Twitch vs YouTube Gaming – How to Fix Live Buffering Streams

Many Twitch fans are complaining on social media about having buffering issues with Twitch when trying to watch a gaming stream online. Many of the same users find that YouTube provides the same streaming experience--but without any of the problems.

Anyone else experiencing buffering when watching Twitch in Australia? I thought it was my internet but I can watch YouTube streamers at 1080, anything on Netflix etc etc. Speeds are 94/38 @Twitch

— Cubey (@Cubey_sucks) April 23, 2018

So, we did some research to try to shed some light on this 'Twitch vs YouTube' gaming debate. We’ve analyzed the two main variables of a live stream: bandwidth and latency. From this, we’ve determined a solution to make sure you’ll never get buffering when you live stream videos again. Keep reading below!

According to the Twitch Broadcasting Guidelines, gaming streamers need up to 6000 kbps bandwidth to broadcast a full HD 1980×1080 px video with 60 fps.

One can easily see the superior experience of YouTube when it comes to streaming videos: they allow streamers to broadcast at up to 4k resolution (3840×2160 px) with a rate of 60 fps and a maximum bitrate of 51000 kbps (!).

On the viewers’ side, this translates to at most the same bandwidth needed to watch the Twitch stream. The actual needed bandwidth depends on whether the stream can be watched in multiple qualities and bitrates – an option which is always available on YouTube, and only sometimes available on Twitch.

Twitch also recently opened a beta version of their low latency video mode. This Reddit thread claims that streamers are seeing latencies as low as 1 second compared to the 7-8 seconds before. When it comes to latency, YouTube is also ahead of Twitch, as they offer normal, low and ultra-low latency choices for streamers. Bottom line: the lower the latency used by the streamer, the higher the chances of buffering for the viewers – read why here.

As explained above, this is the most common comparison streamers make between Twitch vs YouTube Gaming. To get to the bottom of this, first you’ll want to run some diagnostics.

Begin by running an online speed test. Do the download/upload speeds you get from your ISP qualify for watching the live streaming videos with the bandwidth and latency specs above? If so, there are three possibilities:

1. Your ISP may have temporary peering issues with Twitch. Usually these should not last for more than a couple of days, but be sure to ping your ISP and let them know about this.
2. Your ISP may be throttling your connection. Since watching Twitch streams can require a lot of bandwidth, ISPs may try to limit users in the sense of not allowing more than a certain bandwidth to be used with Twitch servers. So, you’ll be able to watch high-resolution live streams only if you have quality control choices in your Twitch or YouTube player.
3. Twitch may be having issues with their server infrastructure. You should confirm if this is the case before calling your ISP: use another connection (e.g. your cellular 4G/LTE) to watch a short fragment of the stream and see if it’s buffering.

Speedify is a next generation fast bonding mobile VPN that can combine 2 or mode Internet connections at the same time. This way, you can have all the bandwidth you need to stream from platforms like Twitch and Youtube. Since Speedify is an intelligent channel bonding solution, you will also benefit from lower latency and Internet failover protection.

There are many VPN alternatives out there – and they all do the basic stuff: securing your online data and allowing you to bypass data throttling by making your traffic anonymous, so your ISP is unable to monitor your traffic. But when it comes to bandwidth-hungry applications like live audio and video streaming, Twitch or YouTube online gaming, business calls, other VPNs slow down your connection, as all the traffic has to be encrypted before being transmitted. Speedify is different by the way it’s been created – to eliminate the choice of security or speed!

Twitch vs YouTube Gaming: Don’t have enough bandwidth to watch your favorite live streams at high quality? Is your ISP limiting your Internet connection? It all ends up with buffering. It’s time you take a stand. Get started with Speedify. Not only will you be able to use all your bandwidth, you will also benefit from online security and privacy, and increased Internet reliability.