head to head · open source
agones vs pinus
agones has 7,100 GitHub stars, 957 forks, 59 open issues and last shipped yesterday. pinus has 1,935 stars, 388 forks, 34 open issues and last shipped 1 months ago. agones leads on adoption by 267% (7,100 vs 1,935 stars). agones is written in Go under Apache-2.0; pinus is written in JavaScript under MIT. agones has attracted 13% as many forks as stars, pinus 20%. agones was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (game-server), 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 | pinus | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 7.1K | ★ 1.9K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-11 | 2026-09-29 |
| Forks | ⑂ 957 | ⑂ 388 |
| 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 pinus if
- You want the pinus feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and pinus 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…
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About pinus
官方网站： 欢迎加Pinus官方QQ群：102530089 示例工程请参见： 手动安装： npm install pinus g mkdir testProject cd testProject 初始化项目 pinus init 与Pomelo的关系 1. pinus是pomelo的TS版本，框架内部把回调改为了Promise。 1. 框架与pomelo一样，所以可以看pomelo的相关教程。 1. 协议与pomelo一样，所以pomelo的客户端代码可以直接对接上pinus服务端。 框架编译方法 编译好以后可以使用 yarn link 或者 npm link 软链接到自己的项目。 也可以用 yarn 的 workspace 查看pinus CHANGELOG Pinus a fast, scalable game server framework for node.js Pinus is a fast, scalable game server framework for node.js. It provides the basic development framework and many related components, including libraries and tools. Pinus is also suitable for real time web applications; its…
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Frequently asked questions
Is agones or pinus more popular?
agones has 7,100 GitHub stars and pinus has 1,935. agones has the larger community by that measure.
Are agones and pinus free?
Both are open source. agones is licensed under Apache-2.0 and pinus under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between agones and pinus?
agones is written in Go and pinus in JavaScript. 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 pinus?
Choose agones if you want the larger community (7,100 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose pinus if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.