Alternatives to MonoGame logo

Alternatives to MonoGame

libGDX, Xamarin, Godot, SDL, and Unity are the most popular alternatives and competitors to MonoGame.
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What is MonoGame and what are its top alternatives?

It is a free C# framework used by game developers to make games for multiple platforms and other systems. It is also used to make Windows and Windows Phone games run on other systems.
MonoGame is a tool in the Game Development category of a tech stack.

Top Alternatives to MonoGame

  • libGDX
    libGDX

    The framework provides an environment for rapid prototyping and fast iterations. Instead of deploying to Android/iOS/Javascript after each code change, you can run and debug your game on the desktop, natively. Desktop JVM features like code hotswapping reduce your iteration times considerably. ...

  • Xamarin
    Xamarin

    Xamarin’s Mono-based products enable .NET developers to use their existing code, libraries and tools (including Visual Studio*), as well as skills in .NET and the C# programming language, to create mobile applications for the industry’s most widely-used mobile devices, including Android-based smartphones and tablets, iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. ...

  • Godot
    Godot

    It is an advanced, feature-packed, multi-platform 2D and 3D open source game engine. It is developed by hundreds of contributors from all around the world. ...

  • SDL
    SDL

    It is a cross-platform development library designed to provide low level access to audio, keyboard, mouse, joystick, and graphics hardware via OpenGL and Direct3D. ...

  • Unity
    Unity

    Unity is the ultimate game development platform. Use Unity to build high-quality 3D and 2D games, deploy them across mobile, desktop, VR/AR, consoles or the Web, and connect with loyal and enthusiastic players and customers. ...

  • three.js
    three.js

    It is a cross-browser JavaScript library and Application Programming Interface used to create and display animated 3D computer graphics in a web browser. ...

  • Unreal Engine
    Unreal Engine

    It is a game engine that helps you make games. It is made up of several components that work together to drive the game. Its massive system of tools and editors allows you to organize your assets and manipulate them to create the gameplay for your game. ...

  • Phaser
    Phaser

    It is a free open source HTML5 game framework. It uses Pixi.js for WebGL and Canvas rendering across desktop and mobile web browsers. Games can be compiled to iOS and Android apps via 3rd party tools. ...

MonoGame alternatives & related posts

libGDX logo

libGDX

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A Java game development framework that provides a unified API that works across all supported platforms
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PROS OF LIBGDX
  • 1
    Knows exactly what happening
  • 1
    Java
  • 1
    Fully control
CONS OF LIBGDX
  • 1
    No GUI

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Xamarin logo

Xamarin

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Create iOS, Android and Mac apps in C#
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PROS OF XAMARIN
  • 121
    Power of c# on mobile devices
  • 81
    Native performance
  • 79
    Native apps with native ui controls
  • 73
    No javascript - truely compiled code
  • 67
    Sharing more than 90% of code over all platforms
  • 45
    Ability to leverage visual studio
  • 44
    Mvvm pattern
  • 44
    Many great c# libraries
  • 36
    Amazing support
  • 34
    Powerful platform for .net developers
  • 19
    GUI Native look and Feel
  • 16
    Nuget package manager
  • 12
    Free
  • 9
    Backed by Microsoft
  • 9
    Enables code reuse on server
  • 8
    Faster Development
  • 7
    Use of third-party .NET libraries
  • 7
    It's free since Apr 2016
  • 7
    Best performance than other cross-platform
  • 7
    Easy Debug and Trace
  • 7
    Open Source
  • 6
    Mac IDE (Xamarin Studio)
  • 6
    Xamarin.forms is the best, it's amazing
  • 5
    That just work for every scenario
  • 5
    C# mult paradigm language
  • 5
    Power of C#, no javascript, visual studio
  • 4
    Great docs
  • 4
    Compatible to develop Hybrid apps
  • 4
    Microsoft stack
  • 4
    Microsoft backed
  • 3
    Well Designed
  • 3
    Small learning curve for Mobile developers
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    Ionic
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    Ability to leverage legacy C and C++
CONS OF XAMARIN
  • 9
    Build times
  • 5
    Visual Studio
  • 4
    Price
  • 3
    Complexity
  • 3
    Scalability
  • 2
    Nuget
  • 2
    Maturity
  • 2
    Build Tools
  • 2
    Support
  • 0
    Maturidade
  • 0
    Performance

