[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":125},["ShallowReactive",2],{"\u002Fblog\u002Fself-hosted-restream-alternative":3,"authors":107},{"id":4,"title":5,"authors":6,"badge":8,"body":10,"date":97,"description":98,"extension":99,"image":100,"meta":101,"navigation":102,"path":103,"seo":104,"stem":105,"__hash__":106},"posts\u002F3.blog\u002Fself-hosted-restream-alternative.md","A self-hosted alternative to Restream",[7],"jaydrogers",{"label":9},"Guide",{"type":11,"value":12,"toc":89},"minimark",[13,17,22,25,34,38,41,54,57,60,64,67,70,74,81],[14,15,16],"p",{},"Restream is the default answer for going live on a few platforms at once. It works, and it's easy. But if you've looked at the monthly bill, or noticed your stream getting capped, and wondered whether you could just run this yourself — you can. Here's the case for a self-hosted alternative.",[18,19,21],"h2",{"id":20},"what-youre-actually-paying-for","What you're actually paying for",[14,23,24],{},"Restream, StreamYard, and the rest run in the cloud. You send them one stream, their servers re-encode it, and they fan it out to each platform. You pay every month whether you went live or not.",[14,26,27,28,33],{},"There's a second cost that's easier to miss. Because they're re-encoding one input into several outputs, they keep that input modest and send roughly the same quality everywhere. You end up capped at whatever your weakest platform supports. I wrote about why that happens in ",[29,30,32],"a",{"href":31},"\u002Fblog\u002Fstream-youtube-twitch-best-quality","Stream to YouTube and Twitch at the same time",".",[18,35,37],{"id":36},"what-self-hosting-changes","What self-hosting changes",[14,39,40],{},"The whole arrangement flips. The encode happens on your machine, with a dedicated encoder per destination, and each stream goes straight to its platform.",[42,43,44,48,51],"ul",{},[45,46,47],"li",{},"1440p60 to YouTube",[45,49,50],{},"1080p60 to Twitch",[45,52,53],{},"1080p30 to LinkedIn or X",[14,55,56],{},"No cloud in the path, no monthly bill, and nothing throttled to fit the cheapest output. You own the software instead of renting access to a service.",[14,58,59],{},"The honest trade-off: every destination gets its own full stream from your machine, so your upload carries the combined bitrate of all of them. For two or three platforms on a decent connection, that's fine. On a slow uplink with a dozen destinations, it isn't.",[18,61,63],{"id":62},"when-the-cloud-still-makes-sense","When the cloud still makes sense",[14,65,66],{},"I'm not going to pretend self-hosting wins for everyone. If you're streaming to ten places at once, or your upload can't carry the total, or you want zero setup and don't care about the quality ceiling, a hosted service earns its fee. That's a real answer.",[14,68,69],{},"Self-hosting is for the person who'd rather own their stack, push each platform the quality it can actually take, and stop paying rent to do it.",[18,71,73],{"id":72},"thats-what-polycast-is","That's what Polycast is",[14,75,76,77,33],{},"Polycast is a desktop app built for exactly this. You point OBS (or any RTMP, SRT, or WHIP source) at it, and it runs a dedicated encoder per destination on your own machine. It's a one-time purchase, not a subscription, and there's no cloud relay between you and your audience. If you're coming from a plugin setup, I'd also read ",[29,78,80],{"href":79},"\u002Fblog\u002Fobs-multistream-without-a-plugin","Multistreaming from OBS without a plugin",[14,82,83,84,88],{},"Polycast is in pre-launch. ",[29,85,87],{"href":86},"\u002F#waitlist","Join the waitlist →"," and I'll send you the launch email.",{"title":90,"searchDepth":91,"depth":91,"links":92},"",2,[93,94,95,96],{"id":20,"depth":91,"text":21},{"id":36,"depth":91,"text":37},{"id":62,"depth":91,"text":63},{"id":72,"depth":91,"text":73},"2026-06-05","Restream is the easy default for multistreaming. If the monthly bill or the quality cap has you wondering about running it yourself, here's the case for it.","md",null,{},true,"\u002Fblog\u002Fself-hosted-restream-alternative",{"title":5,"description":98},"3.blog\u002Fself-hosted-restream-alternative","eyk_dspSnugprfRmP3KDImUom4LzteP869FqYy0Qboc",{"id":108,"extension":109,"list":110,"meta":122,"stem":123,"__hash__":124},"authors\u002Fauthors.yml","yml",[111,115,118],{"slug":112,"name":113,"avatar":114},"aarondfrancis","Aaron Francis","\u002Fauthors\u002Faarondfrancis.jpg",{"slug":7,"name":116,"avatar":117},"Jay Rogers","\u002Fauthors\u002Fjaydrogers.jpg",{"slug":119,"name":120,"avatar":121},"danpastori","Dan Pastori","\u002Fauthors\u002Fdanpastori.jpg",{},"authors","TD_FKipxxPsHMH_Evc0aVCfassI3jyFZb147l3uQzRA",1780799136764]