What are the best game engines for Python?

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Feb 2, 2024

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Pygame vs ursina vs Kivy

vs Panda3D vs Unity vs Godot vs pyglet vs Sylphis3D vs AppGameKit 2.0

Specs

License

LGPL

Platforms

Dev platforms

Desktop targets

Mobile targets

Supported languages

Console targets

Distributed targets

TV targets

VR targets

Popular Language Bindings

3D

2D

Traditional code

License

MIT

Platforms

Windows, Linux, Mac

Dev platforms

Desktop targets

Mobile targets

Supported languages

Console targets

Distributed targets

TV targets

VR targets

Popular Language Bindings

3D

2D

Traditional code

License

MIT

Platforms

Windows, Linux, Mac, iOS, Android, Pi

Dev platforms

Desktop targets

Mobile targets

Supported languages

Console targets

Distributed targets

TV targets

VR targets

Popular Language Bindings

3D

2D

Traditional code

License

BSD-3-Clause

Platforms

Dev platforms

Windows; OSX; Linux; FreeBSD

Desktop targets

Windows; OSX; Linux

Mobile targets

Supported languages

C++; Python

Console targets

Distributed targets

Panda3D Web Player

TV targets

VR targets

Popular Language Bindings

3D

2D

Traditional code

License

Platforms

Dev platforms

Desktop targets

Mobile targets

Supported languages

Console targets

Distributed targets

TV targets

VR targets

Popular Language Bindings

3D

2D

Traditional code

License

Platforms

Windows, Linux, Mac, Android

Dev platforms

Desktop targets

Mobile targets

Supported languages

Console targets

Distributed targets

TV targets

VR targets

Popular Language Bindings

GDScript, C#, C++

3D

2D

Traditional code

License

BSD

Platforms

Dev platforms

Desktop targets

Mobile targets

Supported languages

Console targets

Distributed targets

TV targets

VR targets

Popular Language Bindings

3D

2D

Traditional code

License

GNU General Public License

Platforms

Dev platforms

Desktop targets

Mobile targets

Supported languages

Console targets

Distributed targets

TV targets

VR targets

Popular Language Bindings

3D

2D

Traditional code

License

Platforms

Dev platforms

Windows, Mac, Linux

Desktop targets

Windows, Mac, Linux, HTML5

Mobile targets

iOS, Android

Supported languages

Console targets

Distributed targets

TV targets

VR targets

Popular Language Bindings

3D

Yes

2D

Yes

Traditional code

BASIC Script, C++ & XCode libs

Pros + Cons

Pro
Great documentation and tutorials

With a wealth of tutorials, examples, and instruction on the API there should be little to no extra support needed to get started.

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Pro
Free, libre, and open source

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Pro
Rich platform support

Support of Linux, Windows, BSDs, and Mac OS X makes pygame a great option for any user. Installation can be done via package manager on Linux and by binary installers for OS X and Windows.

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Pro
Easy Python syntax

Pygame uses Python as its scripting language. Python is widely considered one of the easiest languages to grasp even for beginners.

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Pro
Good canvas system

Pygame has a drawing system that allows the user to create and draw on an unlimited number of canvases.

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Con
Does not scale well to large games

Pygame does well with small games and hobby projects, but to use it and scale it out for a large project will result in a lot of performance issues.

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Con
Outdated

Pygame uses a really old version of SDL and is missing some of the features developed for SDL2.

Comment

The docs are messy, and some basic functions are infuriating to work out. There're even some places in the documentation where it's clearly wrong about how a method is called/what the arguments really do.

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Con
Very basic

Pretty much just a wrapper for SDL.

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Pro
It is good for pygames

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Con
Lacks camera system

No camera functions, you end up having to move everything the camera sees instead of just simply moving the camera.

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Con
Hasn't been updated in years

Hasn't been updated in years.

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Con
Deathly slow

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Con
Pygame is a multimedia framework, not a game engine

Physics, AI and networking are not supported.

Comment

Con
Not a complete game engine

Physics, AI and many other things not supported.

Comment

Con
Nonexistent community

No good forums, wiki, or other ways to reach other Pygame developers.

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Pro
Supports 3D

[add description]

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Pro
Super easy to learn

No complicated stuff, just super easy. Anybody who knows Python and nothing else could make a game using Ursina.

