Kick vs Twitch – Which Should You Choose?
Twitch has been the “default” streaming platform for so long, it was hard to imagine using anything else for a while. But there’s been a recent crop of new and interesting streaming platforms, and Kick is leading the charge in many ways. It’s certainly one of the more popular alternatives.
But which one of these platforms should you use? Well, that depends on what you need out of your live streaming platform. In this article, I’m going to break down all the major differences, and how they affect streamers who plan to make this a hobby, or even a career.
I recommend grabbing a beverage, and settling in. There’s plenty to cover.
No matter which platform you choose, you’ll be better off streaming with a VPN. Whether you’re using it to discourage potential DDoS attacks, hide your IP to prevent swatting, or just get better connections to your favorite competitive games, PIA VPN is an essential tool for any streamer.
Table of Contents
What Is Twitch?What Is Kick?
Why Did Kick Become Popular?
Kick vs. Twitch: The Ultimate Comparison
Kick vs. Twitch: Pros and Cons
Kick vs. Twitch: Which One Should You Choose?
Why You Need a VPN for Streaming
FAQ
What Is Twitch?
For the uninitiated: Twitch was founded as Justin.tv in March of 2007, and it had one user: Justin Kan. Justin wore a camera everywhere he went, and broadcasted his life all day long. By August, there were 60 different channels. By October, anyone could join.
Not long after, the company rebranded as Twitch, and it has been delivering the majority of online live content, at least in the West, ever since. Whether you want to broadcast yourself playing video games, making stuff in real life, talking about random topics with friends, Twitch probably has a category for you.
Some people even make a living from doing this.
What Is Kick?
Kick is a lot like Twitch, but newer and smaller. Stake, an online gambling company, launched Kick in October of 2022, right about the time when Twitch got serious about getting rid of gambling on its own platform.
It has since seen a small explosion in popularity, and is generally regarded as the top competitor for Twitch.
Why Did Kick Become Popular?
Kick blew up in popularity in part because Twitch messed up. Kick had only recently launched when Twitch introduced guidelines designed to discourage people from creating sponsored streams, likely in the hopes that future sponsorships would be acquired through Twitch’s own programs.
People did not take kindly to this, and Kick was advertising its 95% cut for creators at the time. Many people moved over, including some incredibly well-known streamers. Though Twitch reversed those unpopular guideline changes, the damage was done.
Kick vs. Twitch: The Ultimate Comparison
Audience Building
In terms of sheer potential audience, Twitch is the clear winner, with a truly massive user base engaging with streamers every day. The problem is that you’re also competing with a lot of other streamers.
Truth be told, Kick hasn’t really solved that issue. Both sites tend to promote the streamers that are already super popular, leaving newer and smaller streamers to grind away until the algorithm notices them. If you don’t already have an audience, it’ll be a slog either way.
It’s Twitch’s size that gives it the advantage.
Ease of Use
This is practically a tie because Kick went and copied most of Twitch’s user interface. Like, it’s almost exactly the same in so many ways. Twitch will take a little longer to learn, though, at least the advanced features. But that’s because Twitch has advanced features, being a more mature platform, and there’s plenty of documentation to go around.
Monetization
Again, Twitch’s size gives it something of an advantage here, as the larger potential audience makes for larger potential earnings. However, the base revenue split is 50/50, and only the most popular streamers can get the coveted 70/30 split.
Kick is attractive to smaller streamers because the 95/5 split means that you don’t need as many subscribers to potentially make a living.
Rules
This is a tough call in some ways. Twitch’s guidelines and rules are constantly changing, and often not terribly clear. And then, Twitch will sometimes try to introduce weird and draconian rules, like the time they tried to force people to make logos for sponsored streams very small, practically invisible. Twitch’s rules are also selectively enforced at the best of times.
Kick’s rules are simpler and clearer, and a little more permissive. However, they’re also selectively enforced, and sometimes they don’t really prevent some rather disturbing situations. Like when a well-documented incident of alleged harassment and solicitation occurred live on stream, and the moderation team declined to intervene.
Kick is a bit of a wild west right now, and a number of creators have chosen not to move because they don’t feel safe there.
Affiliate and Partner Status
This is an interesting one, and it’s one case where I think Kick might take the lead.
You see, on Twitch, you need the following to reach Affiliate, and you need to do the last three things in 30 days:
- Reach 50 followers
- Stream for 8 hours
- Stream on 7 different days
- Average of 3 viewers (concurrent viewership including raids)
Affiliate status gets you the ability to run ads and get ad revenue, channel subscriptions, extra features like channel points, and more. But you only get that 50/50 revenue split.
Partner status requires a lot more (again, this must all happen in 30 days):
- Stream for 25 hours
- Stream on 12 different days
- Average of 75 viewers (concurrent viewership excluding views from suggested, raids and embeds)
Then you have to apply for Partner status (not guaranteed), and if you get it, you get more control over your channel and ads, more features for things like chatbots, more emotes, extended VOD storage, and more. But you STILL only get a 50/50 split unless you’re in the Partner Plus program.
