head to head · open source
bevy vs OpenRA
bevy has 48,319 GitHub stars, 4,851 forks, 3,418 open issues and last shipped today. OpenRA has 17,408 stars, 3,048 forks, 1,598 open issues and last shipped 8 days ago. bevy leads on adoption by 178% (48,319 vs 17,408 stars). bevy is written in Rust under Apache-2.0; OpenRA is written in C# under GPL-3.0. bevy has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, OpenRA 18%. 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 | OpenRA | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 48K | ★ 17K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Rust | C# |
| Last push | 2026-09-22 | 2026-09-14 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.9K | ⑂ 3.0K |
| 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 OpenRA if
- You want the OpenRA feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches C#
- You evaluated both and OpenRA 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 OpenRA
OpenRA is a libre, free and open source real time strategy game engine written in C with SDL and OpenGL, built for players, mappers and modders who want to run and extend early Westwood classics such as Command & Conquer: Red Alert, Command & Conquer: Tiberian Dawn and Dune 2000 on Windows, Linux, BSD and Mac OS X.
read the full OpenRA overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is bevy or OpenRA more popular?
bevy has 48,319 GitHub stars and OpenRA has 17,408. bevy has the larger community by that measure.
Are bevy and OpenRA free?
Both are open source. bevy is licensed under Apache-2.0 and OpenRA under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between bevy and OpenRA?
bevy is written in Rust and OpenRA 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 OpenRA?
Choose bevy if you want the larger community (48,319 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose OpenRA if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.