head to head · open source
bevy vs ebiten
bevy has 49,610 GitHub stars, 5,032 forks, 3,418 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. ebiten has 13,612 stars, 801 forks, 296 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. bevy leads on adoption by 264% (49,610 vs 13,612 stars). bevy is written in Rust under Apache-2.0; ebiten is written in Go under Apache-2.0. bevy has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, ebiten 6%. ebiten was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (game-development, game-engine, gamedev), 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 | ebiten | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 50K | ★ 14K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Rust | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-07 | 2026-11-07 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.0K | ⑂ 801 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick bevy if
- You weight community size — 50K 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 ebiten if
- You want the ebiten 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 ebiten fits your workflow better
About bevy
What is Bevy? Bevy is a refreshingly simple data driven game engine built in Rust. It is free and open source forever! WARNING Bevy is still in the early stages of development. Important features are missing. Documentation is sparse. A new version of Bevy containing breaking changes to the API is released approximately once every 3 months. We provide migration guides, but we can't guarantee migrations will always be easy. Use only if you are willing to work in this environment. MSRV: Bevy relies heavily on improvements in the Rust language and compiler. As a result, the Minimum Supported Rust Version (MSRV) is…
About ebiten
Ebitengine (v2) A dead simple 2D game engine for Go Ebitengine (formerly known as Ebiten) is an open source game engine for the Go programming language. Ebitengine's simple API allows you to quickly and easily develop 2D games that can be deployed across multiple platforms. Website (ebitengine.org) API Reference Cheat Sheet Awesome Ebitengine Platforms Windows macOS Linux FreeBSD Android (Cgo required) iOS (Cgo required) WebAssembly Nintendo Switch (Cgo required) Xbox (Cgo required) (Xbox support is limited and not available to everyone. Negotiations are currently underway to make it accessible to all.) For…
read the full ebiten overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is bevy or ebiten more popular?
bevy has 49,610 GitHub stars and ebiten has 13,612. bevy has the larger community by that measure.
Are bevy and ebiten free?
Both are open source. bevy is licensed under Apache-2.0 and ebiten under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between bevy and ebiten?
bevy is written in Rust and ebiten 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, bevy or ebiten?
Choose bevy if you want the larger community (49,610 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose ebiten if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.