Which Twitch Extensions should I use?

SparkleCat

January 26, 2023 8 mins to read

So you managed to set up your Twitch channel. Now you want some extra engagement or ways to display some nice information in your panels or on screen. There are hundreds to thousands of Twitch Extensions.

You can find the Twitch extension page here.

Twitch Extensions are blocks that hold information, forms, embeds or other interactable buttons. These are either coming from Twitch, your social media or connected to the games you play.

By using something they call an API (application programming interface) they can communicate with each other. Don’t worry too much about what this odd looking thing is, that’s for another post.

There could be various of reasons why you would use Twitch Extensions. Let’s go deeper into them and I’ll give some examples per category.

Engage Your Audience

Twitch Extensions allows you to create a more interactive and engaging streaming experience for your audience. Whether you’re a gamer, artist, or musician, extensions allow viewers to participate in polls, quizzes, and other interactive elements during your stream. There even used to be a Twitch Sings extension.

Game Connections

In the gaming category, we’ll find a good amount of interactive extras that can help your audience to play or immerse with you. Make sure to search your favourite games on the extension page. Here are some examples:

Cult of the Lamb and the Companion of the Lamb: Players will be able to recruit viewers from their audience to become part of their cult.
Destiny 2 and the Destiny official Extension: When enabled and actively streaming Destiny 2, your viewers can complete weekly Bounties for in-game rewards, inspect the stats, mods, and perks of your Guardian’s current loadout, view your Trials of Osiris stats for the week/season/lifetime, and track your active Trials of Osiris Passage.
League of Legends and Mobalytics: The Mobalytics extension enhances your stream’s viewing experience by giving your audience interactive access to your stats, rune pages, builds, and insights on your play style and matchup.

Minigames and Pets

You can also run your minigames or let your viewers raise their pets by using the extensions. Here are some examples:

Dragon Pets and the extension: This one displays a dragon pet on your stream, and your viewers can interact with it to make it stronger and care for it!
2048: If you have ever played this game on your mobile, you understand how fun it can be to have this side by side on your stream.

Monetization Opportunities

This is what you’re here for. Cash, money, the dough. Numerous extensions allow your audience to use bits, donations or gifted subs to affect your game or stream. It generates revenue and keeps your viewers busy.

Pay to Play. There are quite a few extensions that allow the use of donations to play sounds, clips or images on screen. Great for jumpscares, memes or other entertaining factors: Soundalerts, Blerp, Viewer Attack, Crowd Control.
Prime Gaming Benefits Reminder: The Prime Gaming Benefits Reminder adds an icon as an overlay to the video that reminds viewers that they have a Prime channel subscription to claim, as well as showing them other benefits of Prime Gaming.

More Branding

You can also use extensions to extend your branding and give more information. Some include listing your schedule and RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds. These use, you guessed it, API to connect to your social media app.

Chrono Channel: Displays your schedule in a nicely coloured panel.
Throne Wishlist: Gets your wishlist from your Throne account and puts it in a nice panel.
Xeke’s Simple Emote Panel: This one displays the possible emotes and badges your viewers can unlock.
Schedule from Videos: This panel uses your past broadcast information to estimate your next streams.

Viewer Retention

Keeping viewers engaged is key to a successful Twitch channel. Extensions can help improve viewer retention by offering loyalty point systems, rank lists or other incentives that encourage your audience to stay and interact with your content. Here are some examples:

Streamrate: Give your viewers a say about you and your content. This helps everyone. Don’t feel bad if they leave a negative review; it’s considered constructive criticism, and you can use it to improve your next stream.
Leaderboards: Streamelements, Wizebot, Throne, Community members, Most Valuable Viewer

And More

There are too many extensions to cover in one post, and I do not want to overwhelm you. Pick the right ones for you, your brand and your community. Especially if certain games are your main content, those extensions are trivial.

There are a lot of good ones, but also bad ones. Here’s a list of things you need to pay attention to.

Malicious extensions: Always review an extension before adding it. Extensions can get access to your Twitch information if you allow it to, and just like anywhere else on the internet, this can result in problems.
Hate Speech or Spam Generators: There are extensions that automatically add text to the panel. Avoid these since you have no control over them.
Unwanted ads: Avoid extensions that place their own logo too visible. It clutters your panels and turns your channel into a billboard for the companies. Credit where credit due, however.
Viewer location and IP grabbers: There are extensions that show you where your viewxers are from. Do not use these as it tends to stop people from staying around.