How it works, and where it can't.

StreamRift is a free, open-source desktop client for watching Twitch. It is built with Tauri 2 and Rust, ships as a native macOS or Windows app, and specializes in watching up to four streams at once with ad-free playback and full live chat.

No. StreamRift is an independent project and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Twitch Interactive, Inc. We use Twitch's public APIs the same way any third-party client does.

Yes. Free to download, free to use, MIT licensed. No accounts, no payments, no telemetry. Bring your own Twitch developer app and you're running.

macOS (universal — Apple silicon and Intel) and Windows (x64). A Linux build is possible down the line but not shipped today.

OAuth 2.0 with PKCE. We open your system browser to id.twitch.tv, Twitch redirects back via a custom URL scheme, and Rust exchanges the code for a token. No password ever touches StreamRift.

In your OS keychain. macOS uses Keychain Access; Windows uses the Credential Manager. The token never hits disk in plaintext.

You can watch any public channel without signing in. Login is required only for your followed channels, live chat as you, and sub/badge display.

user:read:follows for your follow list, chat:read + chat:edit for chat, and optionally user:read:subscriptions for sub badges. Nothing else.

We never load the Twitch JS player. Rust fetches a playback access token via GQL, calls usher for the master M3U8, parses it, and hands a URL to a standard <video> element backed by hls.js. Ad insertion happens inside the Twitch player JS — we simply do not run it.

Sometimes, yes. Twitch periodically rotates their GQL schema and CDN token shape. Our queries live in an external config file that can be patched without a full app rebuild, and the updater pushes fixes quickly.

Not in v1.0. The resolver is built around live playback. VODs and clips are on the post-v1 list.

On by default. The <video> element uses the WebView's GPU decoder for H.264/AAC. You can disable it in Settings if your GPU is acting up.

Send and receive messages, badges (broadcaster/mod/sub/bits), colored usernames, timestamps, mod actions (bans/timeouts show as system events), and emote rendering for Twitch, BTTV, and 7TV.

You can use chat commands the same way you would on twitch.tv — /ban, /timeout, /mod, etc. We do not ship a dedicated moderation dashboard in v1.

Not in v1.0 — BTTV and 7TV only. FrankerFaceZ is on the shortlist.

Twitch's TMI servers occasionally throttle new connections. We retry with backoff. If chat stays offline for more than ~30 seconds, try rejoining the channel.

Pre-roll ads served inside the HLS manifest as SSAI (server-side ad insertion) are the one category we cannot fully avoid, because they are injected at the CDN layer for some channels. StreamRift detects the ad break markers and skips the segments — but there may be a brief black-frame stall on first join for certain streams.

Twitch only exposes your subscription list if you grant user:read:subscriptions. Even then, some sub-only channel modes depend on flags that are not in the public Helix surface — we ship best-effort badges and defer to chat errors from the server.

These run on private GQL endpoints that Twitch reserves for their own clients and extensions. We deliberately do not implement them — it is a ToS grey area and maintenance nightmare.

Twitch's native multi-view is served through a separate, authenticated GQL endpoint and product surface. Our multi-stream is implemented entirely client-side — it works for any combination of channels without Squad Stream needing to exist.

Direct HLS is typically 8–15 seconds behind the broadcast. Twitch's own low-latency mode uses a custom transport (LHLS / LL-HLS variants) that is not fully documented. We default to standard HLS — reliable beats bleeding-edge.

Helix returns thumbnail URLs that the Twitch CDN updates on its own schedule — usually every 2–5 minutes. Refresh faster than that and you'll see the same image.

Raids come through TMI as system messages and we show them in chat. Initiating raids is a broadcaster tool; it is not on our roadmap. Watch Parties depend on Amazon Prime Video DRM — out of scope.

Helix has POST /clips which returns a clip ID, but authoring the 30-second window client-side requires rights we do not have. We expose a "Clip" button that deep-links to twitch.tv's clip editor.

VOD chat is served through a different endpoint (rechat) and is rate-limited. Since v1.0 does not do VOD playback, chat replay is also out.

Helix allows ~800 points per minute per client ID. Chat (TMI) allows 20 messages per 30 seconds as a regular user. StreamRift respects both and queues when you approach the cap.

Planned for v1.1. The resolver architecture already supports it — we just have not shipped the UI.

On the shortlist. BTTV and 7TV shipped first because their REST APIs are simpler.

Tauri supports Linux cleanly, but the test matrix is a lot for a volunteer team. Contributions welcome.

Not planned. StreamRift is desktop-first by design — the whole value proposition is a big screen with four panes.

Out of scope. StreamRift is a viewer. Use OBS or Streamlabs for broadcasting.

Rust 1.77+, Node 18+, pnpm, and a Twitch Developer app set to Public type with the redirect URL http://localhost:19284/auth/callback.

Create an app at dev.twitch.tv/console/apps. Copy the Client ID into your .env file as TWITCH_CLIENT_ID. No client secret is needed — PKCE handles it.

Tauri's updater plugin checks a manifest on launch. Every bundle is signed with an Ed25519 keypair — if the signature does not verify against the pubkey baked into the app at build time, the update is rejected.

Our public builds are Apple-notarized. If you built it yourself without signing, Gatekeeper will warn. Right-click the .app and choose Open once to bypass.