head to head · open source
agones vs PowerNukkitX
agones has 7,058 GitHub stars, 946 forks, 59 open issues and last shipped today. PowerNukkitX has 684 stars, 206 forks, 37 open issues and last shipped yesterday. agones leads on adoption by 932% (7,058 vs 684 stars). agones is written in Go under Apache-2.0; PowerNukkitX is written in Java under LGPL-3.0. agones has attracted 13% as many forks as stars, PowerNukkitX 30%. 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 | PowerNukkitX | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 7.1K | ★ 684 |
| License | Apache-2.0 | LGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Go | Java |
| Last push | 2026-10-10 | 2026-10-09 |
| Forks | ⑂ 946 | ⑂ 206 |
| 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 PowerNukkitX if
- You want the PowerNukkitX feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the LGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You evaluated both and PowerNukkitX 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 PowerNukkitX
PowerNukkitX is an open source Java server implementation for Minecraft: Bedrock Edition, built for server owners and plugin developers who want a customizable, high performance third party server.
read the full PowerNukkitX overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is agones or PowerNukkitX more popular?
agones has 7,058 GitHub stars and PowerNukkitX has 684. agones has the larger community by that measure.
Are agones and PowerNukkitX free?
Both are open source. agones is licensed under Apache-2.0 and PowerNukkitX under LGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between agones and PowerNukkitX?
agones is written in Go and PowerNukkitX in Java. 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 PowerNukkitX?
Choose agones if you want the larger community (7,058 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose PowerNukkitX if its feature set, stack or LGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.