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Pro
Great community

The Ursina Engine Discord server is very helpful.

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Pro
Great documentation

You can find anything you need in the docs.

Comment

Pro
Great future

New and Blooming Ursina, derived from Panda3D has some amazing potential.

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Pro
Open Source and moddable

The full source code is on Github, you can modify it easily and make your own game engine.

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Pro
Cross-Compatibility

You can export your game on basically any platform unlike all the other libraries but maybe pygame.

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Pro
Multitouch gestures

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Pro
Kv design language

Kv design language is designed to work well with scalable graphical user interfaces (GUIs) as one of its primary focuses. It also segregates the logic from the design elements, making them easier to visually distinguish from each other.

Comment

Con
Download is not straightforward

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Con
Documentation & examples are terrible

Terrible documentation & not too many resources can be found.

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Con
This is not a game engine

It is not a game engine but listed in game engines for python..

Comment

Pro
Uses modern technologies

Like OpenGL and OpenGL ES.

Comment

Pro
Supports most popular physics engines

Panda3D has in-depth integration with industry standard physics engines such as Bullet, NVIDIA PhysX, and ODE, but also offers a simpler built-in physics engines that will cover more basic needs.

Comment

Pro
Free, open-source, and permissive license

The liberal license allows use of the engine for any purpose without restrictions or royalties.

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Pro
Will be very easy for developers already familiar with Python

Although it's possible to use only C++ to program in Panda3D, all its power is available to the Python scripting language, while not trading in performance since the performance-critical parts are implemented in C++. It has a powerful binding layer that exposes the vast majority of the API via Python-based interfaces.

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Pro
Powerful profiling and debugging tools

Panda3D has a suite of powerful tools to help track down performance bottlenecks, memory leaks and examine internal state.

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Pro
Flexible scene and object hierarchy system

Creating weird world constructs is generally a breeze. The node system the engine runs with allows to build self-looping worlds and, on large scale, non-Euclidean scenes without having to introduce a huge amount of custom code.

Comment

Con
No unified editing program

Unlike Unity and Unreal, Panda3D doesn't currently offer a single, unified editing program in which objects can simply be dragged in and assigned properties (although third-party solutions are available). Developers are expected to design their scenes in a modeling program like Maya or Blender instead, and import them into Panda3D using Python code.

Comment

Pro
Supports browser deployment

Panda3D offers web plug-ins that allow deployment of an application to all major browsers. A WebGL port is in the works as well.

Comment

Con
Limited tutorial

Step by step tutorial is limited. Manual is too general and short without examples. Samples are too complex for beginners.

Comment

Con
Loading Panda3d will change your builtins to contain non explicit references to non-standard helper functions

A lot of the pollution comes from storing global state. Instead, you can store and update the global state of a namespace instead. As for the built-in pollution, you can make a wrapper that backs up builtins, imports pandas and then restores builtins, though this may not work as pandas almost certainly uses its extra builtins to work. The best thing to do would be to explicitly import the same objects that are in the builtins over the top of the modified builtin namespace, although it doesn't remove the code smell, it helps to make things look less (if not at all) magic.

Comment

Con
Direct3D support is behind

Direct3D support not up to par with OpenGL support, only version 9 is supported.

Comment

Con
Nothing wrong with Unity, but it is NOT a python game engine

You can't actually build an entire game in Python. This is NOT a python game engine. It's support is extremely limited. You'll have to learn c# instead.

Comment

Pro
Lots of assets can be found in the Asset Store

For those developers who can't afford an artist, or aren't skilled enough to create their own art, Unity features an Asset Store full of a wide variety of free and paid assets that can be easily added to a game. The Asset Store has more than just music and art. It also has code and modules that can be added to games including unique lighting or GUI systems. It also has powerful asset management and attribute inspection.

Comment

Pro
Over 20 platforms

Unity offers over 20 platforms for publishing including mobile, console, web, VR, and more.

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Pro
Great community support

Unity is bolstered by a huge, helpful community via its official forums, wiki, Unity Answers, and Unity Asset Store; plus the most-subscribed subreddit of any game engine.

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Pro
Has a great animation system

Unity provides a great state machine animation system called Mechanim allowing to separate animation from the model and assign the same animations to different models.

