Kick vs Twitch Viewership: Hours Watched, Month by Month
By Mira Okonkwo··5 min read
Twitch is still about 2.5 times bigger than Kick by hours watched — 1.54 billion hours against 606 million in August 2026 — but Kick is closing the gap. Over the twelve months from September 2025 its monthly watch time grew 31% against Twitch's 12%, taking it from 34% of Twitch's volume to 39%, and to 49% in the first 25 days of September. The numbers below are Streams Charts data for Twitch and Kick channels it tracks.
Monthly Hours Watched, Twitch vs Kick
| Month | Twitch | Kick | Kick as % of Twitch |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sep 2025 | 1.38B | 462M | 33.5% |
| Oct 2025 | 1.34B | 461M | 34.5% |
| Nov 2025 | 1.34B | 421M | 31.3% |
| Dec 2025 | 1.41B | 394M | 27.9% |
| Jan 2026 | 1.49B | 448M | 30.0% |
| Feb 2026 | 1.34B | 407M | 30.3% |
| Mar 2026 | 1.43B | 458M | 32.0% |
| Apr 2026 | 1.40B | 458M | 32.6% |
| May 2026 | 1.43B | 442M | 30.9% |
| Jun 2026 | 1.37B | 524M | 38.2% |
| Jul 2026 | 1.43B | 530M | 36.9% |
| Aug 2026 | 1.54B | 606M | 39.3% |
| Sep 1–25, 2026 (partial) | 1.21B | 599M | 49.4% |
Full bar = parity with Twitch. Twelve full months, September 2025 – August 2026: Twitch 16.92B hours, Kick 5.61B (33.2% of Twitch). September 2026 is partial for both platforms, so only its ratio is comparable.
Kick spent autumn and winter at 28–35% of Twitch, then stepped up in June 2026 to 38% and stayed there. Streams Charts' June recap credited broader platform activity plus a Rust campaign run with Facepunch Studios, and its August recap called that month a Kick record. The partial September is the steepest jump yet: about 24.0 million hours a day on Kick against 19.6 million in August, while Twitch held at around 48–50 million. Treat the September figure as provisional until the month closes.
Fewer Channels, More Watching per Channel
| Sep 2025 | Twitch | Kick |
|---|---|---|
| Channels that streamed | 626,213 | 98,091 |
| Airtime (hours live) | 15.25M h | 1.74M h |
| Hours watched per channel | 2,198 | 4,707 |
| Average viewers per live hour | 90 | 265 |
| Aug 2026 | Twitch | Kick |
|---|---|---|
| Channels that streamed | 748,147 | 91,440 |
| Airtime (hours live) | 19.64M h | 2.18M h |
| Hours watched per channel | 2,061 | 6,631 |
| Average viewers per live hour | 79 | 278 |
Twitch has about eight times as many channels and nine times the airtime, but only 2.5 times the watch time. Kick's channel count actually fell over the year while its hours grew by almost a third, so the growth came from bigger audiences on existing channels, not from more streamers.
Hours watched per channel is total hours divided by the channels that streamed that month. Read it as a rough concentration signal, not as what a typical channel gets: the average is pulled up by the biggest channels. The same pattern shows at the top — Kick's eight biggest channels took 10.5% of its September hours, Twitch's eight biggest took 4.3%. For a new streamer that cuts both ways: fewer channels to compete with in a Kick category, and an audience that clusters around a few names. How that plays into the platform choice is covered in Kick vs Twitch.
What Each Platform Watches (Q3 2026)
Twitch
- Just Chatting14.4%
- League of Legends4.9%
- Grand Theft Auto V3.8%
- Counter-Strike3.4%
- VALORANT3.2%
- Dota 23.1%
- IRL2.9%
- Minecraft2.1%
Kick
- Just Chatting22.3%
- Grand Theft Auto V16.3%
- IRL13.1%
- Slots & Casino8.8%
- Counter-Strike 23.1%
- League of Legends3.0%
- EA Sports FC 262.5%
- Minecraft1.8%
Share of each platform's hours watched, July 1 – September 25, 2026. Bars scaled to 25%.
