YouTube was 2025’s most-watched streaming platform, TikTok rose to second

Data platform Stream Charts has reported that YouTube was the most-watched streaming platform of 2025, accounting for nearly 50% of the year’s viewership for hours watched.

Other platforms also attracted strong viewership, with TikTok rising to second place at nearly 30% of the total hours watched, and Twitch recorded as the third most popular platform at over 15%.

According to Stream Charts, YouTube saw a 2% growth year-over-year, accumulating over 56bn watch hours, 8.7bn of which came from YouTube Gaming. TikTok was second with 35bn, with Twitch falling by 10% year-over-year to 18 bn.

Streams Charts revealed that YouTube’s most-watched category is gaming, followed by entertainment, and news and politics. However, this isn’t reflected in its most-watched channels, as none of the top five creators listed focus on gaming content.

The blog post also lists the most popular gaming categories on TikTok, which also features popular mobile esports titles such as Mobile Legends: Bang Bang and PUBG Mobile. According to Stream Charts, 4% of TikTok’s total viewership in 2025 was dedicated to gaming.

On the other hand, gaming features more prominently on Twitch, which made up 11.5% of viewership in 2025. The most popular categories include esports titles such as League of Legends, Counter-Strike 2, and VALORANT. Among the most watched Twitch channels of 2025 is Marc ‘Caedrel‘ Lamont, who owns the Los Ratones League of Legends team.

Beyond the most popular platforms, smaller competitors such as SOOP, Steam, and CHZZK were also mentioned. SOOP Korea was the best performing platform out of the group, with its near 1.35bn viewership dwarfing the 15.9m hours watched on its international counterpart. CHZZK followed with just over 1.04bn hours watched.

Streams Charts is a website that provides data and analysis on the streaming ecosystem, covering trends on Twitch, YouTube, Kick and other platforms.

The brand has partnered with a number of organisations across multiple years. 2025 saw Streams Charts collaborate with streaming platform Kick to support the Kick Road Campaign, a competition promoting small streamers. In 2024, the data platform entered a partnership with esports and gaming company Enthusiast Gaming.