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Pro
Very optimized

Unity runs very smoothly even on systems that are considered "weak" by today's standards.

Comment

Con
C# is a bit difficult to get into and it uses Python 2 which is not the best

Python 2 is trash so just learn the c#. It is a lot easier than you think especially if you have experience with other programming languages.

Comment

Pro
Powerful standard shaders

The built in standard shader in Unity 5 is incredibly optimized and supports PBS/PBR.

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Pro
Flexibility is provided by a strong component programming model

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Pro
Easy learning curve

The way the editor is structured, by setting scripts on objects, and the use of a high-level language, C#, makes it easy to learn.

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Pro
Can create custom forms and tools

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Pro
Great editor

The editor GUI is very powerful and intuitive. It allows pausing gameplay and manipulating the scene at any time as well as progress gameplay frame by frame. It also has powerful asset management and attribute inspection. This allows it to be more powerful than other, simpler drag-and-drop engines such as Game Maker Studio, although it can take a bit more experience to learn the workflow.

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Pro
As of Unity 5 all engine features are free for everyone

As long as the company makes $100k or less, Unity's free version can be used to release games without purchasing the pro version.

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Pro
Supports 2D and 3D

With Unity knowledge of just one engine is needed to be able to create both 2D and 3D games.

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Pro
Great community

Great Community support through Forums and Unity Answers.

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Pro
Allows for rapid prototyping

Unity's modular system and usability allows for quickly developing a prototype of an idea. It has features like drag & drop editing, shaders, animation and other systems already in place to allow diving right into developing a game.

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Pro
Very popular

Unity is a proven game engine. It is used by a wide range of developers - from small indies to triple-A companies such as Microsoft, Paradox, Square Enix and Sega.

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Pro
Lots of resources to learn from

Unity3D provides an exhaustive documentation where everything is given a full description supplied by a number of examples as well as video and text tutorials and live training sessions to understand the ins and outs of the engine. In addition there's an ever-growing community that can offer advice to help resolve any situations that may arise. Along with the official Unity resources, there are many high quality (and often free) third party tutorials available.

Comment

Pro
Works with 3rd party IDEs

You can use any C# IDE for it, but the ones tested which have Unity integration are: Microsoft Visual Studio MonoDevelop Visual Studio Code (much faster than VS, but a bit harder to set up for Unity development) JetBrains Rider (very fast, has lots of functionality and best Unity integration, but it is not free)

Comment

Pro
Well structured

Overall, a coherent engine with a rational approach. People who complain a lot about being forced to hack around it usually do not read the docs, like the one that describes orders of execution, or specific functions hooks and such. Some like to say it lacks raw power where people who are used to standard optimizations have no problem. For example It is not uncommon to encounter users who complain about low FPS but forgot to activate occlusion, flag static elements, activate animations culling, and so on. As for complaints about C#, people who are transitioning from C++ were already bad at C++ before being bad at C#. They often come from the PC world where the sheer power of today's machines is very forgiving compared to the platforms we had to develop for in the 80s~90s. One of their errors is for example to never read this doc.

Comment

Pro
Versatile

Not tailored for specific types of games (like Unreal...), so it won't get in your way if you want to make something unique.

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Con
No native editor for Linux

Though it builds for Linux, the Unity Editor runs only on Windows and Mac. Some users have successfully run the Windows version on Linux via Wine.

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Pro
Easy to learn scripting language

Godot has their own scripting language called GDScript. The scripting language is easy to learn with Python-like syntax, but it is not Python. It's very powerful, easy to learn, and it's free of unnecessary things because it was custom built for optimized integration with the Godot Engine. It can be used to add custom behaviors to any object by extending it with scripting, using the built-in editor with syntax highlighting and code completion. A built-in debugger with breakpoints and stepping can be used and graphs for possible bottlenecks can be checked.

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Pro
Engine is yours

There is no royalty and the game you made + engine itself is yours.

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Con
Not Python Based

Why is this listed under Game Engines for Python?

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Pro
Built-in physics

Add physics to 2D and 3D scenes, through rigid and static bodies, characters, raycasts, vehicles and more.

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Pro
Fully dedicated 2D engine, no hacks

Godot has a mature 2D engine with many features used by modern 2D games.

