head to head · open source
raylib vs stride
raylib has 35,671 GitHub stars, 3,392 forks, 16 open issues and last shipped yesterday. stride has 7,949 stars, 1,183 forks, 683 open issues and last shipped today. raylib leads on adoption by 349% (35,671 vs 7,949 stars). raylib is written in C under Zlib; stride is written in C# under MIT. raylib has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, stride 15%. stride 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
| raylib | stride | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 36K | ★ 7.9K |
| License | Zlib | MIT |
| Written in | C | C# |
| Last push | 2026-11-14 | 2026-11-15 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.4K | ⑂ 1.2K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick raylib if
- You weight community size — 36K stars and counting
- You want the Zlib license terms
- Your stack matches C
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick stride if
- You want the stride feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches C#
- You evaluated both and stride fits your workflow better
About raylib
raylib is a simple and easy to use library to enjoy videogames programming. raylib is highly inspired by Borland BGI graphics lib and by XNA framework and it's especially well suited for prototyping, tooling, graphical applications, embedded systems and education. NOTE for ADVENTURERS: raylib is a programming library to enjoy videogames programming; no fancy interface, no visual helpers, no debug button... just coding in the most pure spartan programmers way. Ready to learn? Jump to code examples! features NO external dependencies , all required libraries are included in raylib Multiple platforms supported…
read the full raylib overview →
About stride
Welcome to the Stride Game Engine Stride is an open source C game engine designed for realistic rendering and VR. Highly modular, it aims to give game makers more flexibility in their development. Stride comes with an editor, Game Studio, which allows you to create and manage the content of your games or applications visually and intuitively. To learn more about Stride, visit stride3d.net. This README is intended for users who want to build the Stride engine from source or contribute to its development. If your goal is to create games using Stride, we recommend visiting the Get started with Stride guide. There…
read the full stride overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is raylib or stride more popular?
raylib has 35,671 GitHub stars and stride has 7,949. raylib has the larger community by that measure.
Are raylib and stride free?
Both are open source. raylib is licensed under Zlib and stride under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between raylib and stride?
raylib is written in C and stride 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, raylib or stride?
Choose raylib if you want the larger community (35,671 stars) or its Zlib licence terms. Choose stride if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.