Twitch

Live streaming platform where broadcasters stream video content in real time and viewers watch, chat, and interact. Originally focused on video games, it now hosts IRL streams, music, creative content, and other categories. Streamers can monetize through subscriptions, Bits, and ads.

Owned by Amazon, it leads the live streaming space for gaming and creator content. The platform offers a developer ecosystem for third-party integrations: Twitch API (Helix), EventSub for real-time webhooks, Extensions for overlays and panels, IRC-based chat, PubSub, embeds, and Drops for game-linked rewards. The official Twitch CLI streamlines API calls, OAuth token handling, and EventSub testing.

Key capabilities:

• REST API (Helix) for streams, users, games, clips, moderation, polls, predictions, and scheduling
• EventSub for push-based event delivery instead of polling
• Extensions: panels, overlays, and video components with front-end and optional backend services
• Chat integration via IRC and chatbots, with moderation APIs
• Embeds and deep links for integrating streams into web and mobile apps
• OAuth 2.0 and JWT authentication for API and Extensions

Use cases: building analytics dashboards for streamers, creating interactive overlays and panels, automating moderation and raids, integrating streams into game launchers or community sites, and developing bots for chat and viewer engagement. Developers use the Twitch CLI for local development and testing before deploying integrations.