When comparing Leadwerks Game Engine vs Defold, the Slant community recommends Defold for most people. In the question“What are the best 2D game engines?” Defold is ranked 23rd while Leadwerks Game Engine is ranked 76th. The most important reason people chose Defold is:
Defold uses Lua, which is regarded as an easy to learn language by most.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros

Pro Versatile flow diagram script model
Leadwerks's flowgraphs resemble flowcharts where each box represents a function or value, with connections between them representing program flow. This provides a better at-a-glance indication of game logic than a simple list of events, and makes complex behaviors easier to accomplish.
Pro Built-in level editor
Has an acceptable 3D map editor that is easy to use.
Pro Handful of Prefabs and Scripts
For example, you take a model (e.g. torch), add a light source to it, add a particle generator (for fire) and save it as a prefab (one file). Then this prefab can be used to add many torches with fire and light.
Pro Easy to learn
Defold uses Lua, which is regarded as an easy to learn language by most.
Pro Completely free of charge
Software and online dashboard are free of charge.
Pro Good combination of visual editing + code (Lua)
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.
Pro Fast results
Going from idea to result is very important for the creative process.
Pro Very performant
Being crossplatform it is important to work on low end devices.
Pro Visual editor
Pro Easy and fast export for various platforms
Pro Source code available
You can download and modify the source code of the Editor and the engine for free.
Pro Great community
A very active and friendly community in forums.
Pro Collaborative
You can invite friends from the dashboard and create games together.
Pro Hot reload
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.
Cons
Con Very buggy
Leadworks is a not complete, it's a work in progress. As such many parts of the engine are clunky, especially the level editor.

Con Documentation and support are limited for non-coders
The flowgraph editor can be used with free script assets to build games without writing any code, but this is not directly intended or encouraged by Leadwerks.
Con Highly misleading advertising
