head to head · open source
MonoGame vs ebiten
MonoGame has 14,602 GitHub stars, 3,119 forks, 766 open issues and last shipped yesterday. ebiten has 13,606 stars, 801 forks, 296 open issues and last shipped yesterday. MonoGame leads on adoption by 7% (14,602 vs 13,606 stars). MonoGame is written in C# under a custom or non-standard licence; ebiten is written in Go under Apache-2.0. MonoGame has attracted 21% as many forks as stars, ebiten 6%. ebiten 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
| MonoGame | ebiten | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 15K | ★ 14K |
| License | Custom / other | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | C# | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.1K | ⑂ 801 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick MonoGame if
- You weight community size — 15K stars and counting
- You want the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches C#
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick ebiten if
- You want the ebiten feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and ebiten fits your workflow better
About MonoGame
MonoGame One framework for creating powerful cross platform games Supported Platforms • Resources • Samples • Support and Contributions • Source Code • Helpful Links • License Overview MonoGame is a simple and powerful .NET framework for creating games for desktop PCs, video game consoles, and mobile devices using the C programming language. It has been successfully used to create games such as Streets of Rage 4, Carrion, Celeste, Stardew Valley, and many others. It is an open source re implementation of the discontinued Microsoft's XNA Framework. Supported Platforms We support a growing list of platforms across…
read the full MonoGame overview →
About ebiten
Ebitengine (v2) A dead simple 2D game engine for Go Ebitengine (formerly known as Ebiten) is an open source game engine for the Go programming language. Ebitengine's simple API allows you to quickly and easily develop 2D games that can be deployed across multiple platforms. Website (ebitengine.org) API Reference Cheat Sheet Awesome Ebitengine Platforms Windows macOS Linux FreeBSD Android (Cgo required) iOS (Cgo required) WebAssembly Nintendo Switch (Cgo required) Xbox (Cgo required) (Xbox support is limited and not available to everyone. Negotiations are currently underway to make it accessible to all.) For…
read the full ebiten overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is MonoGame or ebiten more popular?
MonoGame has 14,602 GitHub stars and ebiten has 13,606. MonoGame has the larger community by that measure.
Are MonoGame and ebiten free?
Both are open source. MonoGame has no licence declared in this registry, and ebiten is licensed under Apache-2.0. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between MonoGame and ebiten?
MonoGame is written in C# and ebiten 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, MonoGame or ebiten?
Choose MonoGame if you want the larger community (14,602 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose ebiten if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.