What are the best game engines for Python?

Question

Game DevelopmentGame Engine

What are the best game engines for Python?

9

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Considered

661

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Recs.

Feb 2, 2024

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Updated

9 Options Considered

Best game engines for Python	Price	License	Platforms
80 Pygame	FREE	LGPL	-
62 ursina	Free	MIT	Windows, Linux, Mac
62 Kivy	FREE	MIT	Windows, Linux, Mac, iOS, Android, Pi
55 Panda3D	FREE	BSD-3-Clause	-
54 Unity	FREE+	-	-

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score 204 · Answer 1

Pygame

Top Pro

Very easy to understand

The API is very straightforward. See More

Top 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. See More

ResponsiblePherousa's Experience

yeah yeah yeah python be busting See More

Specs

License:LGPL

Top 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. See More

Top Con

Outdated

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

ModestBirrahgnooloo's Experience

I think pygame is good but it does not let you think of the box and it is not a real game engine if u want to develop game check out unity See More

Top Pro

Free, libre, and open source

Top Con

Messy documentation

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. See More

ReceptiveTashmetum's Experience

Do not provide 3d games See More

Top 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. See More

Top Con

Very basic

Pretty much just a wrapper for SDL. See More

IntellectualAstraeus's Experience

It lacks basic features like even camera functions, where you end up having to move everything the camera sees instead of just simply moving the camera. See More

Top 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. See More

Top Con

Lacks camera system

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

EarnestCheonjiwang's Experience

rttr See More

Top Pro

Good canvas system

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

Top Con

Hasn't been updated in years

Hasn't been updated in years. See More

Top Pro

It is good for pygames

Top Con

Deathly slow

Top Con

Pygame is a multimedia framework, not a game engine

Physics, AI and networking are not supported. See More

Top Con

Not a complete game engine

Physics, AI and many other things not supported. See More

Top Con

Nonexistent community

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

See All

score 112 · Answer 2

ursina

Top Pro

Supports 3D

DelightfulHuttellurra's Experience

Best game engine I have ever used, its amazing. Very easy to use and beginner friendly. You can make anything with it! See More

Specs

License:MIT

Platforms:Windows, Linux, Mac

Top Pro

Super easy to learn

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

CooperativeKrotos's Experience

best community and very easy to use See More

Top Pro

Great community

The Ursina Engine Discord server is very helpful. See More

PersonableFujin's Experience

Very good See More

Top Pro

Great documentation

You can find anything you need in the docs. See More

IntellectualAstraeus's Experience

Ursina is amazing See More

Top Pro

Great future

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

Top Pro

Open Source and moddable

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

See All

score 84 · Answer 3

Kivy

Top Pro

Cross-Compatibility

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

Top Con

Download is not straightforward

SharpSreng's Experience

It's a good and complete library working with modern technologies and completely cross-compatible not like pyglet sadly. See More

Specs

License:MIT

Platforms:Windows, Linux, Mac, iOS, Android, Pi

Top Pro

Multitouch gestures

Top Con

Documentation & examples are terrible

Terrible documentation & not too many resources can be found. See More

ArticulateWadjet's Experience

T See More

Top 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. See More

Top Con

This is not a game engine

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

Top Pro

Uses modern technologies

Like OpenGL and OpenGL ES. See More

See All

score 48 · Answer 4

Panda3D

Top 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. See More

Top 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. See More

Specs

License:BSD-3-Clause

Dev platforms:Windows; OSX; Linux; FreeBSD

Desktop targets:Windows; OSX; Linux

Mobile targets:-

See All Specs

Top Pro

Free, open-source, and permissive license

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

Top Con

Limited tutorial

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

Top 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. See More

Top 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. See More

Top 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. See More

Top Con

Direct3D support is behind

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

Top 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. See More

Top 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. See More

See All

score 57 · Answer 5

Unity

Top Pro

Over 20 platforms

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

Top 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. See More

SuaveNinsun's Experience

unity doesn't support python we should use a third program allow us to use python language See More

