When comparing Defold vs Stride, the Slant community recommends Defold for most people. In the question“What are the best game engines for point & click adventure games?” Defold is ranked 24th while Stride is ranked 46th. 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 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 Visual editor
Pro Very performant
Being crossplatform it is important to work on low end devices.
Pro Easy and fast export for various platforms
Pro Great community
A very active and friendly community in forums.
Pro Source code available
You can download and modify the source code of the Editor and the engine for free.
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.
Pro Good looking and fast
Looking nearly as good as Unreal Engine 4, but rendering significantly faster.
Pro No royalties or licensing fees
Pro Projects are normal Visual Studio solutions
No proprietary project format, so it works with all the official .NET tooling.
Pro Supports Visual Studio
Pro Very modern render engine
Pro Powerful 3D Rendering Engine
Supports Vulkan. You can achieve good quality as in Unity3d and Unreal Engine
Pro Straightforward editor
Stride provides a simple and clean working environment for designing games.
Pro Community seems friendly and is growing
Pro Engine AND Scripting are both C#
Since the engine is written in the same language as the scripting, there is no weird mix of technologies as other engines have.
Pro Supports Vulkan
Currently the only well known open-source game engine that supports Vulkan, and probably one of the only.
Pro Easy to learn and use C#
Pro Multiple Starter Templates
The engine comes packed with multiole example projects to help you get started.
Cons
Con No terrain editor
Unless you like working on planes, there is no terrain support.
Con Editor is Windows only
Since version 1.7, Linux can be targeted for runtime. The editor for the engine is available only to Windows though.
Con Small user community
Unity and UE have a vast amount of user community.
Con Does not currently support Playstation or Switch games
Con Iteration may be slower than with other engines due to longer "build" times when certain changes are made
Con Shader system require's overhaul
Shader's are not easy to get to grips with and Stride's shader system. Needs overhauling for easier use.