If you regularly broadcast on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or other sites, a multistreaming platform can help you connect with a wider audience. This new online broadcasting method helps you save much time in finetuning your content for different social media networks. Our top multistreaming platforms are easy on the pocket and can instantly connect you to multiple websites at once.
Content
- What Is Multistreaming?
- Best Multistreaming Platforms
- 1. XSplit Broadcaster
- 2. Restream Studio
- 3. VEED
- 4. LivePush
- 5. Streamster
- 6. OBS Studio
- Frequently Asked Questions
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What Is Multistreaming?
Multistreaming, in brief, is about streaming a movie, TV series, or live video to several social media websites at once. It is also called “simulcasting,” a term that was first introduced in television broadcasting.
There are many benefits of multistreaming. As the created streams are going to several destinations at once, you can reach out to your subscribers anywhere they are browsing the Web on any device.
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Pixabay
Multistreaming saves you a lot of time in preparing your video content for different websites. Each of them has unique form fields and very different audience expectations. To ensure successful uploads on all channels, you need quite a bit of back-end planning – time best spent on creating more engaging and meaningful videos.
Multistreaming also helps content creators defeat online censorship. If you get banned from one social media site, you can continue to post your upcoming videos on its rival channels.
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Best Multistreaming Platforms
There are several multistreaming software online. Unfortunately, broadcasting isn’t cheap, and many of the platforms tend to carry very expensive licenses. For example, BoxCast’s Essential Plan starts at $99 per month. Even worse, some providers may not have a free trial to begin with.
For those who have just started or don’t have too many subscribers yet, it is an unnecessary upfront investment.
We have shortlisted the best multistreaming providers that help you stream on multiple sites without having to pay exorbitant costs. Most of our examples are genuinely free to use with no hidden charges or intrusive advertisements.
However, except for OBS Studio, they all require you to upgrade to a paid plan if you want more broadcasting minutes. These are still cheaper than many professional multistreaming software that have a high monthly cost.
1. XSplit Broadcaster
Pricing: Free (with watermark), $30 per year (for watermark removal)
XSplit started out as a simple screen recording software company. Currently, it offers XSplit Broadcaster, a full broadcasting application for Windows 11/10 (minimum 8 GB RAM). It is one of the easiest professional broadcasting software to use and supports multistreaming immediately after installation.
To reach different social media channels, open the XSplit Plugin store. It supports Facebook Live, Twitch, YouTube, Twitter, Restream, Livestream, Custom RTMP, Akamai, DailyMotion, YouNow, People TV, and more. To get started, choose the channel where you want to send the live streams.
Each channel you own requires you to set its “Properties” – posting on a given timeline, managing scheduled videos, setting the codec (such as x264 or x265), the bitrate, format, etc. This doesn’t take much work, given the default settings.
You also need to log in once to connect the social media channel with your future live streams. After you have signed in to all the different social media channels in your XSplit application window, it is a breeze to submit your content online.
The best thing about XSplit Broadcaster is that its multistreaming service is absolutely free to use. Even so, your videos are going to have an XSplit watermark, which, luckily, is not very intrusive. If you can put up with it, you can use unlimited streaming minutes.
The alternative is to upgrade to the paid tier. Fortunately, XSplit’s premium prices are much cheaper than the prices of other multistreaming providers.
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2. Restream Studio
Pricing: Free (for beginners – with Restream branding), Standard paid plan starts at $16 per month (on annual basis)
Restream Studio is arguably the most popular multistreaming solution because of several advanced features, such as subscriber chat, the ability to use CTAs and captions, a green screen, and virtual backgrounds. You might have seen them used by other YouTube content creators, and this software app is very popular with them.
Sign in to Restream using your Google or Facebook accounts, and the entire operation is online on a web browser. No installation is needed, and you can use Restream Studio on Mac, Linux, Windows and Chromebook, mobile devices, or a browser.
To access multistreaming on the Restream Studio web dashboard, just click “Add Destination.” This will open a bunch of channels where you can upload the content. Currently, Restream Studio supports Twitch, Facebook Live, YouTube, Twitter, Linkedin, Telegram, Dailymotion, Trovo, Mixcloud, and over 30 other social media sites.
To stream on any social media channel, you need to authorize Restream to access your account. It is easy to revoke that access for Twitter, Google, or any other social media account.
You can add more social media channels in the same manner. After you set them all up, it is very easy to use the app’s Go Live feature to broadcast online.
Multistreaming with Restream Studio is free of cost for beginners. You get two channels for one user, with support for a maximum of six on-screen guests. Restream is also compatible with XSplit and OBS, so you can broadcast on those applications as well.
If you want unlimited bandwidth and no streaming limits, a next-tier upgrade to a Standard plan is worth consideration.
Also read: Streamlabs Desktop vs. OBS Studio vs. XSplit Broadcaster
3. VEED
Pricing: Free (with watermark), Freemium starts at $12 per month (annual)
VEED offers a free Live streaming feature via its online video editor software. The program is available online, with no downloads or installation necessary. To get started with this broadcasting tool, sign in to VEED’s Studio using an online account, such as Google.
VEED has a very simple layout that makes organizing your Live video streams comparatively easier than other multistreaming software. Click a simple “Setup broadcast” button at the top right to open many options.