Top 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. See More

Top 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. See More

PracticalPhlegethon's Experience

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. See More

Top 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. See More

Top 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. See More

Top 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. See More

Top Pro

Very optimized

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

Top Pro

Powerful standard shaders

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

Top Pro

Flexibility is provided by a strong component programming model

Top 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. See More

Top Pro

Can create custom forms and tools

Top 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. See More

Top 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. See More

Top Pro

Supports 2D and 3D

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

Top Pro

Great community

Great Community support through Forums and Unity Answers. See More

Top 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. See More

Top 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. See More

Top 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. See More

Top 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) See More

Top 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. See More

Top 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. See More

See All

score 31 · Answer 6

Godot

Top 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. See More

Top Con

Not Python Based

Why is this listed under Game Engines for Python? See More

mobilex1122's Experience

I'm making games in godot for 2 years and i don't have any problems. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Linux, Mac, Android

Popular Language Bindings:GDScript, C#, C++

Top Pro

Engine is yours

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

Top Con

NoAdmob or other AdNetwork support

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

Top Pro

Built-in physics

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

Top 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. See More

Top Pro

Fully dedicated 2D engine, no hacks

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

Top 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. See More

Top 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. See More

Top Pro

User friendly UI for all your team

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

Top 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. See More

Top 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. See More

Top 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. See More

Top Pro

Can be installed on Steam

You can easily install Godot via the Steam store. See More

Top 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. See More

Top 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. See More

Top 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. See More

Top 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. See More

Top Pro

The list of supported languages is growing

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

Top Pro

Drag & drop interface

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

Top 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. See More

Top Pro

Free and open source

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

Top 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). See More

Top Pro

Instancing and node concept makes sense

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

Top Pro

Lightweight

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

See All

score 30 · Answer 7

pyglet

Top Pro

3D support

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

Top Con

Doesn't support Mobile platform

Because no integration of opengl es See More

ReflectiveEuterpe's Experience

The best love <<333333333333333333333333333333333333 See More

Specs

License:BSD

Top Pro

Cross-platform

Works with Windows, Linux, and OS X. See More

Top 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. See More

SharpSreng's Experience

My favorite library but it doesn't support OpenGL ES and can't work on mobile See More

Top 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. See More

See All

score 28 · Answer 8

Sylphis3D

All

1

Specs

License:GNU General Public License

score 2 · Answer 9

AppGameKit 2.0

Top Pro

The Python port is FREE

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

PopularHeXiangu's Experience

Very easy to implement. It has the Python support using the following variant https://fascimania.itch.io/appgamekit-for-python See More

Specs

Dev platforms:Windows, Mac, Linux

Desktop targets:Windows, Mac, Linux, HTML5

Mobile targets:iOS, Android

3D:Yes

See All Specs

Top 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. See More

Top Pro

Performance

See All

9 Options Considered

My Recommendation for Pygame

My Recommendation for Pygame

Very easy to understand

Does not scale well to large games

Great documentation and tutorials

Outdated

Free, libre, and open source

Messy documentation

Rich platform support

Very basic

Easy Python syntax

Lacks camera system

Good canvas system

Hasn't been updated in years

It is good for pygames

Deathly slow

Pygame is a multimedia framework, not a game engine

Not a complete game engine

Nonexistent community

My Recommendation for ursina

My Recommendation for ursina

Supports 3D

Super easy to learn

Great community

Great documentation

Great future

Open Source and moddable

My Recommendation for Kivy

My Recommendation for Kivy

Cross-Compatibility

Download is not straightforward

Multitouch gestures

Documentation & examples are terrible

Kv design language

This is not a game engine

Uses modern technologies

My Recommendation for Panda3D

My Recommendation for Panda3D

Supports most popular physics engines

No unified editing program

Free, open-source, and permissive license

Limited tutorial

Will be very easy for developers already familiar with Python

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

Powerful profiling and debugging tools

Direct3D support is behind

Flexible scene and object hierarchy system

Supports browser deployment

My Recommendation for Unity

My Recommendation for Unity

Over 20 platforms

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

Lots of assets can be found in the Asset Store

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

Great community support

No native editor for Linux

Has a great animation system

Very optimized

Powerful standard shaders

Flexibility is provided by a strong component programming model

Easy learning curve

Can create custom forms and tools

Great editor

As of Unity 5 all engine features are free for everyone

Supports 2D and 3D

Great community

Allows for rapid prototyping

Very popular

Lots of resources to learn from

Works with 3rd party IDEs

Well structured

Versatile

My Recommendation for Godot

My Recommendation for Godot

Easy to learn scripting language

Not Python Based

Engine is yours

NoAdmob or other AdNetwork support

Built-in physics