Life & fun · alternatives · 2026
24 alternatives to If Twitch had actual channels
Yesterday I saw a post that was “If YouTube had actual channels” (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41247023) and I was so impressed with the tech-nostalgia that I thought, what if Twitch had channels. So I made this as a clone. Thanks for the inspiration, and go check out https://ytch.xyz if not already familiar.
If Twitch had actual channels is a nostalgic recreation imagining what Twitch would look like with a traditional channel-based interface. Created as a tribute to a similar "If YouTube had actual channels" concept, it… Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. If Twitch had actual channels launched in 2024; newer entries below may have overtaken it.
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If Youtube had actual channels.
2024 · ytch.xyz · its alternatives →
- 2
Hey HN, I re-launched an old site I remembered back in the day that someone made called twitchroulette.net with a lot of new features and stats and I would love for people to check it out. The idea is you can easily browse the less browsed parts of twitch and find cool and new streamers to say hi to, and maybe make some new friends. I also added some real time stats and breakdowns per channel and I think some of the things they show are pretty interesting. Check it out!
2020 · twitchroulette.net · its alternatives →
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Hey HN!! Many of us enjoyed the "If YouTube had actual channels" Show HN post last week. As developers of a similar project, we wanted to share our approach to building a simulated live experience. We’ve spent around 18 months working on this and have managed to add some advanced features, including content-based interactivity. We are super excited to be releasing both the live stream and the code behind it. Our idea was to combine the communal watching experience of television with the modern trappings of the interactive web. If you go to the stream, you will be watching along with everyone…
2024 · github.com · its alternatives →
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NMTV▲317I built a 24/7 MTV time machine to save my wife’s birthday
Jan 2026 · nmtv.online · its alternatives →
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Restream▲93Livestream gaming sessions to TwitchTV, YT, & more at once
2015 · restream.io · its alternatives →
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Web Rewind▲98An interactive journey through 30 years of the web
Mar 2026 · web-rewind.com · its alternatives →
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Google couldn't buy twitch, so they made it themselves.
2015 · youtube.com · its alternatives →
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Open-source YouTube alternative that offers video, audio and image uploads, livestreaming and built-in monetization - mayeaux/nodetube
2020 · github.com · its alternatives →
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Hey HackerNews'ers, I've built FreeTVz.com - a platform that transforms YouTube into a traditional TV experience. Here's what you can do: ◉ Create your own TV channels based on any topic or interest. ◉ Browse and watch over 100+ free curated channels across categories like History, Science, Tech, and more. ◉ Enjoy an ad-free experience, making your viewing uninterrupted and seamless. ◉ Rediscover the nostalgia of channel surfing, without endless scrolling or algorithmic feeds. I'd love for you to check it out and share your thoughts. Visit FreeTVz.com
2024 · freetvz.com · its alternatives →
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Hi HN, I recently noticed a recurring visual artifact in the "Most Replayed" heatmap on the YouTube player. The highest peaks were always surrounded by two dips. I got curious about why they were there, so I decided to reverse engineer the feature to find out. This post documents the deep dive. It starts with a system design recreation, reverse engineering the rendering code, and ends with the mathematics. This is also my first attempt at writing an interactive article. I would love to hear your thoughts on the investigation and the format.
Jan 2026 · priyavr.at · its alternatives →
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I’ve been feeling a bit nostalgic lately, so I decided to build a little web chat app inspired by Yahoo! Messenger. Right now it’s got group chat rooms. Super simple setup, no email required to register. You can create your own room or hop into one that’s already open. Room owners can customize things like backgrounds and even cursors of their room. Users can format their messages with basic markdown like bold, italics, and color texts (kind of like the old Yahoo! days). I even brought back the classic Yahoo! Messenger emoticons because… well, why not? You can try it out here:…
2025 · buzzed.chat · its alternatives →
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Twitch Pulse▲82An easier way to engage with each other on Twitch
2017 · blog.twitch.tv · its alternatives →
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If YouTube had actual channels, like a TV!
2024 · skipvids.com · its alternatives →
- 18TE
I have been running some experiments on twitch.tv along the lines of driving traffic to websites via donations. Many streamers will read a message attached to a donation of a certain amount of money on stream in front of all their viewers. Sometimes they will visit a url if that happens to be in the content of the message. On rare occasions they will even share the url with the rest of the stream. I would consider my most recent experiment a success. I follow and watch a few streamers on twitch that play Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. Three of the streamers I watch recently created a…
2015 · its alternatives →
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Hi HN! We launched Codebuff last week, and it gave us a fun idea to try: Twitch plays Codebuff. We rigged up Twitch chat to control an old laptop of ours by sending Codebuff commands. Any chat message prefixed with ‘>’ is interpreted as a command for Codebuff. We’re starting with a blank web app running on localhost. So if you say “> Make the header spin”, then Codebuff will modify the css to make it happen. Codebuff can also run any terminal command (I hope you don’t brick our laptop haha). Yesterday we tested this out with our community and they successfully got Codebuff to add a map of…
2024 · twitch.tv · its alternatives →
- 21IB
The idea: what if you could get a “Masterclass”-style experience, but free, using existing YouTube content? So I made OpenCademy — right now it only has two quick startup "courses" (101 & 102), built from curated YouTube clips, all embedded and organized into modules. It’s still early (no accounts, no backend), but it’s bingeable. Would love thoughts on whether this concept feels useful or just... redundant.
Nov 2025 · opencademy.com · its alternatives →
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React.tv▲7Hi HN! I am excited to share the project I have been working on for the last nine months called React.tv. The original problem I was attempting to solve is "Ethical React Content" on the internet. If you are confused, react content is when a content creator watches media and puts their image and commentary over the media being watched. The current solution to these reaction videos is good faith attribution, where the content creator puts a link to the video being watched in their description in hopes that the audience will click it. This is not ideal, and when done on a livestream with…
2025 · react.tv · its alternatives →
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Hello HN, I want to share something that I worked on for quite a while as my side project - www.heahy.com an IRC like chat where you can share various media and even record yourself (using web MediaRecorder api). Here is a thread with short explanation on how it works: https://www.heahy.com/channel/homepage/thread/3900adb9e441a09abc757461 I am looking for any feedback and if you have any ideas, advice or questions I am eager to hear it here or on heahy!
2020 · its alternatives →
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New design/feel, sharing features, vertical videos & more
2017 · blog.youtube · its alternatives →
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Ranked by how close each launch is in meaning, then by votes. Prices were read from each product’s own site when checked and can change. Refine with your own description →