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Greg Neumann
Indie, Solo, Developer · | 8 upvotes · 1.1M views

Finding the most effective dev stack for a solo developer. Over the past year, I've been looking at many tech stacks that would be 'best' for me, as a solo, indie, developer to deliver a desktop app (Windows & Mac) plus mobile - iOS mainly. Initially, Xamarin started to stand-out. Using .NET Core as the run-time, Xamarin as the native API provider and Xamarin Forms for the UI seemed to solve all issues. But, the cracks soon started to appear. Xamarin Forms is mobile only; the Windows incarnation is different. There is no Mac UI solution (you have to code it natively in Mac OS Storyboard. I was also worried how Xamarin Forms , if I was to use it, was going to cope, in future, with Apple's new SwiftUI and Google's new Fuchsia.

This plethora of techs for the UI-layer made me reach for the safer waters of using Web-techs for the UI. Lovely! Consistency everywhere (well, mostly). But that consistency evaporates when platform issues are addressed. There are so many web frameworks!

But, I made a simple decision. It's just me...I am clever, but there is no army of coders here. And I have big plans for a business app. How could just 1 developer go-on to deploy a decent app to Windows, iPhone, iPad & Mac OS? I remembered earlier days when I've used Microsoft's ASP.NET to scaffold - generate - loads of Code for a web-app that I needed for several charities that I worked with. What 'generators' exist that do a lot of the platform-specific rubbish, allow the necessary customisation of such platform integration and provide a decent UI?

I've placed my colours to the Quasar Framework mast. Oh dear, that means Electron desktop apps doesn't it? Well, Ive had enough of loads of Developers saying that "the menus won't look native" or "it uses too much RAM" and so on. I've been using non-native UI-wrapped apps for ages - the date picker in Outlook on iOS is way better than the native date-picker and I'd been using it for years without getting hot under the collar about it. Developers do get so hung-up on things that busy Users hardly notice; don't you think?. As to the RAM usage issue; that's a bit true. But Users only really notice when an app uses so much RAM that the machine starts to page-out. Electron contributes towards that horizon but does not cause it. My Users will be business-users after all. Somewhat decent machines.

Looking forward to all that lovely Vue.js around my TypeScript and all those really, really, b e a u t I f u l UI controls of Quasar Framework . Still not sure that 1 dev can deliver all that... but I'm up for trying...

See more
Bhupendra Madhu
Web Developer at Ecombooks · | 8 upvotes · 110.6K views

I want to learn cross-platform application frameworks like React Native, Flutter, Xamarin, or Ionic, and I'm a web developer. I can learn other programming languages as well. But I'm confused about what to learn, which framework is best, and which framework will last long as the application grows further into complexity.

See more
Godot logo

Godot

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Free and open source 2D and 3D game engine
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PROS OF GODOT
  • 8
    Open source
  • 5
    Easy to port
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    Supports both C++, C# and GDScript
  • 3
    Cross-Platform
  • 3
    Simple
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    Avaible on Steam For Free
  • 2
    GDScript is Based On Python
CONS OF GODOT
  • 1
    Harder to learn
  • 1
    Performance in 3D
  • 1
    Need opengl 2.1 / 3.3
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    Somewhat poor 3D performance and lacks automatic LODs

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SDL logo

SDL

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A cross-platform software development library
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PROS OF SDL
  • 2
    Actively being worked on
  • 1
    Cross-platform
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    Fast
CONS OF SDL
  • 1
    No GUI support

