head to head · open source
bevy vs MonoGame
bevy has 48,268 GitHub stars, 4,846 forks, 3,418 open issues and last shipped yesterday. MonoGame has 14,431 stars, 3,107 forks, 766 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. bevy leads on adoption by 234% (48,268 vs 14,431 stars). bevy is written in Rust under Apache-2.0; MonoGame is written in C# under a custom or non-standard licence. bevy has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, MonoGame 22%. bevy was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 4 topic tags (game-development, game-engine, gamedev, open-source), 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 | MonoGame | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 48K | ★ 14K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Custom / other |
| Written in | Rust | C# |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-16 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.8K | ⑂ 3.1K |
| 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 MonoGame if
- You want the MonoGame feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches C#
- You evaluated both and MonoGame 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 MonoGame
MonoGame is a free, open source C and .NET game framework for building cross platform games. It lives in the .NET game development ecosystem and is positioned as one framework for creating games on desktop PCs, mobile devices, and consoles. It is an open source re implementation of Microsoft's discontinued XNA Framework, used to create games such as Streets of Rage 4, Carrion, Celeste, and Stardew Valley.
read the full MonoGame overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is bevy or MonoGame more popular?
bevy has 48,268 GitHub stars and MonoGame has 14,431. bevy has the larger community by that measure.
Are bevy and MonoGame free?
Both are open source. bevy is licensed under Apache-2.0, and MonoGame has no licence declared in this registry. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between bevy and MonoGame?
bevy is written in Rust and MonoGame in C#. 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 MonoGame?
Choose bevy if you want the larger community (48,268 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose MonoGame if its feature set, stack or Custom / other licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.