head to head · open source
agones vs pokerth
agones has 7,032 GitHub stars, 943 forks, 59 open issues and last shipped today. pokerth has 657 stars, 252 forks, 4 open issues and last shipped yesterday. agones leads on adoption by 970% (7,032 vs 657 stars). agones is written in Go under Apache-2.0; pokerth is written in C++ under AGPL-3.0. agones has attracted 13% as many forks as stars, pokerth 38%. 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, multiplayer), 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 | pokerth | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 7.0K | ★ 657 |
| License | Apache-2.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Go | C++ |
| Last push | 2026-09-20 | 2026-09-19 |
| Forks | ⑂ 943 | ⑂ 252 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick agones if
- You weight community size — 7.0K 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 pokerth if
- You want the pokerth feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches C++
- You evaluated both and pokerth fits your workflow better
About agones
Agones is an open source library for hosting, running and scaling dedicated game servers on Kubernetes, built for game developers, platform engineers and live ops teams that need multiplayer server capacity without bespoke cluster management.
read the full agones overview →
About pokerth
PokerTH is an open source Texas Hold'em poker game and engine written in C++ with Qt, for players who want to play against computer opponents or against other people over the internet, and for hosts who want to run the multiplayer server themselves.
read the full pokerth overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is agones or pokerth more popular?
agones has 7,032 GitHub stars and pokerth has 657. agones has the larger community by that measure.
Are agones and pokerth free?
Both are open source. agones is licensed under Apache-2.0 and pokerth under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between agones and pokerth?
agones is written in Go and pokerth in C++. 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 pokerth?
Choose agones if you want the larger community (7,032 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose pokerth if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.