Live streaming platform limits, side by side
What YouTube, Twitch, Kick and Facebook will actually accept from your encoder - ingest addresses, bitrates, codecs, and the session limits two of them enforce themselves. Every value is taken from the platform's own documentation, and a cell that says not published means exactly that.
Sources, one per platform: YouTube, Twitch, Kick, Facebook. All read on 27 August 2026.
Ingest and protocol
| Limit | YouTube | Twitch | Kick | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ingest address | One for everybody | Published list, 14 servers | One per account | Created with the broadcast |
| Application path | /live2 | /app | :443/app | /rtmp/ |
| RTMPS | Recommended | Every ingest | Default | Required |
| Stream key reuse | Permanent | Permanent | Permanent | Single-use unless persistent |
Video
| Limit | YouTube | Twitch | Kick | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bitrate, 1080p60 (H.264) | 12 Mbps | 6 Mbps | 1-8 Mbps range | Not recommended at 60 fps |
| Bitrate, 1080p30 | 10 Mbps | 4.5 Mbps | 1-8 Mbps range | 3-6 Mbps |
| Bitrate, 720p60 | 6 Mbps | 4.5 Mbps | not published | not published |
| Maximum frame rate | 60 | 60 | 60 | 30 recommended |
| Video codecs accepted | H.264, HEVC, AV1 | H.264 | H.264 only | H.264, level 4.1 |
| Keyframe interval | 2 s, never over 4 | 2 s | 2 s | 2 s |
| Rate control | CBR | CBR | CBR | not published |
Audio
| Limit | YouTube | Twitch | Kick | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Audio codec | AAC or MP3 | AAC-LC | not published | Not stated |
| Audio bitrate | 128 kbps stereo | 96 kbps, 160 max | not published | 128 kbps |
| Sample rate | 44.1 kHz | Any | not published | 44.1 kHz |
Session length and archive
| Limit | YouTube | Twitch | Kick | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Maximum broadcast length | No published limit | 48 hours | No published limit | 8 hours |
| Longer, on request | — | Cannot be changed | — | 12 h, by arrangement |
| Archive / replay | Over 12 h may not archive | VODs 7 days, 14 for Affiliates | not published | Replays kept 30 days |
Getting access
| Limit | YouTube | Twitch | Kick | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| To go live at all | Verified channel, 16+ | No requirement | No requirement | 60 days + 100 followers |
What the table is actually saying
- Two of these platforms end your broadcast on a timer. Facebook at 8 hours, Twitch at 48, both stated in their own documentation and neither adjustable from the encoder. A 24/7 channel on them is a loop of restarts, not one long session - which is the single most consequential difference on this page. The multistreaming guide covers what that means in practice.
- One encode has to satisfy the strictest column. Kick takes H.264 only, so HEVC and AV1 are out the moment Kick is on your list even though YouTube accepts both. Facebook does not recommend 60 fps. 1080p at 30 fps, H.264, CBR, 2-second keyframes is the profile no column rejects.
- The bitrate you can send differs by a factor of two. YouTube recommends 12 Mbps for 1080p60 where Twitch's ceiling is 6. Multistreaming means picking one number, and that number is the lowest ceiling among your destinations - not the highest.
- Only Facebook gates going live behind an audience - 60 days and 100 followers - while Twitch and Kick let anyone stream and gate only monetization: Twitch Affiliate wants 25 followers, 4 hours streamed, 4 streaming days and an average of 3 viewers within 30 days, while YouTube's Partner Programme wants 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours. What nobody publishes is just as useful: Kick states no audio spec and no session limit at all.
One encode, every platform in the table
Upload the videos once and let one broadcast reach all of them - with the restarts that Facebook and Twitch force handled for you.
Start Free TrialQuestions about platform limits
YouTube and Kick publish no maximum at all, so a stream can run indefinitely - though YouTube warns that a broadcast over 12 hours may not be archived afterwards. Twitch caps a broadcast at 48 hours and states it cannot be changed. Facebook stops at 8 hours, automatically and with no grace period, and grants 12 only case by case to some partners.
6,000 kbps at 1080p is inside YouTube's, Twitch's and Kick's recommendations and at the top of Facebook's 3,000-6,000 range, so it is the number that satisfies all four. If Facebook is one of your destinations, stay at 30 fps as well - it is the only one of the four that does not recommend 60.
H.264 everywhere. YouTube additionally accepts HEVC and AV1, and recommends HEVC for HDR, but Kick takes X264/H.264 only and Facebook specifies H.264 level 4.1. In a multistream setup the intersection is H.264, so the newer presets on your GPU are unavailable the moment a second platform joins.
Yes, and they differ only in how strongly they put it. YouTube recommends it, Twitch publishes an RTMPS variant of every ingest server, Kick hands out contribute hosts in the secure form by default, and Facebook's own instructions say to enable the secure connection. It also matters practically: RTMPS runs on port 443, which passes through networks that block 1935.
Because the platform does not state that value anywhere in its own documentation, and inventing a plausible number is how the guides that contradict each other get written. Kick, for example, publishes a bitrate range and a codec restriction but no audio specification and no session limit. An empty cell here is a fact about the documentation, not a gap in the research.