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Pro
Unified game editor interface

All the game development work is done inside one program: the engine editor. The scripting is done in the same program. No need for Eclipse or other front-end editors.

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Pro
User friendly UI for all your team

Non-programmers (musicians, artists, etc) can join the development easily.

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Pro
Doesn't need to be installed into the system

Godot is very portable, you can download the file from a website then put it on a USB and run it on your other computer without any troublesome errors.

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Pro
Incredible documentation after 3.2.2 beta

The documentation used to be weak, but now we have nathen with his help the documentation is the strongest advantage.

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Pro
It has a visual scripting tool

It has a great visual scripting tool. It's a great choice if you don't like to code.

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Pro
Can be installed on Steam

You can easily install Godot via the Steam store.

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Pro
Editor and runtime are fully cross-platform

You can run Godot on all 3 major operating systems (Windows/Mac/Linux) and build your game to all available platforms from each without any platform-specific work needed. All platforms including Linux are supported first class.

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Pro
Easily expanded scripting system

With 3.0's addition of NativeScript and PluginScript via GDNative, developers can easily define bindings for new scripting languages. In addition to the primarily supported C++, GDScript, VisualScript, and C# languages, the community has contributed D, Nim, and Python as well with more on the way.

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Pro
Scene Based editing

Godot gives you the ability to create scenes to make your life easier, with reusable objects and things you want to incorporate in your games. This makes the game making processvery streamlined and organized.

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Pro
Easy to get involved

No need to learn anything with node, you can build a game without typing a line of code + has visual scripting.

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Pro
The list of supported languages is growing

Officially, Godot supported languages for now will be GDScript, C#(Mono), VisualScript and C++.

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Pro
Drag & drop interface

Many parts of the editor allow you to drag & drop, which makes working with assets and scene trees a joy.

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Pro
Fun to use

An important aspect that can't be grasped without using the engine for a few days. The Interface is evolving nicely and making games is just fun.

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Pro
Free and open source

Godot is licensed under MIT license. Anyone can grab the source from GitHub, and compile the engine themselves.

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Pro
Can be deployed to multiple platforms

Deploy games to desktops (Windows/OS X/Linux), smartphones (iOS/Android/BlackBerry), and the web (HTML5 via Emscripten).

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Con
NoAdmob or other AdNetwork support

Godot has no native support for implementing advertisements into your game.

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Con
Primarily supports own proprietary language (GD Script)

While it's very accessible, and if you know Python you'll pick it up fast, having to learn a new language to fully make use of the platform can be a bit discouraging. And for those learning to code as well as learning Godot for the first time, many would rather learn a language they can 'take with them' when they explore other platforms in the future.

Comment

Con
No console targets

Given that you can target both desktops and consoles with the same code base in other engines, the lack of support for consoles in Godot is pretty hard to get past if targeting desktops for a game. But asking for an open-source engine to target consoles is probably too much to ask. But it would be interesting to see some legacy consoles targeted even if current ones cannot be.

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Pro
Instancing and node concept makes sense

The node and the instancing concept work very well and helps developers to structure content efficiently.

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Pro
Lightweight

The executable is portable and less than 40 MB in size.

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Pro
3D support

Since pyglet is so tightly woven with OpenGL it allows the support of drawing in 3D.

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Pro
Cross-platform

Works with Windows, Linux, and OS X.

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Con
Doesn't support Mobile platform

Because no integration of opengl es

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Con
Small community/popularity

There is a decent amount of documentation and API to go along with pyglet, but in terms of community support, there seems to be very little.

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Pro
Written in pure Python

A small advantage, but being a core Python developer, it may be the best to stick to the roots and develop with pyglet as it is able to compile using other Python interpreters.

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Pro
yesssss

Obvio mannnn

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Con
NOOOOOOOOO

ME MUEROOOOO

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Con
Sounds like syphilis

lmao

Comment

Pro
The Python port is FREE

AppGameKit Classic for Python provides a full implementation of AppGameKit using python programming language.

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Pro
Fast development

There are plenty of functions which facilitate development and deployment. For example, the AGK player immediately plays the updated bytecode on Android devices then the online site helps with building an APK file for Google Play Store in minutes.

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Pro
Performance

[add description]

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