When comparing Allegro vs pygame, the Slant community recommends Allegro for most people. In the question“What are the best 2D game engines?” Allegro is ranked 12th while pygame is ranked 16th. The most important reason people chose Allegro is:
The Allegro community has produced a lot of great tutorials and resources. Allegro [Wiki](https://wiki.allegro.cc/index.php?title=Main_Page), Mike Geig's Allegro [Tutorials](http://fixbyproximity.com/2d-game-development-course/), Rachel Morris' [Tutorials](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4RqHtEAAds), CodingMadeEasy's [Tutorials](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6B459AAE1642C8B4&feature=plcp).
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Supports desktop and mobile
Support for Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, iPhone, and Android
Pro Good engine architecture
Allegro is well designed, easy to use and has many useful features.
Pro Good documentation and lots of tutorials
Since it has been in development since mid-90s with hundreds of people contributing to both the engine and documentation, it has all of its bases covered when it comes to standard support.
Pro Per-platform library optimization
Allegro uses DirectX for Windows, and OpenGL for other targets.
Pro Freedom to implement your own game engine
You are not bound to the limits of existing game engines, and you can actually implement your own engine.
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.
Pro Very easy to understand
The API is very straightforward.
Pro Good canvas system
Pygame has a drawing system that allows the user to create and draw on an unlimited number of canvases.
Cons
Con Learning curve for hobbyist developers
Hobbyist developers coding alone may experience a learning curve with Allegro of about 200 hours (if you are rusty on C++). To learn quickly, see Mike Geig's tutorials at Fix By Proximity. This learning curve may be fine if you are considering going professional, but are still unsure.
For hobbyist developers not planning on going professional, you may want to look into a complete 2D game engine, rather than a coding library. For example, there are "non-coding" engines that provide support for coded plugins or scripting. But, if you are a dedicated hobbyist planning to use Allegro as your coding library of choice, you can still develop great games as a hobbyist.
Con Isn't great for C++
If you are a fan of object oriented programming, and want to use this library, then the chances are that you are going to be creating a lot of wrappers for functions in this library.
In short, if you're a C++ person, it could be recommended to check out SFML instead.
Con Deathly slow
Con Nonexistent community
No good forums, wiki, or other ways to reach other Pygame developers.
Con Very basic
Pretty much just a wrapper for SDL.
Con Pygame is a multimedia framework, not a game engine
Physics, AI and networking are not supported.
Con Messy documentation
The docs are messy, and some basic functions are infuriating to work out. There's even some places in the documentation where it's clearly wrong about how a method is called/what the arguments really do.
Con Outdated
Pygame uses a really old version of SDL and is missing some of the features developed for SDL2.
Con Hasn't been updated in years
Hasn't been updated in years.