head to head · open source
agones vs pufferpanel
agones has 7,051 GitHub stars, 945 forks, 59 open issues and last shipped yesterday. pufferpanel has 1,749 stars, 270 forks, 116 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. agones leads on adoption by 303% (7,051 vs 1,749 stars). agones is written in Go under Apache-2.0; pufferpanel is written in Go under Apache-2.0. agones has attracted 13% as many forks as stars, pufferpanel 15%. 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 | pufferpanel | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 7.1K | ★ 1.7K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-28 | 2026-09-27 |
| Forks | ⑂ 945 | ⑂ 270 |
| 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 pufferpanel if
- You want the pufferpanel 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 pufferpanel 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 pufferpanel
PufferPanel is a free and open source, web based game server management system written in Go that lets an operator manage multiple different game servers from one central location and give other users their own servers or access to existing ones, aimed at everyone from individual users and personal setups through to small networks and larger operations.
read the full pufferpanel overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is agones or pufferpanel more popular?
agones has 7,051 GitHub stars and pufferpanel has 1,749. agones has the larger community by that measure.
Are agones and pufferpanel free?
Both are open source. agones is licensed under Apache-2.0 and pufferpanel under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between agones and pufferpanel?
agones is written in Go and pufferpanel 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 pufferpanel?
Choose agones if you want the larger community (7,051 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose pufferpanel if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.