Kick's viewing is more concentrated: Just Chatting, GTA V, IRL and Slots & Casino hold about 60% of its hours, against 27% for Twitch's top four. Twitch spreads across esports-heavy games — League of Legends, Counter-Strike, VALORANT, Dota 2 — and its IRL category is under 3% of hours, where Kick's is 13%. Casino content is the clearest rules effect: Twitch bans the big unlicensed slots sites, Kick allows licensed ones. If a specific game matters to you, check it per platform on Streams Charts before you pick. How live gaming splits between Twitch and YouTube is in Twitch vs YouTube.
Biggest Channels in September 2026
| Twitch | Language | Hours |
|---|---|---|
| zackrawrr | English | 8.12M |
| caedrel | English | 7.73M |
| xqc | English | 7.45M |
| theburntpeanut | English | 7.11M |
| ironmouse | English | 5.61M |
| domingo | French | 5.42M |
| eliasn97 | German | 5.37M |
| kato_junichi0817 | Japanese | 5.15M |
| Kick | Language | Hours |
|---|---|---|
| absi | Arabic | 10.91M |
| westcol | Spanish | 8.98M |
| deenthegreat | English | 8.28M |
| maherco | Arabic | 8.27M |
| odablock | English | 7.37M |
| korekore_ch | Japanese | 7.13M |
| 3mr | Arabic | 6.27M |
| sxb | Arabic | 5.44M |
Hours watched, September 1–25, 2026. The top eight hold about 10% of Kick's hours and 4% of Twitch's, so no single channel moves either platform's total.
Twitch's top eight is five English channels plus one each in French, German and Japanese. Kick's is four Arabic channels, two English, one Spanish and one Japanese — and westcol peaked at 1.1 million concurrent viewers this month. That language split is the real story; it has its own page: Kick vs Twitch by language. Monthly Kick rankings live on KickRanker, and if you want to stream there yourself, start with how to stream on Kick.
About This Data
- Source: the Streams Charts warehouse, pulled September 27, 2026. Twitch and Kick channels tracked by Streams Charts only; YouTube, TikTok and others are not included — for those, see the livestreaming platforms list.
- Noise floor: stream-days averaging five viewers or fewer are left out (about 3% of hours), so these totals sit slightly below the headline figures in Streams Charts' monthly recaps, which count every stream.
- September 2026 covers the 1st to the 25th. Q3 means July 1 – September 25 (87 days) and Q2 April 1 – June 30 (91 days), so compare shares or per-day figures, not raw totals.
- A streamer who multistreams counts on each platform separately, with each platform's own viewers.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Kick bigger than Twitch?
No. In Streams Charts data Twitch had 1.54 billion hours watched in August 2026 against 606 million on Kick, and 4.19 billion against 1.73 billion from July 1 to September 25. Twitch is about 2.4 to 2.5 times Kick's size, and it has roughly eight times as many channels streaming each month.
Is Kick growing faster than Twitch?
Yes. Kick's monthly hours watched grew 31% between September 2025 and August 2026, against 12% for Twitch. Per day, Kick's July 1 – September 25 watch time was 27% above Q2 2026, while Twitch's was 4% above. Kick went from 34% of Twitch's watch time in September 2025 to 39% in August 2026.
How many streamers are on Kick compared with Twitch?
About 91,000 Kick channels and 748,000 Twitch channels streamed in August 2026, counting only stream-days that averaged more than five viewers. Kick's count has not grown — it was about 98,000 in September 2025 — so its growth came from more watching per channel, not more channels.
What do people watch most on Kick?
From July 1 to September 25, 2026: Just Chatting (22% of Kick's hours), Grand Theft Auto V (16%), IRL (13%) and Slots & Casino (9%). Those four categories hold about 60% of Kick's watch time. On Twitch the top four — Just Chatting, League of Legends, GTA V and Counter-Strike — hold about 27%.
Who is the most-watched streamer on Kick?
By hours watched from September 1 to 25, 2026, absi led Kick with 10.9 million hours. Next were westcol (9.0 million hours, with a 1.1 million peak), deenthegreat and maherco (8.3 million each). On Twitch, zackrawrr led with 8.1 million hours.
Why do Kick channels get more hours per channel than Twitch?
Because Kick's watch time is concentrated in fewer, bigger channels. In August 2026 Kick averaged about 6,600 hours watched per channel that streamed, against about 2,100 on Twitch, and its top eight channels took 10.5% of September's hours versus 4.3% on Twitch. It is an average pulled up by the largest channels, not what a typical small channel gets.