head to head · open source
Pumpkin vs goworld
Pumpkin has 11,325 GitHub stars, 819 forks, 452 open issues and last shipped yesterday. goworld has 2,718 stars, 474 forks, 27 open issues and last shipped 10 months ago. Pumpkin leads on adoption by 317% (11,325 vs 2,718 stars). Pumpkin is written in Rust under GPL-3.0; goworld is written in Go under Apache-2.0. Pumpkin has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, goworld 17%. Pumpkin 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
| Pumpkin | goworld | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 11K | ★ 2.7K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Rust | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-22 | 2025-11-14 |
| Forks | ⑂ 819 | ⑂ 474 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Pumpkin if
- You weight community size — 11K stars and counting
- You want the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick goworld if
- You want the goworld 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 goworld fits your workflow better
About Pumpkin
Pumpkin is a Minecraft server implementation written entirely in Rust that aims to let anyone host fast and efficient Java and Bedrock Edition servers, and it is built for server operators and plugin developers who want vanilla compatible gameplay without the official Java server.
read the full Pumpkin overview →
About goworld
GoWorld is an Apache 2.0 licensed, scalable distributed game server engine written in Go, with hot swapping of game logic, aimed at developers and studios that run persistent multiplayer game worlds.
read the full goworld overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Pumpkin or goworld more popular?
Pumpkin has 11,325 GitHub stars and goworld has 2,718. Pumpkin has the larger community by that measure.
Are Pumpkin and goworld free?
Both are open source. Pumpkin is licensed under GPL-3.0 and goworld under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Pumpkin and goworld?
Pumpkin is written in Rust and goworld 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, Pumpkin or goworld?
Choose Pumpkin if you want the larger community (11,325 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose goworld if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.