inc
- Based in
- San Francisco, CA, USA
- Founders
- Justin Kan, Emmett Shear, Michael Seibel, Kyle Vogt, Kevin Lin
Keep looking
Where to go from Twitch
- Twitch alternativesEvery product people weigh against it
- Twitch pricingPlans, floors and what the tiers exclude
- Twitch badgesWhich rules it meets, and the figure behind each
- All Gaming softwareThe full category
- Best Gaming softwareThe shortlist, and how it was cut
Best Gaming software for
Compare Twitch with
- PlayStation Plus
- Nintendo Switch Online
- Epic Games Store
- Nvidia GeForce Now
- itch.io
- Shadow PC
- Ubisoft Connect
- Winio
- Steam
- GOG
- Xbox Game Pass
- Humble Bundle
- Heroic Games Launcher
- Lutris
- Playnite
- RetroArch
- Ubisoft Connect
- Winio
Other Gaming software
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Free plan8 researched notesCloud gaming that streams games you bought elsewhere, when the publisher allows it
Free, then $9.99/mo11 researched notesA full Windows machine in a datacentre, rented by the month
From $29.99/mo11 researched notesUbisoft launcher, rewards programme and the Ubisoft+ subscription
Free plan11 researched notesPay what you want game, book and software bundles with a bounded charity split
From $11.99/mo11 researched notesOpen source client for Epic, GOG and Amazon libraries on Linux, Windows and macOS
Open source11 researched notesOpen source Linux game manager built around community install scripts and Wine runner management
Open source11 researched notesOpen source Windows library manager that pulls every storefront into one browsable collection
Open source11 researched notesOpen source frontend running dozens of emulators as interchangeable cores behind one interface
Open source11 researched notesUbisoft launcher, rewards programme and the Ubisoft+ subscription
Free plan11 researched notes
Softwr does not host reviews and shows no star rating for Twitch, because a rating we did not collect is not ours to publish. What is here is the pricing and platform detail from the vendor’s own pages, limitations we could state concretely, and alternatives a reviewer confirmed people weigh against it. Tell us if any of it is wrong.
More on Twitch
Twitch alternatives
What people switch to, and what they give up
Twitch pricing
Every tier, and where the cost actually lands
Compare Twitch
Put it head to head with anything we hold
Twitch badge
Its rating, and an embed for your own site
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