When comparing BYOND vs OpenBOR, the Slant community recommends BYOND for most people. In the question“What are the best game engines for beginners and non-programmers?” BYOND is ranked 19th while OpenBOR is ranked 33rd. The most important reason people chose BYOND is:
BYOND is in active development and updates are released constantly.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro In active development
BYOND is in active development and updates are released constantly.
Pro Easy to use
The software itself is very easy to learn and use for beginners.
Pro Helpful community
BYOND's community is relatively large and extremely helpful. Any question a beginner or an experienced user may have is quickly answered.
Pro Large Community
Fairly large player base and multiple games to play.
Pro With a bit of tweaking, it's also possible to create a platformer
It's possible for a non-programmer who is comfortable with text-based designing to tweak the engine in order to create a platformer. Almost all the parameters needed can be found in the OpenBOR wiki, so it's easy to find anything a new developer needs.
Pro Great genre-specific engine
OpenBOR can quickly help create a good Beat-Em-Up game without programming.
Pro Great, supportive community
OpenBOR community is highly active and very helpful.
Cons
Con Highly supports multiplayer, but can make solo games ready for download.
Con Exclusive programming language
The language is known as DM, and is modified using Dream Maker. It is an object oriented, interpreted language, which closely resembles C++, Java and PHP. More information available in the DM Guide.
Con Text-based parametric editing
Heavy reliance on text-editing. No visual editor to edit characters and levels (although there are a few community-built ones that do the job).