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Add to SafariWhen comparing Urho3D vs GDevApp, the Slant community recommends Urho3D for most people. In the question“What are the best 2D game engines?” Urho3D is ranked 61st while GDevApp is ranked 83rd. The most important reason people chose Urho3D is:
The entire engine is open source and makes use of other open source libraries. Source code is licensed under MIT and available on [GitHub](https://github.com/urho3d/Urho3D).
Specs
Question Ranking
Pros
Pro Free and fully open source
The entire engine is open source and makes use of other open source libraries. Source code is licensed under MIT and available on GitHub.
Pro Good documentation
The documentation for Urho3D can be split in two parts: auto-generated from class references and documentation written to cover the various aspects, features and systems of the engine. The written documentation is pretty good. It covers most of the aspects of the engine in clear and understandable English.
Pro Includes a lot of samples
There are a lot of sample projects included with the engine for both C++ and Angelscript. They are mostly very simple applications built to demonstrate the engines capabilities and features.
Pro Fat-free codebase
Only use what you need.
Pro Small turnaround times while developing
Builds are quite fast, aids in rapid development.
Pro Very high code quality
Urho3D is written in a modular and super-clean way, so that it can be integrated into the other parts of your game seamlessly.
Pro Good 3D level editor
Pro In constant active development
Bugs are usually fixed that same day. Core devs are very active on forums. New features are always being worked on. HTML5, DirectX11, and OpenGL3.1 support have recently been added (as of 4/15/15).
Pro Does not require an editor to get going
Pro Flexible rendering pipeline
You can configure rendering pipeline.
Pro Multi-Lights
There are no lights limits per mesh.
Pro Unofficial Oculus Rift support
Information on enabling OR support can be found here.
Pro Quickly add behaviors to objects
Prebuilt behaviors can be added to objects. This is a very efficient way to add a physics engine or make a platformer game.
Lots of behaviors are included, from the most advanced (Physics, platformer, top-down movement) to really simple ones (like the behavior to destroy objects when outside the screen or the one to drag objects with mouse or touch).
Pro Powerful events system to create games without programming
No need for coding using this system which is clear and powerful: events are composed of conditions and actions.
Actions are launched when conditions are fulfilled. This is a very beginner-friendly way of making games and is still efficient for advanced usage, contrary to most other "block"/"drag'n'drop" systems.
Pro Intuitive interface
Pro Based on GDevelop
The entire webapp is based on GDevelop, an open source native game development software available for Windows & Linux, so it benefits from its advanced development.
Pro Can download an archive of the game source
Even though the tool depends on having a server up and running, you can download a copy of your game to run locally, or host somewhere else.
Pro Great UI
Sleek and user-friendly UI.
Pro Can export your game as HTML5 and for Android
Games can be packaged for Android without relying on any third party tool. You can also export your game and download it to host it on your server or let it be hosted on GDevApp.com.
Pro Shallow learning curve
Cons
Con It has been stopped developing
The owner has moved to build new 3D engine, however, that is also experimental stage, not for production.
Con Little documentation and small community
There are some high-level design docs and a bunch of examples, but code is poorly commented and nothing much more can be found.
Con The UI can be hard on the eyes
Urho3D's UI could cause eye strain.
Con There is no support for reflections
Neither SSR nor cubemap parallax correction are implemented in engine.
Con Bad Android support
You can not compile this engine using latest Android Studio.
Con May be a bit hard to get started
To install Urho3D you need to get the archive from GitHub (be careful to download the master branch) and extract it. After that, you need to compile the engine with CMake. If all the dependencies are installed, then it should be a straightforward process, otherwise you will need to track down and install all the missing dependencies.
For people who don't have much experience with CMake this whole process may seem a bit like magic. For people who do have experience with CMake, the whole installation will be relatively easy.
Con Depends on a hosting service
If the website goes down or closes down, you'll no longer be able to develop your games using this system (but you can download a backup of your game from time to time and open it with GDevelop).
Con Cannot deploy native games
For now, games developed with GDevApp can only be deployed for the Web. Android deployment is in the works, but even then, they won't be native since they are built with web technologies.
