head to head · open source
colyseus vs pitaya
colyseus has 7,518 GitHub stars, 683 forks, 19 open issues and last shipped yesterday. pitaya has 2,846 stars, 549 forks, 69 open issues and last shipped 11 days ago. colyseus leads on adoption by 164% (7,518 vs 2,846 stars). colyseus is written in TypeScript under MIT; pitaya is written in Go under MIT. colyseus has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, pitaya 19%. colyseus was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (game-server), 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
| colyseus | pitaya | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 7.5K | ★ 2.8K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-05 | 2026-10-26 |
| Forks | ⑂ 683 | ⑂ 549 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick colyseus if
- You weight community size — 7.5K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick pitaya if
- You want the pitaya feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and pitaya fits your workflow better
About colyseus
Multiplayer Framework for Node.js. View documentation Colyseus is an Authoritative Multiplayer Framework for Node.js, with SDKs available for all major platforms and engines. Client SDKs The project focuses on providing synchronizable data structures for realtime and turn based games, matchmaking, and ease of usage both on the server side and client side. The mission of the framework is to be a standard netcode & matchmaking solution for any kind of project you can think of! Why developers choose Colyseus: ⚡️ Real time state sync that just works → Define your state on the server and it automatically synchronizes…
read the full colyseus overview →
About pitaya
pitaya [![Build Status][7]][8] [![Coverage Status][9]][10] [![GoDoc][1]][2] [![Docs][11]][12] [![Go Report Card][3]][4] [![MIT licensed][5]][6] [1]: [2]: [3]: [4]: [5]: [6]: LICENSE [7]: [8]: [9]: [10]: [11]: [12]: Pitaya is an simple, fast and lightweight game server framework with clustering support and client libraries for iOS, Android, Unity and others through the C SDK. It provides a basic development framework for distributed multiplayer games and server side applications. Getting Started Prerequisites Go = 1.16 etcd (optional, used for service discovery) nats (optional, used for sending and receiving rpc)…
read the full pitaya overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is colyseus or pitaya more popular?
colyseus has 7,518 GitHub stars and pitaya has 2,846. colyseus has the larger community by that measure.
Are colyseus and pitaya free?
Both are open source. colyseus is licensed under MIT and pitaya under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between colyseus and pitaya?
colyseus is written in TypeScript and pitaya 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, colyseus or pitaya?
Choose colyseus if you want the larger community (7,518 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose pitaya if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.