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Unity logo

Unity

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Unity brings state-of-the-art, affordable multiplatform tools and services to developers of interactive content everywhere.
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PROS OF UNITY
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    Because it's a powerful engine, you can build anything
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    C# language
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    Very Popular
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    Easy to Use
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    He Has A Free VErsion
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    Cross Platform
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    2nd Game Engine In The World
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    Good Choise
  • 4
    Very Large Showcase
CONS OF UNITY
  • 4
    Hard to get started with
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    Clunky UI
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    Closed source
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    No consistency with updates
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    Requires to build a lot of tools
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    Gigantic by being 9gb (thats what setup says)

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Shared insights
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BabylonJSBabylonJSthree.jsthree.jsUnityUnity

We already have an existing 3d interactive application for windows, mac, and iOS devices and have planned to move that app to the web for high availability to different types of users. I have been searching for different options for it. Our existing application is made in Unity so we prefer to work on unity webgl but it also has its drawbacks. Other than that we are also thinking to change the tech stack to three.js or BabylonJS due to their high compatibility with the web ecosystem. I want to know which engine/library/framework we should use for the development of our 3d web application. Also with unity webgl, we want to develop all UI parts in web technologies only and will use the unity3d for 3d part only.

Points that are very important to consider - 1. Memory optimization and allocation 2. Quality 3. Shaders 4. Materials 5. Lighting 6. Mesh editing, mesh creation at runtime 7. Ar 8. Vr 10. Support on different browsers including mobile browsers 11. Physics(gravity, collision, cloth simulation, etc.) 12. Initial load time 13. Speed and performance 14. Max vertices count. What happens when we load models exceeding max vertex count? 15. Development time 16. Learning curve (Unity3d we already working on) 17. Ease of use. What artists can do using any platform eg. in unity3d, artists can edit materials, set up lighting etc? 18. Future scope 19. Scalability 20. Integration with web ecosystem

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three.js logo

three.js

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A JavaScript 3D library
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PROS OF THREE.JS
    Be the first to leave a pro
    CONS OF THREE.JS
      Be the first to leave a con

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      Shared insights
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      BabylonJSBabylonJSthree.jsthree.jsUnityUnity

      We already have an existing 3d interactive application for windows, mac, and iOS devices and have planned to move that app to the web for high availability to different types of users. I have been searching for different options for it. Our existing application is made in Unity so we prefer to work on unity webgl but it also has its drawbacks. Other than that we are also thinking to change the tech stack to three.js or BabylonJS due to their high compatibility with the web ecosystem. I want to know which engine/library/framework we should use for the development of our 3d web application. Also with unity webgl, we want to develop all UI parts in web technologies only and will use the unity3d for 3d part only.

      Points that are very important to consider - 1. Memory optimization and allocation 2. Quality 3. Shaders 4. Materials 5. Lighting 6. Mesh editing, mesh creation at runtime 7. Ar 8. Vr 10. Support on different browsers including mobile browsers 11. Physics(gravity, collision, cloth simulation, etc.) 12. Initial load time 13. Speed and performance 14. Max vertices count. What happens when we load models exceeding max vertex count? 15. Development time 16. Learning curve (Unity3d we already working on) 17. Ease of use. What artists can do using any platform eg. in unity3d, artists can edit materials, set up lighting etc? 18. Future scope 19. Scalability 20. Integration with web ecosystem

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      WebGLWebGLthree.jsthree.js

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      Unreal Engine logo

      Unreal Engine

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      A suite of integrated tools for game developers
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      PROS OF UNREAL ENGINE
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        C++
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        Blueprints
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        PBR
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        Suitable for any projects
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        Source Available
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        Convenient and modern UI
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        Most Popular Game engine
      CONS OF UNREAL ENGINE
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        Heavy
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        A lot of "heaviness" myths around

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      Phaser logo

      Phaser

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      Desktop and Mobile HTML5 game framework
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      PROS OF PHASER
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        Compile to iOS, Android and native apps
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        JavaScript or TypeScript
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        WebGL and Canvas rendering
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        Open Source
      CONS OF PHASER
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        No GUI

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