In this article, I'm going to show you how to multistream to more than one platform without using OBS Studio. The tool I use is Riverside, which runs in your browser. By the end, you'll know how to go live to Twitch and YouTube at the same time, which settings I use, and what Riverside gives you once the stream ends.
Is Riverside Right for Your Stream?
Not for everyone. If you do gaming streams, I still recommend OBS Studio. Riverside works best if you do talking head streams, screen shares from your computer, or a podcast. If that's you, it saves a lot of headaches and a lot of hours.
What Riverside Is and What It Costs
Riverside is a browser-based streaming platform, so all the heavy lifting happens in your browser. That means you can log in with the same account on another computer or on your phone, and your setup is already there. You can't do that in OBS Studio unless you go through the work of exporting your settings.
In the video, the live stream plan is $45 a month. Yes, OBS is free. But Riverside is more than streaming. It's your full production: you can multistream to almost any destination, and it also creates content from your stream for you. There's a 14-day free trial, so you can see what it does before you pay and if you use code LASCurry you will get your 1st month free.
Inside your studio, you also get four team members:
- Producer: helps you plan and get ready for your live stream
- Editor: handles your editing
- Clipper: finds your best moments
- Marketer: helps you grow your reach
Step 1: Set Up Your Studio
On the left side, click Live Stream. That takes you into the Riverside Studio, where you pick your camera, your headphones, and your microphone. I recommend headphones for the best experience. Add your name, and you'll see your audio levels move.
You'll also see a yellow box around your video. Don't worry about it too much, but if you want perfect framing, adjust until it turns green. Riverside is just helping you look your best on stream and in your recordings. Then select Join Studio.
Once you're in, you'll see the main controls: Go Live, Record Only, audio settings, camera position, screen share, reactions, a teleprompter, and layouts. It's a much simpler interface than OBS.
Step 2: Add Your Destinations
On the right side, select Stream. This shows the platforms you'll go live to. I have Twitch and YouTube connected. To add a platform, connect it so Riverside has permission to stream on your behalf. Once it's connected, you can choose a vertical or horizontal stream for that platform, if the platform supports it. I leave both on horizontal.
- Twitch: click the three dots to change your stream title.
- YouTube: click Edit Details to change your title and description, and choose public or private.
YouTube thumbnail tip: if you want your thumbnail visible the moment you go live, create a scheduled live stream in YouTube Studio first. Then come back to Riverside and select that scheduled stream. It brings your title, thumbnail, and details with it. If you don't need that, stream directly and add the thumbnail after the stream ends.
Step 3: Choose Your Recording and Stream Settings
On the right side, select Settings:
- Recording mode: Audio and Video
- Recording resolution: 4K
Frame rate is another reason Riverside isn't for gaming. Gaming needs about 60 FPS, and Riverside is built more for talking head and screen sharing. I leave everything else as it is.
Next, select Open All Settings, then go to Live Streaming. You'll see your destinations here, plus a few options:
- Streaming Resolution: choose 720p or 1080p.
- Hide the watermark: turn this on so the Riverside watermark doesn't show and your own logo can take its place.
- Public Chat: turn this on to bring comments from all your destinations into one place.
Keep in mind the difference between the two resolutions: what you stream out is 720p or 1080p, while the recording Riverside saves on your side can be up to 4K.
Step 4: See Every Chat in One Place
With Public Chat on, Riverside combines the chats from every platform you're streaming to. On the right side, click Chat, then Public Chat. You don't need any extra plug-ins or software. If someone types something you want to show, click their message and it appears on screen.
Step 5: Invite a Guest
Go to People and send a link. Your guest can open it on their phone or computer and join with their camera and microphone. If someone is with you in the room and you have a second camera, click Add In-Person Guest, add the second camera, and both of you will be on the stream.
Step 6: Brand How You Show Up
At the bottom, click Brand. This is where you add your logo, your colors, a background, and PNG overlays, and pick the font for names and pop-ups. If you need overlays, you can find overlays on Stream Designz.
You can also add text and banners at the bottom of the screen, like "follow me here" or a link you want people to check out. On top of that, you can add music, upload your own music, share a video while you're live, and play sound effects. A lot of what you'd normally need extra tools and hardware for is built in.
When you're ready, press Go Live.
What Happens After You Go Live
While you stream, Riverside records your content locally in up to 4K. Think about how hard that is in OBS Studio: it's already tricky to stream to one platform, and then you'd stream to several and record at the same time. Here it's done for you.
That recording is also your backup. If the stream goes down, the recording is still good. If you have a guest, Riverside records their camera too, for the highest quality. It may not look 4K while you're watching live, but the recording you get is clean.
When you finish, Riverside processes the recording. Depending on how long you went live, that can take a little while. Then it shows up in your Projects.
Let Riverside Edit for You: Made For You
Open a project and you'll see the recordings, the transcript, and any guest recordings together. You can edit this yourself, or let Riverside do a first pass. Click the Made For You tab to get what Riverside calls Magic Episodes: an AI-polished draft with key edits.
You choose what Riverside makes. You can generate things only when you choose, or have it create them as soon as the recording is ready.
- Magic Episode: a rough cut of your recording. It can match your brand, remove pauses, and remove filler words like "um" and "uh."
- Magic Audio: improves the sound if your audio isn't crisp.
- Magic Clips: highlight clips from your recording, scored on how likely they are to resonate, with titles and hooks you can start videos with.
- Show notes: a summary, keywords, key topics, takeaways, key frameworks, sound bites, and chapters.
- Newsletter and social: a newsletter, a LinkedIn post, an X thread, an Instagram caption, key takeaways, an episode title, and an episode description.
- Thumbnail snapshots: frames you can use for thumbnails.
Some of these are off by default and some are on, so you can set them how you like. Under Brand, you can set your theme, logos, colors, and styles. Add your tone and voice, what your show is about, and words you don't want corrected in the transcript. Setting it up the first time takes a bit, but after that you sit down, go live, and Riverside already knows what you want.
The Editor and AI Tools
None of this locks you in. Open the edit and you can change anything. You can edit by deleting text, and it removes that part from the video. You can also talk to your editor. In my case, my audio was out of sync because my camera and microphone come into my computer separately. I asked the editor to apply a 400 millisecond sync, and it did.
Under AI tools, you'll find:
- Remove pauses and remove filler words
- Find fluff and smooth cuts, which catches things you repeated
- Magic Audio and enhance audio
- Smart layouts, which decide when to switch between screen share, camera angles, and other layouts
- Eye contact, which adjusts your eyes to look at the camera if you were reading from the teleprompter
- AI color correction and B-roll generation
On the right side, you can also add branding, your own footage, motion graphics, text, captions, stock footage, royalty-free tracks, and sound effects. You can talk to the editor to add, remove, or generate things, including describing a motion graphic you want.
The clipper and the marketer work the same way. Ask the clipper to edit a clip, publish it, or find more clips. Ask the marketer to publish a social post or a podcast episode, or to show your social and podcast analytics.
Export Your Final Version
When you like the final version, click Export in the top right. You can export it, download it, copy the link, embed it, publish it, or share it to other platforms. You can also invite an editor to make adjustments. Everything you export shows up in the project, where you can download or share it again.
Next Step: Learn the Content Side of Streaming
Now that you understand the streaming side, which is the technical setup, the next step is understanding the content side. Going live is only half of it. Content is how people actually find you, and that's what I teach inside The Streamer Academy Pro™.
If you want to learn how to become a full-time streamer, and it's not luck, check out The Streamer Academy Pro™ Community to learn the content side of streaming.
Watch this next: still want to stick with OBS? How to Multistream to Twitch & YouTube at the Same Time in OBS.
How to Set Up Your Stream Designz Overlays (Start Here)