Kai Cenat was still Twitch’s most popular streamer in StreamElements’ 2024 year-end report, the same position he held in 2023. The report’s top list, though, also picked up four creators who had not appeared on it before: Jynxzi, Caedrel, caseoh_ and Papaplatte. The overall platform figure it cites is 18.5 billion hours watched for January through November 2024, against 18.9 billion for 2023.
Who led Twitch in 2024
StreamElements’ State of the Stream: Year in Review report, produced with Rainmaker.gg, names Kai Cenat as the platform’s most popular streamer for 2024. GamesBeat summarized the report on December 16, 2024, and updated its article on June 18, 2025, and it is the most direct source for the annual ranking. Because the report is a ranking rather than a single-metric league table, read Cenat’s position as the report’s result for 2024 and not as a precise hours-watched total.
Other providers measure differently, and their leaders can differ. Those figures are covered below, each with its own window and source.
The new names on the top list
Four creators appeared on StreamElements’ top list for the first time in the 2024 report:
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- Jynxzi
- Caedrel
- caseoh_
- Papaplatte
The turnover is the story’s main change. Cenat held the top spot, while several creators who had not been on the list before entered it. The sources cited here do not give each newcomer’s individual hours watched in the StreamElements report, so this article does not rank them against one another.
Platform totals: what the numbers cover
The platform-level figures come from different providers and cover different windows. Keep each number attached to its source and period.
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| Figure | Value | Period | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Twitch hours watched (platform total) | 18.5 billion | January to November 2024 (11 months) | StreamElements/Rainmaker.gg, as summarized by GamesBeat |
| Twitch hours watched (platform total) | 18.9 billion | 2023, presented as an annual figure | StreamElements/Rainmaker.gg, as summarized by GamesBeat |
| Growth in Twitch’s “Just Watching” category | 9.3% | Across 2024 | Twitch’s 2024 Recap, as reported by GamesBeat |
| Twitch viewing hours | 5,147,090,171 | Q4 2024 | Streamlabs and Stream Hatchet, Q4 2024 Live Streaming Report |
| Twitch viewing hours | 1.58 billion | December 2024 only | Streams Charts, Twitch Statistics for December 2024 |
Did Twitch viewership grow or decline?
The sources do not give one clean full-year answer. The 2024 StreamElements total covers only 11 months, while its 2023 comparator is an annual figure. The two numbers therefore cannot be subtracted to measure a change in viewing, even though the 2024 figure is lower.
Other signals point in different directions. Streamlabs and Stream Hatchet report that Q4 2024 viewing was nearly flat against Q3 but 6.26% lower than Q4 2023. Twitch’s own 2024 Recap, as reported by GamesBeat, puts growth in the “Just Watching” category at 9.3% over the year. Viewing in one category can rise while total platform hours fall, so these figures describe different parts of the platform. A reader who needs a single 2024 growth number should look for a full-year, same-definition dataset from one provider.
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Other 2024 leaderboards
Several providers published their own 2024 rankings. Their methods and windows differ from StreamElements’, so these figures should not be merged with its list.
Stream Hatchet: Save Point 2024
GameSquare’s summary of Stream Hatchet’s Save Point 2024 report, published December 19, 2024, names Kai Cenat as the 2024 viewership leader with 185 million hours watched. The same summary says his Mafiathon 2 event generated over 728,000 subscriptions. It also reports 294 million hours watched for VTubers on Twitch. These are Stream Hatchet’s findings, and they should be attributed to that report, not to StreamElements.
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December 2024: a different leader
Streams Charts reports that Kai Cenat stepped back after his November Mafiathon 2 event, and that fps_shaka led December 2024 by watch time, with 1.58 billion hours for the platform in that month. This is a single-month result. It does not contradict Cenat’s annual position, because the two results cover different windows and use different measures. A December leader is simply not the same thing as the year’s leader.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Why top streamers are moving across platforms
StreamElements CEO Or Perry tied the 2024 shift in leadership to multistreaming. In his account, Twitch has moved through several top streamers over the years, from the Ninja era to xQc’s reign to the current KaiCenat period. He credited platform diversification with the change. Ninja began multistreaming, and xQc uses different platforms for different content, and both have stayed successful, according to Perry. He said that being where gamers already are helps creators grow, whether they use some platforms for discovery and others for community building.
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Perry’s remarks are his own view, not a measured cause. The report does not establish that multistreaming produced the 2024 turnover on the top list. Perry also predicted that KaiCenat would eventually test other platforms, and that 2025 would be a big year for multistreaming as tools become more accessible. That is a 2024 forecast about 2025, not a confirmed outcome, and the current state of those tools is outside what these sources show.
How to read these numbers
- Use the StreamElements report for the 2024 annual popularity ranking and the list of newcomers.
- Use the 18.5 billion figure only as a January to November platform total, not as a full-year number.
- Use Stream Hatchet’s 185 million hours for Kai Cenat only with the Save Point 2024 attribution.
- Treat the Q4 2024 and December 2024 figures as single-period results from their own sources.
- Do not compare providers’ totals with each other, because the sources do not explain how their counts reconcile.
Read together, the sources agree on the core result: Kai Cenat led the year, and the top list changed around him. They disagree on platform-wide growth because they measure different things over different windows.
Sources: GamesBeat’s summary of the StreamElements report; Streamlabs and Stream Hatchet Q4 2024 Live Streaming Report; GameSquare’s summary of Stream Hatchet’s Save Point 2024; Streams Charts, Twitch Statistics for December 2024.
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