head to head · open source
raylib vs stride
raylib has 34,912 GitHub stars, 3,315 forks, 16 open issues and last shipped yesterday. stride has 7,838 stars, 1,169 forks, 683 open issues and last shipped yesterday. raylib leads on adoption by 345% (34,912 vs 7,838 stars). raylib is written in C under Zlib; stride is written in C# under MIT. raylib has attracted 9% 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 | ★ 35K | ★ 7.8K |
| License | Zlib | MIT |
| Written in | C | C# |
| Last push | 2026-09-30 | 2026-09-30 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.3K | ⑂ 1.2K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick raylib if
- You weight community size — 35K 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 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 →
About stride
Stride (formerly Xenko) is a free and open source, cross platform C game engine with a built in visual editor, aimed at game developers who want realistic rendering and VR without buying a commercial engine licence.
read the full stride overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is raylib or stride more popular?
raylib has 34,912 GitHub stars and stride has 7,838. 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 (34,912 stars) or its Zlib licence terms. Choose stride if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.