Duality vs Defold

The full source code is available on GitHub, where the framework is actively developed. All of the editor, core and plugin code is written in C#.

Duality includes a powerful visual editing system that can be used for previewing, integrating, editing and testing game content.

Because both Core and Editor are completely plugin-based, Duality not only incorporates a clean and modular design, but is also very extensible - even if it wasn't Open Source. In fact, most of the standard editing capabilities comes in form of Editor plugins.

It can be configured to serialize all data in a text-based format, which has been structurally optimized for version control systems.

It has been used in a production environment without burning the place to the ground. Supposedly artist-proof editor workflow with an API for tailoring the system to fit your team.

Defold uses Lua, which is regarded as an easy to learn language by most.

Software and online dashboard are free of charge.

You can do a lot with drag and drop, but you're not limited -- the code (Lua, which is easy to learn) allows you more power than just visual editing usually gives you.

Going from idea to result is very important for the creative process.

Being crossplatform it is important to work on low end devices.

A very active and friendly community in forums.

You can download and modify the source code of the Editor and the engine for free.

You can invite friends from the dashboard and create games together.

It allows you to change scripts in a game while it is running live. Common use-cases is to tweak gameplay parameters or to perform debugging on a running game.