Owncast

What is Owncast?

Owncast is an open source, self-hosted live streaming server that lets you broadcast your own live video with real-time chat from a single server you control. You point OBS (or any RTMP tool) at it, and viewers watch on your own web page — no Twitch, no accounts, no ads, and no platform taking a cut.

What is Owncast best for?

Owncast is best for individual creators, communities, and organizations that want to own their live stream end to end — the video, the chat, the branding, and the audience data. It suits one broadcaster running one channel: personal streams, events, classes, church services, or internal corporate broadcasts where you don’t want content sitting on a commercial platform.

What can Owncast do?

• Ingest live video over standard RTMP from OBS Studio, Streamlabs, FFmpeg, or hardware encoders
• Transcode to adaptive HLS with FFmpeg and play back in a built-in web video player on any device
• Run its own real-time chat with moderation tools, user authentication, and custom emotes
• Federate over ActivityPub so followers on Mastodon and the fediverse get notified when you go live
• Fully customize the look with your own domain, branding, CSS, and page layout
• Stream privately or publicly, with a single-file installer or Docker for setup

Where does Owncast fall short?

• Single-server by design, so scale needs a CDN. Owncast has no clustering or horizontal scaling — one instance serves the stream, and transcoding is CPU-heavy, with each extra output quality adding load. To reach large audiences you put a CDN in front of it rather than running more copies.
• One broadcaster, one channel. It replaces your own Twitch channel, not Twitch the marketplace. There’s no multi-streamer directory, discovery, or built-in monetization/subscriptions across many creators.
• No native Windows server. The server runs on Linux and macOS; Windows users need WSL2.

Is Owncast free?

Yes — Owncast is completely free and open source under the MIT license, with no subscriptions, viewer limits, or forced ads. The only cost is the server and bandwidth you run it on, plus a CDN if you grow beyond what one machine can serve.

What does Owncast replace?

Owncast is a self-hosted alternative to Twitch, Vimeo Livestream, and Restream. It gives you your own live streaming page and chat instead of broadcasting on someone else’s platform — you trade built-in audience and discovery for full ownership and control.

FAQ

Is Owncast open source? Yes. Owncast is licensed under the permissive MIT license, and the full backend (written in Go) and web frontend are on GitHub.

Can I self-host Owncast for free? Yes — the software is free; you only pay for the server, bandwidth, and any CDN you use to reach more viewers. A single-file installer and Docker image make setup quick.

Is Owncast a good Twitch alternative? For owning your own channel, yes — you keep the content, chat, branding, and data with no ads or revenue cut. What it can’t replicate is Twitch’s marketplace: the built-in audience, discovery, and cross-creator monetization.

What do I need to run Owncast? A Linux or macOS server with FFmpeg, plus RTMP streaming software like OBS to broadcast into it. For large audiences, plan for transcoding CPU and put a CDN in front of the video.