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1 | The Mega GBaaS Comparison Sheet | ⭐ Mod Favorites (Alphabetical) >> | 👍 Worthy, curated Services (Alphabetical) >> | ⚠️ Notable services with notable issues >> | |||||||||||||||||
2 | https://i42.games/gbaas-discord | BrainCloud (BC) by bitHeads Inc. ⭐ Award: 2025 Most Complete All-in-One | Epic Online Services (EOS) by Epic Games 🫂 Award: 2025 Best Client-Authoritative Service | SpacetimeDB by Clockwork Labs 🎁 Award: 2025 Most Forward-Thinking | AccelByte (AB) "Premium" | AccelByte (AB) "Starter" | Amazon GameTech (AWS) | Beamable | Google Firebase | Mod.io (User-Generated Content) | Pragma | Snapser | SmartFox Server | Unisave | Xsolla Backend (XBE) | ⚠️ Azure PlayFab (PF) by Microsoft | ⚠️ Metaplay | ||||
3 | GENERAL, PRICING | GENERAL, PRICING | GENERAL, PRICING | GENERAL, PRICING | GENERAL, PRICING | GENERAL, PRICING | GENERAL, PRICING | GENERAL, PRICING | GENERAL, PRICING | GENERAL, PRICING | GENERAL, PRICING | GENERAL, PRICING | GENERAL, PRICING | GENERAL, PRICING | GENERAL, PRICING | GENERAL, PRICING | GENERAL, PRICING | ||||
4 | 💡 Find my commentary in yellow; disclaimer: I'm currently contracting with Xsolla --Xblade Target Audience | For Indie~AAA Audiences with Low Rates of API Calls Devs of all levels that want an Intuitive dashboard/portal with numerous prebuilt feats where it's free to start, but grows as you grow; the more efficiently coded, the more $$ you save. | For Indie~AAA Audiences seeking free services (but no cloud scripting) To those looking for a 100% free product with oAuth2 (login), stats, and P2P servers/lobbies for desktop games. | Notes coming soon(TM) --Xblade 👇 | For AAA Audiences Provides an affordable, comprehensive white-label backend for game studios to develop, publish, and operate games-as-a-service, allowing studios to fully own their user data and keep much more of their revenue. | For Indie Audiences Provides an affordable, comprehensive white-label backend for game studios to develop, publish, and operate games-as-a-service, allowing studios to fully own their user data and keep much more of their revenue. | For AAA/Modular Microservice Audiences Experienced devs that want reliability and flexibility, that may have integrations with other services (such as BrainCloud). | For Session-Based AA~AAA Audiences * Global Game Studios building a item economy/LiveOps driven title * Unity Devs that want to write C# on the server with full stack visibility * Unreal Devs that want a C++ SDK with Blueprints and a C# backend * Private Cloud that runs on AWS (self managed or fully managed * Usage based pricing that allows you to start affordable and scale | Mobile AAA Mobile app devs looking for a cheap, barebones solution with nothing prebuilt except for oAuth2 ("Login With..."). | UGC Audiences Studios and publishers of all sizes, from indie to AAA, that are looking for the simplest solution for in-game integration of UGC for Unreal, Unity, or custom engines using our SDK. | AAA Audiences | Games - Garage developers, hobbyists, indie - AAA Non-Games - social, ecommerce, retail, companion apps, etc. | All-in-One TODO: See Realtime Servers tab, for now, but they're way more than this! | Unity Indie Audiences Someone hoping to pay very low fees | For experienced audiences that want limitless API calls for the same price Devs that want to craft advanced, highly-scalable enterprise features at a low (flat 5%) cost. Great for MMOs, too! | ⚠️Formerly Indie~AAA, but now... see warnings below * Devs that want an Azure db (with C# beta support) * Nice web dashboard/portal and scaling prices based on usage. * For cloud code: targeting very advanced Azure infra devs. * For platorms, targeting Unity -- most definitely not Unreal. | Shared resources for private AAA prices | ||||
