30+ Best Twitch Tools for Streamers in 2025 (Free & Paid)

StreamLabs is one of the most popular streaming platforms, offering donation pages, alert management, merch store integration, and tipping widgets all in one place. Its free tier is generous, though the premium unlock removes branding and adds extra themes.

Best paired with: Stream Alert for CashApp/Venmo coverage

StreamElements is a completely free, cloud-based streaming platform with alerts, overlays, a chatbot, loyalty points, and a tipping system. It's lighter on resources than StreamLabs because overlays run in the cloud rather than locally.

Best for: Budget-conscious streamers who want maximum customization

Ko-fi lets viewers “buy you a coffee” with one-time donations, and also supports memberships, commissions, and a shop. The free tier takes 0% platform fees on donations — only standard payment processing fees apply.

Buy Me a Coffee is a straightforward tipping platform with a clean supporter page, memberships, and extras (digital products). It's popular with content creators who want a simple donation link to share.

Patreon is the gold standard for subscription-based creator income. Set up tiered membership levels offering exclusive perks like Discord access, behind-the-scenes content, or private gaming sessions.

Fourthwall is a rapidly growing creator commerce platform that combines merch sales, memberships, donations, and a customizable storefront. It's been adopted by many top streamers for its clean UX and strong Twitch integration.

OBS Studio is the industry-standard, open-source broadcasting software used by the majority of Twitch streamers. It's completely free, highly performant, and supports a massive ecosystem of plugins.

Pro tip: Pair OBS with StreamElements overlays (cloud-based) for the lightest resource usage possible.

Streamlabs Desktop (formerly Streamlabs OBS) is a fork of OBS Studio with StreamLabs' alerts, widgets, themes, and donation tools built directly in. It's the easiest way to go from zero to streaming.

XSplit is a polished broadcasting suite with a more traditional interface. It's particularly strong for multi-camera setups, podcasts, and professional-style productions. The free tier has a watermark limitation.

Nightbot is one of the oldest and most widely used Twitch chatbots. It runs in the cloud (no download required) and handles custom commands, spam filtering, song requests, timers, and giveaways.

Moobot is a veteran Twitch chatbot focused on powerful moderation. It excels at spam protection, auto-responses, and scheduled messages. The pro tier adds advanced features like sub-only mode automation.

If you already use StreamElements for alerts and overlays, their built-in chatbot is a natural choice. It includes loyalty points, chat games, custom commands, and moderation — all managed from the same dashboard.

Fossabot is a newer, high-performance chatbot gaining popularity among mid-to-large streamers. It's completely free, cloud-based, and known for its fast response times and clean interface.

OWN3D is one of the largest marketplaces for stream overlays, alerts, panels, and emotes. They offer both a subscription plan (OWN3D Pro) with hundreds of included designs and individual one-time purchases.

Nerd or Die offers a mix of free and premium stream overlays, alerts, and widgets. They're well-known for high-quality animated designs and are one of the most popular overlay providers in the Twitch community.

StreamElements includes a theme gallery with free overlay packages that install directly into your StreamElements setup. The community also shares custom themes through the SE overlay editor.

Canva isn't streaming-specific, but it's an indispensable tool for creating Twitch panels, offline screens, social media posts, and thumbnails. The drag-and-drop editor makes design accessible to everyone.

TwitchTracker provides detailed statistics for any Twitch channel, including viewer trends, follower growth, stream history, and category performance. It's the go-to tool for tracking your channel's progress.

SullyGnome is an advanced Twitch analytics platform that excels at category-level data. Use it to find under-served game categories, analyze peak streaming times, and research competitor channels.

Stream Hatchet focuses on macro-level streaming industry data. They publish free reports on trending games, platform comparisons, and esports viewership — useful for understanding where the industry is headed.

Twitch Inspector is Twitch's official tool for monitoring your stream's technical health in real time. It shows bitrate stability, dropped frames, encoding issues, and stream quality — essential for diagnosing technical problems.

Medal.tv runs in the background and lets you clip the last 15 seconds to 5 minutes of gameplay with a single hotkey. Clips are automatically uploaded and can be shared to social media instantly.

Outplayed (by Overwolf) uses AI to automatically detect and capture your best gameplay moments — kills, clutch plays, objectives, and more. It supports dozens of popular games and creates highlight reels automatically.

Twitch's built-in clip system lets both you and your viewers capture 5-60 second moments directly on the platform. Clips appear on your channel page and can be shared anywhere. The most clipped moments often drive organic discovery.

Discord is the essential community platform for streamers. Create a server with announcement channels, stream notifications, meme channels, and subscriber-only areas. Twitch integration shows live status and syncs sub roles automatically.

Linktree gives you a single link that houses all your important URLs — Twitch, Discord, socials, donate page, merch store, and more. Put it in your Twitch bio, Twitter, and Instagram for a clean, professional link-in-bio page.

Carrd lets you build a simple, beautiful one-page website that works as a more customizable alternative to Linktree. Many streamers use it as a personal brand page with embedded donation links, social icons, and a streaming schedule.

Voicemod is a real-time voice changer and soundboard app. Use it for funny voice effects, sound alerts triggered by chat, or character voices during roleplay streams. It integrates directly with OBS and Discord.

Pretzel Rocks provides a library of stream-safe, DMCA-free music specifically licensed for live streamers. It runs as a desktop app and automatically displays the current song on your stream via OBS integration.

StreamBeats is a completely free, DMCA-safe music collection created by Harris Heller (Alpha Gaming). Available on Spotify, Apple Music, and as a direct download, it includes hundreds of tracks across lo-fi, hip-hop, EDM, rock, and more.

Touch Portal turns your phone or tablet into a customizable stream controller — think of it as a free Elgato Stream Deck alternative. Control OBS scenes, trigger sound effects, adjust audio, and more with custom button pages.

Aitum is a powerful automation tool for OBS that lets you create complex triggers and actions without coding. Automate scene changes, show/hide sources, play sounds, and respond to Twitch events (raids, subs, channel points) automatically.

LioranBoard (now evolved into Streamer.bot) is an advanced stream automation and control tool. It functions as a stream deck, event handler, and automation engine all in one — used by many of the most technically advanced streamers on Twitch.