head to head · open source
bevy vs horizon
bevy has 49,307 GitHub stars, 4,980 forks, 3,418 open issues and last shipped yesterday. horizon has 2,537 stars, 173 forks, 438 open issues and last shipped yesterday. bevy leads on adoption by 1,844% (49,307 vs 2,537 stars). bevy is written in Rust under Apache-2.0; horizon is written in Rust under MIT. bevy has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, horizon 7%. horizon was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (game-engine, gamedev, rust), 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 | horizon | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 49K | ★ 2.5K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Rust | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-10-27 | 2026-10-27 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.0K | ⑂ 173 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick bevy if
- You weight community size — 49K 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 horizon if
- You want the horizon feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and horizon 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 horizon
Website · Download · Documentation · Release notes · Roadmap · Project status · Contributing Horizon Horizon is Minecraft: Java Edition 26.3 rewritten in Rust: a native game that reads the same worlds, follows the same rules and generates the same terrain as the Java game, and is checked against it by 281 differential harnesses. You play it through a small launcher, on the files from your own copy of Minecraft. It is free, open source and unofficial. Not an official Minecraft product. Not approved by or associated with Mojang or Microsoft. Horizon contains no Minecraft code, assets or data: you need your own…
read the full horizon overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is bevy or horizon more popular?
bevy has 49,307 GitHub stars and horizon has 2,537. bevy has the larger community by that measure.
Are bevy and horizon free?
Both are open source. bevy is licensed under Apache-2.0 and horizon under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between bevy and horizon?
bevy is written in Rust and horizon in Rust. 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 horizon?
Choose bevy if you want the larger community (49,307 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose horizon if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.