Alternatives to GameMaker in 2026

Godot godotengine

Godot Engine – Multi-platform 2D and 3D game engine

Framework or platform Production-ready You want a royalty-free engine for 2D games or small to mid-size 3D games.

★ 119k MIT C++ Active, pushed today

Bevy bevyengine

A refreshingly simple data-driven game engine built in Rust

Framework or platform Usable You want to make games in Rust and are comfortable with code-first development.

★ 49k Apache-2.0 Rust Active, pushed today

Raylib raysan5

A simple and easy-to-use library to enjoy videogames programming

Framework or platform Production-ready You want to learn game programming or build small games and tools with a minimal API.

★ 36k Zlib C Active, pushed yesterday

Babylon.js BabylonJS

Babylon.js is a powerful, beautiful, simple, and open game and rendering engine packed into a friendly JavaScript framework.

Framework or platform Production-ready You build 3D games, product configurators or XR experiences that run in the browser.

★ 26k Apache-2.0 TypeScript Active, pushed today

libGDX libgdx

Desktop/Android/HTML5/iOS Java game development framework

Framework or platform Production-ready You want to write 2D or simple 3D games in Java or Kotlin for desktop and Android.

★ 26k Apache-2.0 Java Active, pushed today

OpenRA OpenRA

Open Source real-time strategy game engine for early Westwood games such as Command & Conquer: Red Alert written in C# using SDL and OpenGL. Runs on Windows, Linux, *BSD and Mac OS X.

Complete system Production-ready You want to play or mod classic Command & Conquer games on modern systems.

★ 18k GPL-3.0 C# Active, pushed 5 days ago

Engine playcanvas

Powerful web graphics runtime built on WebGL, WebGPU, WebXR and glTF

Framework or platform Production-ready You build performant browser 3D experiences and may use PlayCanvas's hosted editor.

★ 17k MIT JavaScript Active, pushed today

Ebiten hajimehoshi

A dead simple 2D game engine for Go

Framework or platform Production-ready You want to make 2D games in Go with a small, stable API.

★ 14k Apache-2.0 Go Active, pushed today

EnTT skypjack

Gaming meets modern C++ - a fast and reliable entity component system (ECS) and much more

Building block Production-ready You are building a C++ game or simulation and want a proven ECS.

★ 13k MIT C++ Active, pushed today

Boardgame.io boardgameio

State Management and Multiplayer Networking for Turn-Based Games

Framework or platform Usable You are building an online board or card game in JavaScript.

★ 12k MIT TypeScript Active, pushed 3 days ago

JoltPhysics jrouwe

A multi core friendly rigid body physics and collision detection library. Written in C++. Suitable for games and VR applications. Used by Horizon Forbidden West and Death Stranding 2.

Building block Production-ready You need fast, stable 3D physics for a game engine or VR application.

★ 12k MIT C++ Active, pushed yesterday

Flame flame-engine

A Flutter based game engine.

Framework or platform Production-ready You already use Flutter and want to make casual 2D games for mobile and web.

★ 11k MIT Dart Active, pushed today

Fyrox FyroxEngine

3D and 2D game engine written in Rust

Framework or platform Usable You want to make games in Rust and prefer a traditional engine with an editor.

★ 9.6k MIT Rust Active, pushed today

Stride stride3d

Stride (formerly Xenko), a free and open-source cross-platform C# game engine.

Framework or platform Usable You want a C# 3D engine with an editor and full source access as an alternative to Unity.

★ 7.9k MIT C# Active, pushed today

WickedEngine turanszkij

3D engine with modern graphics

Framework or platform Usable You want a modern C++ graphics engine to learn from or build a project on.

★ 7.3k MIT C++ Active, pushed today

melonJS melonjs

A modern & fully featured HTML5 game engine (2D & 3D) for JavaScript/TypeScript, with WebGL/WebGPU rendering, built-in physics, Tiled map & glTF support and WebAudio.

