What is the difference between hosting and raiding on Twitch?

The main difference between hosting and raiding is that raiding automatically sends viewers into the raid recipient's stream. Hosting will transfer those viewers over, however, they need to click on the stream in order to chat. There are some additional differences to note as well.

Differences Between Hosting And Raiding

While both actions can be used to share one streamer's audience with another, raids will cause the streamer to host the recipient's stream automatically. When raiding, viewers receive some channel points for participating, but many users can opt to not join the raid. Hosting does not give viewers this choice as they remain on the channel but will still view the recipient's stream from the channel they were already on.

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Hosting can happen automatically as well and will be done offline. Raids must be done while the sender's channel is online. On Twitch, raid numbers can be very inaccurate compared to when hosting, often being cut in half. This is due to inactive users often not transferring over or viewers opting out of the raid. When hosting a channel, viewers that are not subscribed to the recipient also have to watch the preroll ad before they can view the stream properly. Raids bypass this and will let viewers in without having to watch any preroll ads.

Whichever one a broadcaster does is down to preference but raids are often associated with raid messages. Because hosting requires an additional click, messages are easier to send out during a raid and are usually some combination of emotes with a nice message between them.

For more Twitch guides, check out How to unlock additional emote slots for your Twitch channel on Pro Game Guides.