Putting your combined chat on stream with OBS

If you stream to more than one platform, your viewers have the same problem you do — each of them only sees their own platform's chat. Someone on YouTube watches you laugh at a joke they never saw. Putting the combined chat on screen fixes that.

What a chat overlay is for

A chat overlay is a transparent web page rendered on top of your scene, showing messages as they arrive. Two reasons it earns its space:

• Shared context. Everyone watching sees the same conversation, regardless of where they are watching from.
• VOD and clip value. Chat reactions stay visible in the recording, which is often what makes a clip land.

Because messages are already merged before they reach the overlay, a viewer on Kick sees the Twitch replies too.

Generating the browser source URL

StreamBuddy generates a dedicated overlay URL for your account from the chat settings. The URL carries a token that identifies your overlay — that is what lets OBS load it without you logging in inside a browser source.

Adding it in OBS

1. In Sources, click + and choose Browser.
2. Name it something like Combined chat and click OK.
3. Paste the overlay URL into the URL field.
4. Set the width and height to match the space you want it to occupy — a tall, narrow box down one side is the usual choice.
5. Leave Shutdown source when not visible unchecked so the overlay keeps receiving messages while you switch scenes.
6. Click OK, then position and resize the source in your scene.

The background is transparent by default, so it composites straight over your gameplay or camera with no extra work.

Adding it in Streamlabs

The flow is effectively identical: Add Source → Browser Source → paste the URL → set the dimensions. Streamlabs uses the same underlying browser source, so the behaviour matches OBS.

Why it is display-only

The overlay renders chat. It does not send anything back — no replies, no moderation actions, no commands. That is deliberate.

A browser source URL is a long-lived credential sitting in your streaming software, sometimes on a machine you share or a scene collection you have exported. Keeping the overlay read-only means that if the URL does leak, the worst case is that someone can watch your chat render, not act on your channel. Moderation stays where it belongs: in the dashboard, behind your actual login.

Before you add the overlay

The overlay shows whatever your combined feed contains, so it is worth getting your channels connected and the feed reading the way you want first. Muting a noisy viewer in the dashboard also keeps them off the overlay, without touching your platform-level moderation.

• obs
• streamlabs
• overlay
• browser-source