5 | ⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️ IMPORTANT NOTES Breaking decision-making info | Cannot reliable edit/deploy code in your own editor, so no local agentic flows possible (yet) | ⚠️Client-Side Logic (Semi-Vulnerable) ^ Ok for non-PvP | Unity only | PayDay 2 had a bad network launch, but all their other games launched reliably, so it's very possible it was simply implemented poorly by the dev (let's consider crunch culture, deadline shortcuts, and the complexity of AA+ multiplayer) . Either way, they likely will make sure it won't happen again more than anyone else now | Only important for indies: Development phase costs $100/mo | 💡 Identical to Core AWS ⚠️ No native Steam Auth ^ But the most reliable uptime and longevity in the industry | 💸 Expensive to scale "idle" games (high meta interactions) ^ But inexpensive for session-based (most PC game types) | - | - | - | - | - | Hosted k8s are not production-ready; you should self-serve when ready to launch | ⚠️ Cloud scripts are raw Azure infra ⚠️Unreal user? Lobby/Matchmaking is unstable, unusable and incomplete ⚠️Renders entire modules unusable without even updating the docs years later to let you know (inline also dated). ⚠️ ️Read More | ⚠️ Predatory prices. Eg, appearing to offer ~$200/mo prototyping, ~$1k/mo with max 100 DAU (still shared), ~$2k/mo still shared (same cost as AAA entry points). | |||||
6 | Type(s) Authoritative? GBaaS? DGS? Hybrid? | Authoritative GBaaS + Realtime DGS (Hybrid) | Realtime Client-Hosted Servers + Limited GBaaS | Realtime DGS + Proprietary db integration (uniquely done so it feels like accessing C# or Rust code) | Authoritative GBaaS + Realtime DGS (Hybrid) | Authoritative GBaaS | Authoritative IaaS + Realtime DGS (IaaS Modules) | Authoritative GBaaS | Authoritative GBaaS | GBaaS for User-Generated Content (UGC) | Authoritative GBaaS | Authoritative GBaaS + Realtime DGS (Hybrid) | Authoritative GBaaS | Authoritative GBaaS + Realtime DGS (Hybrid) | Authoritative GBaaS + Realtime DGS (Hybrid) | ||||||
7 | Xblade's Corner ( ️ Opinionated❗) | This feels like GameSparks and is my personal fav. I [happily] used this (with Photon) for my old PvP game. --Xblade | Great for free multiplayer servers paired with other GBaaS to save big time on realtime$$. Many start here for basic features, then migrate a 2nd GBaaS (which saves money at the cost of a complex architecture). Eats their own dogfood with Fortnite, although EOS is likely a watered-down version since it excludes DB, cloud scripts, etc. --Xblade | I contracted with them before and made a demo with both Rust and C#; it was a wonderful experience. Their DB feels like it's natively part of C# code without any hoops. Most importantly, they're probably the only GBaaS (besides EOS) that truly eats their own dogfood with their BitCraft MMO. --Xblade | If you're AAA, you'll love them. I've contracted with them before and love their services. Enterprise support, clean code with inline code and matching OpenAPI-based docs, under active development and friendly people). Do research the PayDay network issues at launch, though, but imo after one issue like this it'll likely never happen again. --Xblade | From the same folks bringing you a reliable AAA service. However, since they're so new with breaking changes (price, architecture) in recent updates, I'm personally awaiting some stability and a few notable live game titles. Huge potential, though!--Xblade | There's almost 0 reason to make your own service these days since there are existing [affordable] solutions that already wrap AWS for you for negligible prices (compared to creating/maintaining yourself) for infinite tech debt avoidance, as you'll never make your own service as well as the experts in this comparison sheet that made their services with giant teams of veteran experiences. --Xblade | Friendly staff, active product - I haven't personally used it, yet, but being able to code cloud scripts in C# is awesome! --Xblade | Very barebones! Only use this if you have an offline game and simply want a 1-tap login --Xblade | While I haven't personally created UGC before, they are literally made for it and backed by a giant community (did you know the same guy also made indiedb.com?) --Xblade | One of the few AAA giants powering notable games like League of Legends - you'd think such a big company wouldn't be personable, but they are super friendly and easy to reach out to! --Xblade | One of the cheapest among the competition, although I haven't personally used them --Xblade | I am currently contracted with Xsolla --Xblade | ⚠️ I don't say this often, but... simply avoid this, imo. They are not the service they used to be after the Microsoft acquisition (offering an uneasy reminder of the GameSparks<>Amazon signs of sunset). --Xblade | ⚠️ The CXO seemed to impersonate a customer to spark a conversation in the GBaaS discord and got caught. If this tactic is required for service survival, is it a survivability red flag for a declining platform? Will they still exist in a year or two? Claims to be indie-friendly, but feels anti-competitive. | ||||||
8 | Dates: Public EAP -> Launch -> Acquisition | 2014 | Launched | 2021 | Launched | 2025 | Launched | 2023 | Launched | ? | 2020 | Launched | ? | 2018 | Launched | 2019 | Launched | 2022 EAP, 2025 Launched | 2020 | Launched | 2018 | Launched (as AXR) 2024 | Acquired by Xsolla | 2015(?) | Launched | |||||||
9 | Homepage URL | getbraincloud.com | dev.epicgames.com | spacetimedb.com | accelbyte.io | accelbyte.io/ags-starter | aws.amazon.com/gametech | beamable.com | firebase.google.com | https://mod.io | pragma.gg | snapser.com | unisave.cloud | xsolla.com/backend | playfab.com | ||||||
10 | Features URL | Feature List | Feature List | spacetimedb.com/docs | Features w/Marketing Fluff | << No link found, but see AB Premium's? | Vague Marketing Fluff | Feature List | Feature List (3rd Party) | Features w/marketing fluff | Feature List | Feature List (Detailed docs behind admin portal but will be made public soon) | Feature List | Feature List | Features ⚠️ Possibly dated; earlier, some feats list were not actually fully functional in v2 --Xblade | ||||||
11 | Public Discord URL Official > Flagship Unofficial > Our Own | Only our own GBaaS Discord #braincloud channel with official ambassadors | discord.gg/unrealsource Official | discord.gg/SpacetimeDB Official | Only our own GBaaS Discord #accelbyte channel with official ambassadors | Only our own GBaaS Discord #accelbyte-starter channel with official ambassadors | Only our own GBaaS Discord #aws-gametech channel with official ambassadors | discord.gg/beamable Official | discord.firebase.me Unofficial Community | discord.gg/modio Official | Only our own GBaaS Discord #pragma channel with official ambassadors | Snapser Official Discord | Discord Official | discord.gg/XsollaBackend Official | discord.gg/msftgamedev Official, but only 1 channel and heavily downplayed. Our own channels are more useful. | ||||||
12 | Notable Client/Game List Disclaimer: Names are only posted if publicly discoverable, generally with a src link. These are best-guess (probable) associations, often discovered through game/crash logs on Reddit. 💡IMPORTANT: THIS IS YOUR LIFELINE! Services with no notable, successful live games may be short-lived!! You want your selected service to be used+active+profitable | See Gallery Empire of the Ants (Tower Five) SUPERHOT (Superhot Team) Golf Blitz (Noodlecake) Ultimate Chicken Horse (Clever Endeavour) Pool Blitz (Cherry Pop) The Wolf (Swift Apps) Evermerge (Big Fish Games) | Fortnite Hades Dauntless Rocket League Paragon | ⭐ BitCraft - their own MMO Amazing: Nothing will ever beat an in-production, active MMO to demo their product eating their own dogfood --Xblade | Splitgate (1047 Games) Sony Interactive Entertainment Krafton Dreamhaven Build a Rocket Boy Theorycraft Omeda | None, so far (too new) | New World | Public List Available on Website | ? | Dying Light 2 Stay Human Anno 1800 Snowrunner Deeprock Galactic Two Point Campus Ready or Not Park Beyond House Flipper 2 Blade & Sorcery | Omeda Mountaintop Frost Giant Elodie People Can Fly Night Street Wonderstorm Free Range Games | Modern Games Opti Games Big Run Studios Stoke Games EchoChess Squid Games Voldex MGA Entertainment | Engine Evolution Back Streets Hunters of Demaal | RedpillVR Superbitmachine (Armajet) Hexarchia (Overdroid) | ⚠️ There's a fair chance the following used v1, not v2: Full Service: Roblox Minecraft Forza Flight Simulator ONLY Party/Chat Service: Halo Gears of War Doom Eternal Sea of Thieves Outriders | ||||||