On Kick, the initial requirements for Affiliate are a little higher in terms of follower count, but that’s it:
- 75 total followers
- 5 hours streamed in 30 days
Affiliate status gives you access to subscriptions and donations, all at that beautiful 95/5 revenue split.
After Affiliate comes Verified status, and you almost don’t have to worry about it unless you’re a full time streamer. It gets you a verified badge, priority support, and a boost in the discovery algorithm. The requirements are as follows:
- Stream for 30 hours in the past 30 days
- Stream 12 unique days in the past 30 days
- A minimum average of 75 Live Concurrent Viewership in the past 30 days
- 300 Unique chatters in the past 30 days
- Minimum of 20 active subs in the past 30 days
As with Twitch, you do need to apply for manual verification.
Kick vs. Twitch: Pros and Cons
Kick Pros and Cons
Pros:
- 👍 MUCH better revenue split
- 👍 Getting to affiliate provides full revenue split
- 👍 Clearer rules and guidelines
- 👍 Slightly more permissive content rules
Cons:
- 👎 Smaller feature set
- 👎 Smaller user base
- 👎 Often terrible rule enforcement
Twitch Pros and Cons
Pros:
- 👍 Bigger user base
- 👍 More advanced streaming features
- 👍 Far more third party integrations
- 👍 Getting to Affiliate is slightly easier
Cons:
- 👎 Inconsistent and vague rules
- 👎 Inconsistent rule enforcement
- 👎 Worse revenue split
Kick vs. Twitch: Which One Should You Choose?
While I’m personally not the biggest fan of either (hello LiveSpace!), if forced to pick between the two, I’d go for Twitch. It has the bigger potential audience, the better feature set, and is slightly better moderated than Kick.
Buuut only slightly.
Why You Need a VPN for Streaming
Streaming is a very public, and sometimes very vulnerable-feeling form of entertainment. Sure, your legions of fans may love you, but you’ll also get the occasional jerk who wants to track you down, or send a botnet to DDoS your internet connection. To prevent these problems, a VPN hides your IP address by routing all of your traffic through a VPN server, and encrypts the traffic between your devices and the VPN server.
In addition to the extra layer of security, a VPN can help you get smoother connections to your streaming platform, or the game servers you want to play on if you stream games. In some cases, they can even lower your ping. Or help you play games from other countries to show them to your followers.
In short, a good VPN is a useful tool in any streamer’s kit, and plenty of streamers use them.
FAQ
That depends on your audience and your needs as a streamer. Twitch has a larger user base, a larger feature set, and brand recognition. Kick has a better revenue split, a little more freedom about what you can stream, and a similar user experience. They’re both notorious for bad moderation and rule enforcement, but Kick has been a little bit worse.
No. Twitch started independently as Justin.tv, and grew as its own company for quite some time. Then they were bought out by Amazon and many people on the platform haven’t been happy since. Kick was started by Stake, an online gambling company. Funnily enough, Kick launched right after Twitch tightened its rules on streaming gambling.
Yes, and kind of, and also no. So, some very famous streamers signed multi-million dollar deals to move to Kick. Most people who get paid by the platform don’t get “paid to stream” by the company; they get a cut of subscription fees and direct donations. The streamer’s viewers are the ones paying. But you don’t get paid at all unless you’re an Affiliate.
That depends on what you mean by NSFW. If you’re referring to adult content involving any sort of nudity, then no. NSFW is absolutely, positively not allowed on Kick. However, there are forms of content that have nothing to do with people going au naturel which are still frowned upon in the workplace, and Kick may feature some of this. Read your company guidelines.
You need 75 followers to achieve Affiliate status, and enable paid subscriptions. Of course, that’s not the only requirement, you also have to stream for… 5 whole hours? Okay, that’s really not a difficult task, all things considered. But the followers will take more work, unless you have an existing audience that’s ready and willing to move to Kick.
In terms of the revenue split, yes. Kick offers a 95% cut to the streamer, while Twitch offers a 50/50 split for most of its creators. The very top creators can get a 70% cut, though, if they jump through some hoops. It should be noted, however, that Twitch still has a lot more users in general, and can theoretically offer a larger target audience.
That depends entirely on you… and luck, and the economy, and Kick’s brand awareness in your target demographic and you probably get the idea by now. Truth be told, the people who’ve had the most success by far are those streamers that moved from Twitch or other platforms, and brought a significant chunk of their audience with them.
Twitch might not have been the first ever live streaming platform, but it was the site that brought live streaming to the masses. It delivers most of the world’s live content. Kick is basically Twitch but newer, hungrier, and with a better revenue split for creators.
Streamers, particularly those who game, use VPNs for a couple of reasons. For one, a good gaming VPN can help them to get smoother connections to game servers, access games from other countries, and so on. But they also use them to hide their IP address from attackers, and mitigate DDoS attacks, which are bigger risks for public personalities.
Private Internet Access is a great Twitch streaming VPN, covering all the bases with a global network of 10-Gbps NextGen servers for those fast connections to stream platform data centers and game servers alike. What’s more, military-grade encryption and DDoS protection help to keep streamers safe as they invite literally everyone around the world to watch them live.