Framework or platform Production-ready You make 2D browser games, especially tile-based ones built with Tiled.

★ 6.4k MIT JavaScript Active, pushed today

Redot-Engine Redot-Engine

Redot Engine – Multi-platform 2D and 3D game engine

Framework or platform Usable You prefer Redot's governance over Godot's and accept a smaller community.

★ 6.2k MIT C++ Active, pushed yesterday

Horizon horizon-rust

Minecraft: Java Edition 26.3 rewritten from scratch in Rust, checked against vanilla with 281 differential harnesses. Get it with the Horizon launcher.

Complete system Experimental You are curious about a faster Minecraft-compatible client and comfortable with alpha software.

★ 6.1k MIT Rust Active, pushed today

Planck.js piqnt

2D JavaScript Physics Engine

Building block Usable You need 2D rigid body physics in a browser game.

★ 5.3k MIT TypeScript Active, pushed 10 days ago

FXGL AlmasB

Java / JavaFX / Kotlin Game Library (Engine)

Framework or platform Usable You teach or learn game development in Java, or already use JavaFX.

★ 4.9k MIT Kotlin Active, pushed 17 days ago

Ggez ggez

Rust library to create a Good Game Easily

Framework or platform Usable You want a simple Rust framework for small 2D games without an ECS.

★ 4.7k MIT Rust Active, pushed 7 days ago

Macroquad not-fl3

Cross-platform game engine in Rust.

Framework or platform Usable You want quick-to-compile 2D games in Rust that also run in the browser.

★ 4.7k Apache-2.0 Rust Active, pushed 3 months ago

LittleJS KilledByAPixel

Tiny fast 2D/3D HTML5 game engine with many features and no dependencies.

Framework or platform Usable You make small 2D browser games or enter size-limited game jams.

★ 4.4k MIT JavaScript Active, pushed yesterday

A-Frame aframevr

:a: Web framework for building virtual reality experiences.

Framework or platform Production-ready You want to build browser-based VR or 3D experiences quickly with declarative markup.

★ 18k MIT JavaScript Slowing, pushed 4 months ago

Entitas sschmid

Entitas is a super fast Entity Component System (ECS) Framework specifically made for C# and Unity

Building block Usable You maintain a Unity project already built on Entitas.

★ 7.7k MIT C# Quiet, pushed 3 years ago

Piccolo BoomingTech

Piccolo (formerly Pilot) – mini game engine for games104

List, course or other material Experimental You are following GAMES104 or want a compact engine codebase to study.

★ 6.7k MIT C++ Quiet, pushed 2 years ago

Pixel faiface

A hand-crafted 2D game library in Go

Framework or platform Experimental Not for new work; development has moved to the Pixel2 repository.

★ 4.5k MIT Go Quiet, pushed 2 years ago

NoahGameFrame ketoo

A fast, scalable, distributed game server engine/framework for C++, include the actor library, network library, can be used as a real time multiplayer game engine ( MMO RPG/MOBA ), which support C#/Lua script/ Unity3d, Cocos2dx and plan to support Unreal.

Framework or platform Experimental Only to study its architecture or if you maintain a game already built on it.

★ 4.2k Apache-2.0 C++ Quiet, pushed 4 years ago

Unreal Engine Epic Games

Whatever your vision, bring it to life with Unreal Engine: the world's most advanced real-time 3D creation tool. Join our community of developers and get started today.

Framework or platform Production-ready You need high-end 3D graphics for games or film and have C++ skills or a team to use Blueprints well.

13k readers a month Commercial

Unity Unity Technologies

Develop, deploy, and grow with Unity, the world’s leading 3D game engine. Build for all major platforms from mobile, to PC and console as well as XR, acquire players, monetize your game, and power industrial applications.

Framework or platform Production-ready You build mobile or cross-platform games, or industrial 3D apps, and want the largest asset store and talent pool.

8.8k readers a month Since 2005 Commercial