You can view all your stream settings in one place. Each new platform – such as YouTube, Twitch or Facebook- has to be connected once (through a sign-in). They have a stream key field that you can find through your social media studio or Creator settings.
After connecting your social media accounts, you only need to fill in your stream title, description, cover photo, and schedule time. It has to be done just once for your live streams to be instantly available on all social media channels. You can further add your own themes, backgrounds, logos, and more.
As mentioned, the VEED Live streaming software requires subscribing to its online video editor software. Its free version is capable of handling three quick projects under 10 minutes and 250MB, along with 30 minutes per month worth of audio subtitles. You can invite up to eight guests to your live streams. Streaming is truly unlimited.
VEED’s Basic paid plan is slightly cheaper than that of Restream. Compared to its free plan, stream upload length increases from 10 to 25 minutes, and there are no limits to file upload size.
4. LivePush
Pricing: Free (no watermark), Paid plans start at $8 per month
There are generally no multistreaming providers without watermarks in their free streaming output. LivePush stands out in this list, as it allows you to broadcast for free sans any watermark. It has four different types of streaming dashboards that resemble a professional studio. You can also relay live streams directly from your own website through an HTML5 web player code.
After a simple sign-in using a Google account, access the multistreaming feature from the “Destinations” menu. Click “Add Destination” to broadcast everywhere. LivePush also supports other broadcasting features, such as multiple schedules in advance, prerecording a live event, embedding media players, video looping and repeats.
Choosing your target social media platform is very easy. Presently, LivePush supports over 40 social media channels, including YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Restream, Mobcrush, VK Live, Mixcloud, and an RTMP encoder.
The basic free plan generously supports 20 hours of streaming each month. It further lets you broadcast one live input of 20 minutes each for three destinations, with one destination allowed per platform. You may upload the video to Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube simultaneously, but only one account each will be supported.
Prerecorded videos should be 200MB in size at the most. Of course, upgrading to a paid Regular or Pro plan removes the upload restrictions.
Also read: How to Stream Twitch on Roku
5. Streamster
Pricing: Free (no watermark), Paid plans start at $15 per month
Streamster is an awesome multistreaming app that supports truly free plans without watermarks. It has to be downloaded to a Windows computer or Android/iOS device. You may want to create an account, but starting without registration is the best part of this software. The app is extremely lightweight and does not confuse you with many menu options.
When you open the dashboard, you can view the different channels where you can broadcast online: adult, education, gaming, music, religion, vlog, etc. Currently, Streamster supports Twitch, Facebook Live, LinkedIn, Mixcloud, YouTube, Mixer, Twitter Periscope, and several other online channels.
You need to add each channel separately just one time. You will require an RTMP URL to connect them – the values can be generated from your social media’s Creator or Studio pages. After you add all the channels, it is very easy to multistream to one or all of them.
Streamster’s free plan supports two streaming channels with a maximum bitrate of 6000 kbps. Unlike some other apps that impose restrictions, you get unlimited streaming hours and traffic. The free plan is good to use if you’re looking to increase your subscribers organically. The paid plans are comparable to what is offered by Restream Studio.
6. OBS Studio
Pricing: Free
OBS (Open Broadcaster Software) Studio is one of the best free and open-source software for online gaming broadcasts. Unlike some others, it does not support an automatic multistreaming option, but manual multistreaming is definitely worth exploring.
You can download and install OBS Studio in Windows, Mac, and Linux. To access the streaming options, click “Open Settings.” This generates a pop-up window where you can see the various streaming options enabled under the “Stream” menu. Click “Show All,” to see more options.
With OBS Studio, there is other streaming software that you can save the Stream information to.
For each streaming provider you add, you need to connect the local account and get a stream key. It can be generated from the Studio or Creator’s page for that specific social media channel.
Also read: How to Watch and Chat on YouTube Live Stream
Frequently Asked Questions
Does multistreaming affect my computer’s performance?
If you’re trying to achieve multistreaming through your own computer CPU and hardware, it can affect the overall performance negatively. Each social media stream can consume a lot of bandwidth, which would make it very difficult to do it manually. It is better to use the CPU resources of a multistreaming platform, such as XSplit, Restream or others.
Is multistreaming allowed by different social media websites?
You can use a multistreaming provider, but some social media sites may impose restrictions on the content consumed on their network. YouTube is very particular about this, especially if you are a content partner. It may not allow the videos to be simultaneously uploaded on another affiliate network, such as Twitch.
Some multistreaming platforms claim to offer a way around this, but it is better to err on the side of caution if you don’t wish to be banned from a social media website.
How can I watch multiple streams at once?
Twitch is one example. If you want to watch multiple programs, such as YouTube and Facebook on a single dashboard, XSplit Broadcaster and OBS Studio have the plugins to support secondary views. If we’re talking movie streaming services, you can combine multiple options through Plex or one of its alternatives.
Image credit: Metamorworks via Adobe Stock. All screenshots taken by Sayak Boral.
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Sayak Boral –
Staff Writer
Sayak Boral is a technology writer with over eleven years of experience working in different industries including semiconductors, IoT, enterprise IT, telecommunications OSS/BSS, and network security. He has been writing for MakeTechEasier on a wide range of technical topics including Windows, Android, Internet, Hardware Guides, Browsers, Software Tools, and Product Reviews.
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