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Phaser

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Unity

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1.4K
+ 1
73
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Phaser vs Unity: What are the differences?

What is Phaser? Desktop and Mobile HTML5 game framework. 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.

What is Unity? Unity brings state-of-the-art, affordable multiplatform tools and services to developers of interactive content everywhere. 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.

Phaser and Unity can be primarily classified as "Game Development" tools.

Phaser is an open source tool with 25.3K GitHub stars and 5.98K GitHub forks. Here's a link to Phaser's open source repository on GitHub.

Zappiti, Sinoze, and AppsFlyer are some of the popular companies that use Unity, whereas Phaser is used by Bitgap, eClick Apps, and Jan Ziemba. Unity has a broader approval, being mentioned in 67 company stacks & 123 developers stacks; compared to Phaser, which is listed in 5 company stacks and 18 developer stacks.

Decisions about Phaser and Unity
norlin
Software Engineer / Game Developer at Norlin Games · | 7 upvotes · 82.5K views

When I started to learn game development, I've tried to use Unity multiple times because it's the most popular option. But never get it worked because of the clunky UI which is very hard to understand for a new user. After some time, I've decided to try UE4 despite there was a lot of rumors that it's "heavy" or requires an AAA team. And suddenly it clicked, everything works as I expecting, UI is clear and much more powerfull, no need to build custom tools to work on the game itself. Blueprints are very helpful for beginners, C++ has a lot of "syntax-sugar" - macroses, a lot of convenient in-engine types for everything. Later while working with Unreal, I've realized it has very consistent roadmap with constant improvements and adding new features. At the same time, each major version update is painless so you can upgrade your project during development to get new features. UE4 is free to use with the full list of features and you only have to pay royalty after getting your first $1 million from the project (and that's just the default case, you can always discuss custom license with an upfront fee, if you want to).

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Arthur Osipyan
Software Engineer at Value Industry · | 2 upvotes · 79.9K views

I chose Unity over Unreal Engine because Unity has a more user friendly UI for beginners looking to learn game development. Additionally, as someone who uses a lot of online resources to learn new languages and tools, I found a lot of tutorials covering game development with Unity as the core engine. This doesn't mean Unreal is not a great choice for game development, I just personally found learning game development much smoother with the amount of resources available with Unity.

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Pros of Phaser
Pros of Unity
  • 1
    Compile to iOS, Android and native apps
  • 1
    JavaScript or TypeScript
  • 1
    WebGL and Canvas rendering
  • 1
    Open Source
  • 16
    Because it's a powerful engine, you can build anything
  • 14
    C# language
  • 11
    Very Popular
  • 7
    Easy to Use
  • 6
    He Has A Free VErsion
  • 6
    Cross Platform
  • 5
    2nd Game Engine In The World
  • 4
    Good Choise
  • 4
    Very Large Showcase

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Cons of Phaser
Cons of Unity
  • 3
    No GUI
  • 4
    Hard to get started with
  • 4
    Clunky UI
  • 4
    Closed source
  • 3
    No consistency with updates
  • 3
    Requires to build a lot of tools
  • 2
    Gigantic by being 9gb (thats what setup says)

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- No public GitHub repository available -

What is 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.

What is 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.

Need advice about which tool to choose?Ask the StackShare community!

What companies use Phaser?
What companies use Unity?
See which teams inside your own company are using Phaser or Unity.
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What tools integrate with Phaser?
What tools integrate with Unity?

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What are some alternatives to Phaser and Unity?
Vibe
Vibe is an easy to use people research tool. You can use Vibe to find the person behind any email address. After installing the Vibe Chrome, Mac, iPhone or Outlook app, with a simple hover or click on any email address, you can find all information about the person in less than 3 seconds.
CreateJS
It is a suite of modular libraries and tools which work together or independently to enable rich interactive content on open web technologies via HTML5. These libraries are interoperable with all modern desktop and mobile browsers, and have been thoroughly tested to achieve performance and reliability in the widest range of browsers possible.
Pixi
Super fast HTML 5 2D rendering engine that uses webGL with canvas fallback
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.
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.
See all alternatives