What Is Multistreaming? How It Works and Why Use It

What multistreaming means

Multistreaming (also called simulcasting) is broadcasting the same live video to several platforms at the same time, for example YouTube, Twitch and Facebook. Instead of picking one audience, you go live once and reach people wherever they already watch.

The idea is simple, but the details matter: every platform needs its own connection (a server address and a stream key), and each connection carries a full copy of your video. How you create those copies decides how much computer power and internet upload bandwidth you use.

How multistreaming works

A live stream travels in three stages: your encoder (software such as OBS Studio or vMix, or a hardware box) turns your camera and screen into compressed video; the stream is ingested by a server over a protocol such as RTMP or SRT; and the platform distributes it to viewers. Multistreaming repeats the ingest step for each platform.

There are three common ways to do that:

1. Several encoders or outputs on your own computer. Your machine encodes and uploads one stream per platform. This works for two destinations on a powerful computer with fast internet, but CPU or GPU load and upload usage rise with every destination.
2. A multiple-output plugin in your streaming software. Plugins can send the same encode to several RTMP servers. This saves encoding work, but your connection still uploads one copy per destination.
3. A cloud relay. Your encoder sends one stream to a relay service, and the relay creates the copies and delivers them to each platform. Your computer encodes once and your connection uploads once. This is what Multistream Platform does.

Why people multistream

• Reach. Audiences are spread across platforms. Streaming to several lets viewers choose the one they prefer.
• Less to run. A relay means one encoder session and one upload, which leaves headroom for your game, scenes and graphics.
• Resilience. If one platform has a problem, the others may keep working.
• One place for the conversation. With unified multichat you can read messages from several platforms together.
• Reuse. Recordings and scheduled or pre-recorded streams make a live show useful after it ends.

How much bandwidth does it use?

Without a relay, upload usage is roughly your stream bitrate multiplied by the number of destinations. With a relay it is roughly one stream. For example, a 6,000 kbps video stream with 128 kbps of audio is about 6.1 Mbps; sent directly to three platforms it would be about 18.4 Mbps, while through a relay it stays at about 6.1 Mbps. Our bandwidth guide walks through the math.

What to look for in a multistreaming service

• Ingest protocols. Does it accept RTMP and SRT, and can your encoder connect easily?
• Destinations. Does it cover the platforms you use, plus custom RTMP or SRT endpoints for anything else?
• Edge locations. A nearby ingest location helps keep your connection stable. Multistream Platform has edge nodes in US East, US West, EU Central, Tokyo and São Paulo.
• Chat, recording and scheduling. These decide whether the service is only a relay or a whole workflow.
• Pricing you can predict. Check how many channels, streaming hours and team seats each plan includes, and whether prices are billed monthly or annually.

Platform rules to keep in mind

Each platform has its own community guidelines, eligibility requirements and music or content rules, and they apply to your stream no matter how it is delivered. Some partner or monetization programs also have rules about streaming the same content elsewhere at the same time. Read the terms for any program you are in before you multistream.

Latency also differs from platform to platform, so viewers on different sites will not see exactly the same moment at the same time. Keep that in mind when you read chat from several platforms.

Sources

• SRT Alliance

Platform figures were checked on October 3, 2026. Platforms change their recommendations, so confirm against the current documentation before you go live.