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Self-Hosted Media Chat Entertainment Streaming Video Fediverse Broadcasting

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Last Updated: 07-15-2026 07:37 PM (UTC)

Owncast

Twitch and YouTube Live, replaced by infrastructure you control: Owncast is a self-hosted live streaming and chat server. Point OBS, Streamlabs, or any RTMP-capable broadcaster at the server's ingest port, and Owncast transcodes the feed with FFmpeg into HLS with multiple quality variants, playing it in a built-in web page with a real-time chat beside it. Chat supports anonymous participation, custom emotes, and moderation tools - message removal, user bans and suspensions - with optional authentication via IndieAuth or a Fediverse account. ActivityPub integration puts the stream on the Fediverse: viewers on Mastodon and compatible services can follow a channel and get notified the moment it goes live. Video delivery can come straight off the server or offload HLS segments to S3-compatible object storage so a modest VPS handles thousands of concurrent viewers while only managing ingest and chat. The backend is a single Go binary with a React frontend - no accounts platform, no database server, no dependency stack - and the player embeds in any website. MIT-licensed, with roughly 9k GitHub stars, zero platform fees, and no algorithm or takedown policy between you and your audience.

Owncast

Benefits

  • Keep 100% of Everything
  • No platform revenue cut, no ads injected into your stream, and no terms-of-service or algorithm deciding who sees you go live.
  • Your Existing Setup Just Works
  • Owncast speaks RTMP like the major platforms, so OBS and Streamlabs need only a new server URL and stream key.
  • Scale Without a Bigger Server
  • Offload HLS segments to S3-compatible storage and a small VPS serves thousands of viewers while handling only ingest and chat.
  • An Audience That Follows You Home
  • ActivityPub lets Mastodon and Fediverse users follow your channel and get notified live - reach without surrendering the relationship to a platform.

Features

  • RTMP Ingest, HLS Out
  • Accepts any RTMP broadcaster and transcodes via FFmpeg into adaptive multi-quality HLS.
  • Built-In Chat and Moderation
  • Real-time chat with custom emotes, bans, suspensions, and optional IndieAuth or Fediverse login.
  • Fediverse Integration
  • ActivityPub follows and go-live notifications on Mastodon and compatible services.
  • S3 Video Offload
  • Serve segments from S3-compatible storage or a CDN for large audiences on small servers.
  • Embeddable Player
  • Drop the stream player and chat into any existing website.
  • Single Go Binary
  • Streaming, chat, admin panel, and web UI in one dependency-free service with a React frontend.