head to head · open source
bevy vs boardgame.io
bevy has 48,400 GitHub stars, 4,863 forks, 3,418 open issues and last shipped yesterday. boardgame.io has 12,443 stars, 832 forks, 67 open issues and last shipped 9 days ago. bevy leads on adoption by 289% (48,400 vs 12,443 stars). bevy is written in Rust under Apache-2.0; boardgame.io is written in TypeScript under MIT. bevy has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, boardgame.io 7%. bevy was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (game-engine), 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
| bevy | boardgame.io | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 48K | ★ 12K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Rust | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-26 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.9K | ⑂ 832 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick bevy if
- You weight community size — 48K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick boardgame.io if
- You want the boardgame.io feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and boardgame.io fits your workflow better
About bevy
Bevy is a free and open source, data driven game engine written in Rust that gives developers a complete 2D and 3D feature set through an Entity Component System architecture, and it is aimed at Rust programmers building games and interactive applications who accept an early stage engine that ships breaking API changes roughly every three months.
About boardgame.io
boardgame.io is an MIT licensed engine for building turn based games in JavaScript, aimed at developers who want state management, realtime multiplayer and matchmaking handled for them instead of writing their own networking and storage code.
read the full boardgame.io overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is bevy or boardgame.io more popular?
bevy has 48,400 GitHub stars and boardgame.io has 12,443. bevy has the larger community by that measure.
Are bevy and boardgame.io free?
Both are open source. bevy is licensed under Apache-2.0 and boardgame.io under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between bevy and boardgame.io?
bevy is written in Rust and boardgame.io in TypeScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, bevy or boardgame.io?
Choose bevy if you want the larger community (48,400 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose boardgame.io if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.