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Linux
Windows
macOS
Framework
Game Engine
Cross Platform
What are the best game frameworks for Mac, Windows, and Linux?
5
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19
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Recs.
Jul 21, 2022
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Best game frameworks for Mac, Windows, and Linux
Price
Languages
Mobile targets
--
libGDX
Free
Java
iOS; Android; BlackBerry; Desktop; HTML5
--
MonoGame
Free
C#
Android, IOS, Windows phone
--
SFML
Free
C++
-
--
SDL
Free
C, C++
-
See Full List
--
libGDX
My Rec
ommendation
for
libGDX
My Recommendation for
libGDX
All
25
Pros
23
Cons
1
Specs
Top
Pro
•••
Very easy to customize
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Top
Con
•••
Documentation could be better
Other than a brief installation / getting started overview, libGDX's documentation consists of an official wiki with several incomplete pages, and automated Javadocs. The community recognizes these shortcomings, and new users are encouraged to ask for help.
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Specs
Languages:
Java
Mobile targets:
iOS; Android; BlackBerry; Desktop; HTML5
License:
Apache
Dev platforms:
Windows; OSX; Linux
See All Specs
Top
Pro
•••
Excellent font rendering support
Very good tools for rendering fonts.
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Top
Pro
•••
Support for 3rd party tools
libGDX has built in support for many 3rd party tools, including (but not limited to) Bullet Physics, Box2DLights and the well-praised Tiled Map Editor.
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Top
Pro
•••
Focusing on object pool patterns, to control memory without pointers
Unlike Unity or other engine, it allows to optimize a language that uses garbage collector when using patterns of objects you can control the use of memory without needing a language like C / C ++, getting the same speed in a more productive language.
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Top
Pro
•••
Across platform support
You can write once and run anywhere (Android, IOS, Desktop, Browser) also lately came with lib to deal with VR.
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Top
Pro
•••
Similar to the Microsoft XNA framework
Old XNA users may like libGDX since it's API is actually very similar to XNA's.
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Top
Pro
•••
Lots of tutorials to get you going
Even though the official documentation might be lacking, there are many tutorials on YouTube for libGDX.
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Top
Pro
•••
Constantly improved
LibGDX itself is pretty mature, and get updates not quite frequently, but various libraries for it are actively updated.
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Top
Pro
•••
Kotlin support
It is written in Java so you can easily make games using Kotlin and Ktx project will help you get all advantages of this language.
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Top
Pro
•••
Uses Box2D
A Java port of the Box2D physics engine is included in libGDX.
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Top
Pro
•••
Free, open source & permissive license
libGDX uses the Apache License 2.0. Not only is libGDX free and open source but also it's license gives you a lot of power over the engine. As long as you provide a copy of the license, give credit, do not hold devs liable and do not use libGDX logo in any engine forks you can do pretty much anything you want.
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Top
Pro
•••
Allows you to migrate from 2D to 3D within same framework
LibGDX supports both 2D and 3D game development. Allowing developers to migrate from 2D to 3D with ease without having to switch the engine they are using or having to learn a new API.
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Top
Pro
•••
Active and helpful community
The libGDX community, in the official libGDX forum is extremely helpful and approachable for any kind of question regardless of the its quality or difficulty. The forums themselves are a very helpful resource for any issue or guide simply by searching past posts in there. In addition to the forums, there's also the official #libgdx IRC channel on Freenode.
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Top
Pro
•••
Easy to learn
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Top
Pro
•••
Gradle support
Allows easy integration with multiple IDEs, easy dependency management and provides shell support.
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Top
Pro
•••
Fantastic UI toolkit (scene2d)
scene2d is a 2D scene graph, scene2d.ui is a UI toolkit on top of that. It enables very complex mobile and desktop UIs.
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Top
Pro
•••
Can use any JVM language
Since it's built with Java and runs on the JVM, any language that compiles to Java bytecode can be used to develop games with libGDX.
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Top
Pro
•••
Lots of resources to learn from
Lots of references, tutorials and open source code to learn from.
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Top
Pro
•••
Great performance across devices
While it may not always have the best performance for a particular device or system, it's one of the few engines which consistently performs very well across different platforms.
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Top
Pro
•••
Interfacing with platform specific code 
Sometimes it is necessary to access platform specific APIs, e.g., adding advertisement services or leaderboard functionality provided by frameworks.
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Top
Pro
•••
Supports desktop, mobile and web
Supports Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, iOS and HTML5/WebGL. Being able to develop & run mobile games on the desktop is very efficient to rapidly iterate.
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Top
Pro
•••
Great API
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Top
Pro
•••
Doesn't force a specific design 
Unlike some engines, which only allow you to make your game in a few specific ways, libGDX allows you to design any type of game you wish as it is extremely customisable.
