Custom RTMP Destinations: Streaming Anywhere With a URL and a Key

Custom RTMP is CastFork’s catch-all for anywhere that isn’t one of the native, log-in-and-connect platforms — YouTube, Twitch, Facebook, X, LinkedIn, TikTok, or Kick. If a destination gives you a plain RTMP or RTMPS URL and a stream key — a company’s own website player, a niche streaming service, an internal broadcast system, a church or event platform — you can add it as a destination without waiting for a dedicated integration.

• A website’s own video player that accepts an RTMP feed directly, so a stream can sit natively on a company or community site instead of only embedding a player from a third-party platform.
• A niche or regional streaming service that isn’t one of CastFork’s native integrations but still hands out a standard RTMP endpoint.
• An internal broadcast system — a company town hall tool, a school or campus system, a private venue’s in-house AV setup — that expects an RTMP push rather than a public platform login.
• A backup destination: a second RTMP endpoint you control, purely as a redundant recording or relay target independent of any public platform.

From Channels, choose Add New → Custom RTMP, and fill in:

• RTMP or RTMPS URL — provided by the destination platform. Both rtmp:// and rtmps:// are accepted; use RTMPS if the destination offers it.
• Stream key — required, also from the destination.
• Display name — optional, but worth setting if you’ll have more than one custom destination, so they don’t all show up as "Custom RTMP" in your channel list.
• Username / password — optional; some destinations require basic auth on top of the stream key.

Not sure the URL is actually reachable before you commit to it live? Run it through the RTMP connection checker first — it tells you whether a real server answers on that address, without needing to start a stream.

A custom channel’s display name, URL, stream key, and any username/password can all be edited later from the same Channels list — useful if a destination rotates its stream key periodically, or if you set one up in a hurry and want to give it a clearer name once you have more than one. Updating the credentials doesn’t affect any other destination on the same stream card; each channel, native or custom, is configured independently even though they all go out from the same single broadcast.

Custom RTMP destinations aren’t available on Free — they need Standard or above. If you’re only ever streaming to native platforms, Free covers two of those simultaneously with no time limit; custom destinations are specifically the upgrade trigger for "somewhere that isn’t in the native list." See plan pricing for the full comparison.

A custom RTMP destination is a one-way push — CastFork sends video and audio to it, and that’s the entire relationship. There’s no API on the other end for CastFork to talk back to, which means:

A custom destination is the one place where a typo in the URL or a stale stream key is easiest to miss until you’re already live, because there’s no login flow to catch a mistake for you the way there is with a native platform. Running the address through the RTMP connection checker first confirms a real server actually answers on that URL. Once that checks out, a short low-stakes test stream — a few seconds, nothing announced — confirms the stream key itself is accepted end to end, before you add the destination to a broadcast that actually matters.

Custom destinations accept RTMP and RTMPS URLs. SRT isn’t a supported protocol for custom destinations right now — if you’re evaluating a destination that only offers SRT ingest, it isn’t reachable as a custom channel today. For the difference between the three protocols and when each one is worth caring about, see RTMP vs. RTMPS vs. SRT.

A custom destination toggles on and off exactly like a native one on a multistreaming stream card — it just doesn’t come with the chat and analytics extras a logged-in integration provides. For most people it’s the one destination on the list that isn’t YouTube, Twitch, or one of the other native platforms — a website player, a private broadcast system, or a platform CastFork hasn’t built a dedicated integration for yet.