head to head · open source
bevy vs raylib
bevy has 48,268 GitHub stars, 4,846 forks, 3,418 open issues and last shipped yesterday. raylib has 34,783 stars, 3,299 forks, 16 open issues and last shipped yesterday. bevy leads on adoption by 39% (48,268 vs 34,783 stars). bevy is written in Rust under Apache-2.0; raylib is written in C under Zlib. bevy has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, raylib 9%. bevy 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 | raylib | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 48K | ★ 35K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Zlib |
| Written in | Rust | C |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.8K | ⑂ 3.3K |
| 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 raylib if
- You want the raylib feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Zlib license terms
- Your stack matches C
- You evaluated both and raylib 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 raylib
raylib is an open source, Zlib licensed C programming library for building videogames and graphical applications, aimed at programmers who would rather write code directly than work inside a visual game engine editor.
read the full raylib overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is bevy or raylib more popular?
bevy has 48,268 GitHub stars and raylib has 34,783. bevy has the larger community by that measure.
Are bevy and raylib free?
Both are open source. bevy is licensed under Apache-2.0 and raylib under Zlib. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between bevy and raylib?
bevy is written in Rust and raylib 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 raylib?
Choose bevy if you want the larger community (48,268 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose raylib if its feature set, stack or Zlib licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.