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Free
Recommend
4
--
MonoGame
My Rec
ommendation
for
MonoGame
My Recommendation for
MonoGame
All
9
Experiences
1
Pros
5
Cons
2
Specs
Top
Pro
•••
Open source
All the code is available to you ensuring you'll have the ability to make changes when you need to or even port to whole new platforms.
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Top
Con
•••
Slow Rate of Updates
Version 3.9 is overdue by a year, and version 4.0 is set to be released in 2040.
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RickZeeland's Experience
MonoGame is a free and open-source C# framework based on XNA’s API. It uses Mono instead of .NET so that it can run on Windows, Mac, Linux, Playstation, XBox, Nintendo Switch, iPhone, and Android. A well known cross-platform game developed with MonoGame is Stardew Valley.
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Specs
Languages:
C#
Platforms:
Windows, Linux, Mac, PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch
Mobile targets:
Android, IOS, Windows phone
Top
Pro
•••
Well-known and documented API
The framework implements the XNA 4 API, so games made in XNA can be ported to other platforms using this. This was the same API used by the Xbox Live Indie Games platform so there's lots of documentation online for it.
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Top
Con
•••
Non-Windows tools are a bit funky
A good non-Windows IDE compatible with MonoGame is Jetbrains Rider which isn't open-source and only free for usage by students, open-source projects etc.
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Top
Pro
•••
Good community
The community MonoGame has to offer is helpful and mature.
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Top
Pro
•••
Cross-platform
Support for iOS, Android, Mac OS X, Linux, Windows (both OpenGL and DirectX), Windows 8 Store, Windows Phone 8, PlayStation Mobile, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and the OUYA console with even more platforms on the way.
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Top
Pro
•••
Flexible
More like a set of convenient C# libraries than an engine (this might not fit beginnners looking for an easy to use all-in-one solution).
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Free
Recommend
3
3
--
SFML
My Rec
ommendation
for
SFML
My Recommendation for
SFML
All
11
Pros
7
Cons
3
Specs
Top
Pro
•••
Great documentation
SFML is very well documented, even with short examples of use for many functions and modules. Furthermore, there are books like 'SFML essentials' and 'SFML for game development' which teach you how to use this library to its fullest.
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Top
Con
•••
Relatively slow
Compared to SDL2, GLFW, it is slow.
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Specs
Languages:
C++
Platforms:
Windows, Linux, Mac
Top
Pro
•••
Beginner-friendly
SFML is extremely beginner friendly and even provides pre-built libraries for your IDE of choice on Windows. Besides the fact that it's extremely well documented, they also have a set of tutorials that walk you through every module.
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Top
Con
•••
No support for 3D graphics
SFML is purely for 2D games, however since you can combine it with raw OpenGL that means you can still make 3D games and still use SFML. Regardless, SFML provides no functionality for 3D.
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Top
Pro
•••
Available in many languages
There's support for many languages besides C++, current supported languages are: C, .NET, Crystal, D, Euphoria, Go, Java, Julia, Nim, OCaml, Pascal, Python, Ruby and Rust, and this list is constantly growing.
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Top
Con
•••
No GUI editor or IDE
Does not include any IDE or media editor. It's purely source code.
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Top
Pro
•••
Active community and wiki
You can ask questions on their own personal forum which is full of users, and their wiki is constantly being maintained. They even have an IRC.
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Top
Pro
•••
Modern C++11 implementation
SFML is one of the few good C++ frameworks out there to actually make full use of the language. It's extremely well optimized and it plays well with anything you throw at it.
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Top
Pro
•••
Great library
SFML is a collection of modular, well designed libraries you can implement an engine or game on top of. The API provides tons of good documentation and is very straightforward to use. You can get a game up and running with SFML quite quickly and with minimal effort.
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Top
Pro
•••
Good for OpenGL
If you are thinking about using OpenGL, look no further, you can open a window, and handle events in less than 15 lines, and it provides input, time, and even networking, plus alot more. It has become my favorite c++ library :D
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Free
Recommend
1
3
--
SDL
My Rec
ommendation
for
SDL
My Recommendation for
SDL
All
4
Pros
2
Cons
1
Specs
Top
Pro
•••
Low level hardware support
Provides low level access to audio, keyboard, mouse, joystick, and graphics hardware via OpenGL and Direct3D.
See More
Top
Con
•••
Not for beginners
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Specs
Languages:
C, C++
Platforms:
Windows, Linux, Mac, Mobile
Top
Pro
•••
Free
See More
Hide
See All
Free
Recommend
1
3
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ommendation
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