PlayFab vs Unreal Engine

Overview

Unreal Engine

Stacks378

Followers392

Votes34

PlayFab

Stacks37

Followers88

Votes0

PlayFab vs Unreal Engine: What are the differences?

# Introduction

PlayFab and Unreal Engine are two popular tools in the gaming industry, each offering unique features and functionalities for game development.

1. **Integration with Game Development Platforms**: PlayFab is primarily a backend platform that provides services such as player authentication, analytics, and virtual goods management, while Unreal Engine is a comprehensive game development platform for creating high-quality games and interactive experiences.
   
2. **Pricing Model**: PlayFab offers a flexible pricing model based on usage, allowing developers to pay for the services they actually use. In contrast, Unreal Engine follows a different pricing model with a royalty fee for revenue generated from the games developed using their engine.
   
3. **Cross-Platform Support**: PlayFab provides robust support for cross-platform game development, enabling developers to create games for a wide range of devices and platforms. On the other hand, Unreal Engine also supports multiple platforms, but developers may encounter more challenges when porting games to certain platforms.
   
4. **Community and Support**: Unreal Engine has a large and active community of developers, which offers extensive documentation, tutorials, and forums for support. This community-driven approach may provide faster solutions to issues compared to PlayFab, which focuses more on backend services than community engagement.
   
5. **Customization and Control**: Unreal Engine provides developers with unparalleled customization and control over game development, allowing for greater flexibility in creating unique and diverse gaming experiences. While PlayFab offers essential backend services, it may not provide the same level of control and customization options as Unreal Engine.
   
6. **Learning Curve and Ease of Use**: Unreal Engine has a steeper learning curve due to its comprehensive toolset and complex features, requiring more time and effort to master. PlayFab, on the other hand, offers a more user-friendly interface and simpler integration process, making it easier for developers to get started with backend services.

In Summary, PlayFab and Unreal Engine differ in terms of their integration with game development platforms, pricing model, cross-platform support, community and support, customization and control, as well as the learning curve and ease of use for developers.

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CLI (Node.js)

Manual

Advice on Unreal Engine, PlayFab

Alexey

Software Engineer / Game Developer at Norlin Games

Jun 11, 2020

Decided

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).

92.3k views92.3k

Comments

Arthur

Software Engineer at Value Industry

Mar 1, 2020

Decided

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.

89.8k views89.8k

Comments

Detailed Comparison

Unreal Engine	PlayFab
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.	It unlocks a new world of creativity for game developers by providing a cross-platform "backend-as-a-service" built exclusively for games. We give game developers the tools, technologies, and know-how they need to have a trouble-free launch day, and profitable day-to-day operations after that.
Photoreal Rendering in Real Time; Blueprints: Create without Coding	Game Services; LiveOps; Analytics
Statistics
Stacks 378	Stacks 37
Followers 392	Followers 88
Votes 34	Votes 0
Pros & Cons
Pros 11 C++ 6 Blueprints 5 PBR 4 Source Available 4 Suitable for any projects Cons 6 Heavy 1 A lot of "heaviness" myths around	No community feedback yet
Integrations
Python C#	Android Studio Java Unity HTML5 Cocoa Touch (iOS)

What are some alternatives to Unreal Engine, PlayFab?

Firebase

Firebase is a cloud service designed to power real-time, collaborative applications. Simply add the Firebase library to your application to gain access to a shared data structure; any changes you make to that data are automatically synchronized with the Firebase cloud and with other clients within milliseconds.

Socket.IO

It enables real-time bidirectional event-based communication. It works on every platform, browser or device, focusing equally on reliability and speed.

PubNub

PubNub makes it easy for you to add real-time capabilities to your apps, without worrying about the infrastructure. Build apps that allow your users to engage in real-time across mobile, browser, desktop and server.

Pusher

Pusher is the category leader in delightful APIs for app developers building communication and collaboration features.

SignalR

SignalR allows bi-directional communication between server and client. Servers can now push content to connected clients instantly as it becomes available. SignalR supports Web Sockets, and falls back to other compatible techniques for older browsers. SignalR includes APIs for connection management (for instance, connect and disconnect events), grouping connections, and authorization.

Ably

Ably offers WebSockets, stream resume, history, presence, and managed third-party integrations to make it simple to build, extend, and deliver digital realtime experiences at scale.

Syncano

Syncano is a backend platform to build powerful real-time apps more efficiently. Integrate with any API, minimize boilerplate code and control your data - all from one place.

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.

NATS

Unlike traditional enterprise messaging systems, NATS has an always-on dial tone that does whatever it takes to remain available. This forms a great base for building modern, reliable, and scalable cloud and distributed systems.

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.

Related Comparisons

PlayFab vs Unreal Engine: What are the differences?

# Introduction

PlayFab and Unreal Engine are two popular tools in the gaming industry, each offering unique features and functionalities for game development.

1. **Integration with Game Development Platforms**: PlayFab is primarily a backend platform that provides services such as player authentication, analytics, and virtual goods management, while Unreal Engine is a comprehensive game development platform for creating high-quality games and interactive experiences.
   
2. **Pricing Model**: PlayFab offers a flexible pricing model based on usage, allowing developers to pay for the services they actually use. In contrast, Unreal Engine follows a different pricing model with a royalty fee for revenue generated from the games developed using their engine.
   
3. **Cross-Platform Support**: PlayFab provides robust support for cross-platform game development, enabling developers to create games for a wide range of devices and platforms. On the other hand, Unreal Engine also supports multiple platforms, but developers may encounter more challenges when porting games to certain platforms.
   
4. **Community and Support**: Unreal Engine has a large and active community of developers, which offers extensive documentation, tutorials, and forums for support. This community-driven approach may provide faster solutions to issues compared to PlayFab, which focuses more on backend services than community engagement.
   
5. **Customization and Control**: Unreal Engine provides developers with unparalleled customization and control over game development, allowing for greater flexibility in creating unique and diverse gaming experiences. While PlayFab offers essential backend services, it may not provide the same level of control and customization options as Unreal Engine.
   
6. **Learning Curve and Ease of Use**: Unreal Engine has a steeper learning curve due to its comprehensive toolset and complex features, requiring more time and effort to master. PlayFab, on the other hand, offers a more user-friendly interface and simpler integration process, making it easier for developers to get started with backend services.

PlayFab vs Unreal Engine

Overview