head to head · open source
agones vs goworld
agones has 7,097 GitHub stars, 956 forks, 59 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. goworld has 2,722 stars, 472 forks, 27 open issues and last shipped 12 months ago. agones leads on adoption by 161% (7,097 vs 2,722 stars). agones is written in Go under Apache-2.0; goworld is written in Go under Apache-2.0. agones has attracted 13% as many forks as stars, goworld 17%. agones was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (game-server, golang), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| agones | goworld | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 7.1K | ★ 2.7K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-06 | 2025-11-14 |
| Forks | ⑂ 956 | ⑂ 472 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick agones if
- You weight community size — 7.1K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick goworld if
- You want the goworld feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and goworld fits your workflow better
About agones
Agones is a library for hosting, running and scaling dedicated game servers on Kubernetes. Agones, is derived from the Greek word agōn which roughly translates to “contest”, “competition at games” and “gathering”. (source) Why does this project exist? Agones replaces usual bespoke or proprietary cluster management and game server scaling solutions with a Kubernetes cluster that includes the Agones custom Kubernetes Controller and matching Custom Resource Definitions for GameServers , Fleets and more. With Agones, Kubernetes gets native abilities to create, run, manage and scale dedicated game server processes…
read the full agones overview →
About goworld
GoWorld Scalable Distributed Game Server Engine with Hot Reload in Golang Features Architecture Introduction Get GoWorld Manage GoWorld Servers Demos Chatroom Demo Unity Demo: GoWorldUnityDemo.zip 中文资料 中文文档 游戏服务器介绍 目录结构说明 使用GoWorld轻松实现分布式聊天服务器 游戏服务端开源引擎GoWorld教程 1.安装和运行 2.Unity示例双端联调 3.手把手写一个聊天室 4.多个频道的聊天室 5.登录注册和存储 6.移动同步和AOI 7.源码解析之启动流程和热更新 8.码解析之gate 9.源码解析之dispatcher 10.源码解析之entity 欢迎加入Go服务端开发交流群：662182346 Features Spaces & Entities : manage multiple spaces and entities with AOI support Distributed : increase server capacity by using more machines Hot Swappable : update game logic by restarting server…
read the full goworld overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is agones or goworld more popular?
agones has 7,097 GitHub stars and goworld has 2,722. agones has the larger community by that measure.
Are agones and goworld free?
Both are open source. agones is licensed under Apache-2.0 and goworld under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between agones and goworld?
agones is written in Go and goworld in Go. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, agones or goworld?
Choose agones if you want the larger community (7,097 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose goworld if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.