13 | High-Level Summary[0] No marketing fluff | Ready-made platform to dev feature-rich games. Core feats: Cloud saves, leaderboards, tournaments, divisions, friends, achievements, milestones, quests, groups, item catalog. Advanced real-time (RTT) feats include RTT events, chat, presence and messaging. Monetization features include receipt validation, segments, promotions and redemption codes. | Brand new, 100% free service (often called EOS). Holds huge potential, but is still so new that no one knows what to think, yet. | Source-available (with 5y FOSS timer), distributed realtime database designed for multiplayer games and apps. Syncs state across clients and servers using CRDTs (conflict-free replicated data types) with supporting SQL-like queries. Allows direct querying and updating from clients with minimal backend code. | AAA that want to own their own environment (launcher, etc) and customize to the fullest extent; advanced dev experience recommended. | Free indie variant of AccelByte that looks quite promising, although very new | Amazon GameTech is the umbrella of Amazon web services dedicated to games currently has 175 microservices that can be stiched together to make back-end systems along with other functionality. | Beamable enables game makers to rapidly add social, commerce and content management features to their games using a combination of off-the-shelf managed services with both Unity and Unreal SDK support or a REST interface, as well as the ability to custom author C# Microservices for any game server need. Beamable also provides a growing Live Services Marketplace of pre-integrated solutions for GenAI, Analytics, Web3, Multiplayer, Matchmaking and more to allow for rapid selection of various industry leading point solutions. | Targeted towards small-scoped games on mobile/web. One of the cheapest GBaaS in price. | mod.io is the leading user-generated content (UGC) solution for game studios and publishers, available on 11 game systems and stores. Since launching in 2018, mod.io has delivered over one billion downloads of over 2.4 million pieces of user-generated content. | ? | Snapser offers a modular, flexible, and easy-to-use backend platform designed for games, apps, and all digital experiences. Pick your services. Download the SDK. Integrate. Launch. Customize along the way. | Unisave lets you easily build a backend server for your Unity game. Database, cloud code, real-time messaging, deployment, and one Unity asset to rule them all. | Offers tons of AAA features for simple to complex online and MMO projects including real-time and asynchronous multi-player capability. Open technology platform built on NodeJS (TypeScript) and Kubernetes using proven industry standards. | PlayFab is a full-featured GBaaS built to handle all of your LiveOps needs, whether you’re a small indie studio or building a AAA game or MMO. Charges per-minute. | ||||||
14 | High-Level Summary[1] No marketing fluff | MP feats include online + offline MP modes, hosting, relay and room servers, lobbies and online matchmaking. Also has AWS Gamelift integration. Live pricing plans begin at $15/mo. Private instance licenses also available. For more information on pricing, check the BC Calc Tab | The service is quite similar to Steam's mplayer service, but platform/engine-independent: P2P, key/val storage (no direct DB access), stats, achievements, lobby, matchmaking, oAuth2 and analytics. Mobile support coming soon. | Low latency, real-time collaboration, and strong consistency across distributed users. | AccelByte.io provides an affordable, comprehensive white-label backend for game studios to develop, publish, and operate games-as-a-service. allowing studios to fully own their user data and keep much more of their revenue. | - | GameTech incorporates everything from back end tech, RT + Matchmaking, Twitch, DB + Storage, Analytics and AI + ML | A fully managed SaaS backend powers Beamable with features including Accounts, Social Login, Groups/Guilds/Teams, Chat, Friends, Leaderboards, Live Events, Tournaments, In-Game Mail, