Twitch Vs Hitbox

[Esva]

 

 

With news of YouTube Gaming getting more prevalent I thought it about time to review the other contenders in the Streaming Arena. Now this wont focus on YouTube Gaming although expect a review when it does launch properly. This will be more about Twitch & Hitbox, their differences, Good Points, Bad Points, Ease of use Etc, So lets get into it..

 

 

Twitch

 

Twitch.tv has become the go to place for Streaming content, Be it games or content creation. And has Millions of viewers per month. Recently Twitch was bought out by the sales giant Amazon and has seen steady success. With news of them moving from flash to html of late it feels like a good move. And because for a long time Twitch was the only real reliable streaming platform it saw major success and has become the big dog in the yard, but ..... Is it still the best ? 

 

HitBox

 

Hitbox is the new home for gamers. Or so it claims. Hitbox.tv started making it's break into the scene in 2014 and has stayed relitively quite over the last year however, It's name is getting bigger and bigger. It owes it's popularity to being much like twitch, As though not as large it's just as easy to use and navigate, but does hitbox have something that Twitch doesn't that draws more and more users into its site and more importantly away from Twitch, Well Yes it does.

 

And all is going to be revealed, explained and compared.

 

 

The Differences

 

Twitch and Hitbox are very similar in allot of ways, from how you find users and games. To the basic interface with the streaming video on top, user information below and chat to the side. They both have a follow system, Both have a partnership program, but maybe that's where things start to diverge. Twitch has the biggest library of games to stream and that's only expected as it's been the big dog for years and has a steady foundation of millions of users So it's to be expected. Type in a game title and you're sure to find it within seconds. That's not always the case with Hitbox but again this is to be expected as Hitbox is still a relatively new kid on the block although it's supported games is still impressive.

The Partnership program that both services off at it's core is the same thing. Once you reach a certain amount of followers and daily users watching you can apply for a partnership with allows you to set subscriptions, get featured, and offers other various benefits for being in a partnership program. And yes there's some differences here too. The Twitch partnerships require a steady stream of around 500+ viewers then you can apply for partnership and when you do you can transcode streams, get subscriptions and off you go. Hitbox though do things a little different. Upon making the account, if you then verify with Paypal you can start taking subscriptions to your channel at around 100 viewers, Transcode streams at 75 viewers and run ad's in your stream to start earning some revenue Immediately through your dashboard, Set custom eoticons and subscriber badges, and like twitch it's a 50/50 split in revenu and when you take that into consideration Hitboax has already landed a HUGE sucker punch on Twitch and makes it more appealing to people (and Yes this includes me) Who are looking to turn streaming into a full time entertainment career. 

 

But what else separates these two ? 

 

Well quite a bit actually. Ever notice there's clans and groups of people who stream on Twitch to a single group page ? Of course you have what you may not realize is though you need to be invited to it and who ever makes the group has to be  a Twitch Partner, Thats not the case with Hitbox. Have an Account ? Have people you stream with ? You can make a group from the start and works the same as Twitch. One page for the group with links to all the streamers in that group with previews of those that are live and a focus on the one that's live with the most concurrent viewers at the time ...... Hitbox lands punch Number 2, Could hitbox be gearing up for a knock out ?!

 

The answer is yes with the most attractive feature to date. Twitch users like myself not long ago got the news that Twitch was enabling an option that could reduce the stream lag to bring you closer to your community of views, Many did this and only saw a reduction in stream lag of around 3 -8 seconds, for me it was only 4 second reduction, but even that was a big help. And yes you guessed it, there's a difference here too. testing Hitbox and Twitch I kept exactly the same settings, played the exact same game, did the exact same thing and had 5 viewers in each. Twitch I had a 30 second delay in what I was doing to what was being seen. Hitbox ? well you will be stunned to hear that delay, was 5 seconds ...... let that sink in a little. Twitch, established platform, Delay of 30 Seconds. Hitbox, the new kid, the underdog .... FIVE SECONDS..... and Hitbox just got the knock out.

 

The other big difference is in how you interact with either service. Both have a dashboard system but these only have a few common similarities. Both have a stream preview, Both have chat. Similarities over!

 

lets take a look, click the little preview below to open the full Image in a new window.

 

 

So here are thye dashboards for Hitbox (on the left) Twitch (On the right). Cosmetically the differences seem small. Twitch does indeed look and feel cleaner but for hard and fast information it's not very useful. Yes you can see your screen, Chat and game name along with a title but that's really about it and very few people even use the dashboard because of limited info and it's slow to update and doesn't offer many options that deal with the stream it's self forcing users to use third party chat tools, third party websites to overlay polls, giveaways, chat etc etc etc and it makes it a convoluted mess.

 

Now lets look at Hitbox's Dashboard. At first glance it's pretty much the same. A chat box, Game name, Stream title, but even here there's a little difference. With twitch you have to click through a menu to see current users which also hides the chat, Hitbox has it side by side and updates around every 0.5 seconds where as twitch can lag dependent on how many people are viewing twitch and typing in chat which can bog down the server. Once you got live the entire section showing the stream title, game played etc turns red and you get the option to see a stream preview. And for those that are verified and want to start earning revenue you can run ad's and choose how many you want to run. You have options to post your stream info directly to Facebook and Twitter. Set a MOTD with the sticky message system, Set polls and giveaways with auto timers, random winner pickers etc and also a host mode.

 

So instead of using 2 - 5 different programs and plugins, it's all right there in front of you and also comes with a complete activity log at a click of a button that's also downloadable in a .csv file format. So for an underdog Hitbox is punching hard to claw some space in this multi billion Dollar a year industry of game streaming.

 

 

Conclusion

 

At the core Hitbox and Twitch are exactly the same. They feel very similar, Look closely related and function about the same, but it's the differences in how they conduct themselves that are the real difference and to be honest. Hitbox comes out on top. Easier navigation, Everything you need in one place, Easy to get started on a road to becoming a full time streamer and using HTML5 technology that brings you closer to the community you stream too then twitch could only dream of right now.

 

Twitch will always be the big daddy simply because it came about at the right time with no other competition what so ever and had free reign of the yard and it will be that way for a long time to come, and I'm not knocking twitch at all, it's something I will still use to both view and stream, but right now Hitbox is the go to program for streamers because for the moment it outshines twitch in every way.

Edited August 11, 2015 by Esva

[Faardor]

from a technical point of view Hitbox IS probably better, from a potential viewer point of view however you will have an easier time getting a bigger audience on Twitch. I do feel you sorta said that indirectly but its one of those things that needs to be taken into consideration.

[Xoza]

I've been researching ways to stream to multiple sources...

[Odin047]

I've been researching ways to stream to multiple sources...

 

 

If you do that though you will be doubling up on your upload bandwidth usage, if you are cutting corners like lower resolution and lower FPS or have a really high upload speed you might be able to pull it off.

[Esva]

Depends. If you have a 6-8m upload you couldjust use nginx and stream to both at 2500kbps which is the quality most streamers use anyway. Ive manged to do it twice on a 4m upload setting the bitrate to around 1500 each

[Esva]

Forgot to add  ... Me had a dumb. With hitbox you can toggle the visibility of the channel,. If turned off only those with the link can view.

[Xoza]

If you do that though you will be doubling up on your upload bandwidth usage, if you are cutting corners like lower resolution and lower FPS or have a really high upload speed you might be able to pull it off.

 

You would stream to a private server and that would send the data to other sources.

[Esva]

>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_nNMrVrUCo&feature=youtu.be

>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqb1h1kLTpc

[Xoza]

Wow... I'm a partner now.. 

 

I'm starting to like Hitbox a LOT. They're taking all the tools everyone has made and all the features that Twitch holds back from everyone else 'because they're not popular enough' and giving it out to everyone.

 

Now, I'm inspired, going to come up with a nightly streaming schedule.

[Esva]

Wow... I'm a partner now.. 

 

I'm starting to like Hitbox a LOT. They're taking all the tools everyone has made and all the features that Twitch holds back from everyone else 'because they're not popular enough' and giving it out to everyone.

 

Now, I'm inspired, going to come up with a nightly streaming schedule.

 

Now you know why I stream exclusively to hitbox now, already made $30

[Xoza]

Here's our Team, let me know your account name so I can add you.

http://www.hitbox.tv/team/ordoimperialis

[Xoza]

Thanks a lot Esva... it went to setting up a few things to signing up for more, recovering old ones and discovering new ones... is 8 destinations too much? Also, you should check out http://player.me. it's a gamer centralized networking profile thing.. 

 

From what I've found so far though, HitBox still has the most features and stability. Gaming.tv also has free partnering.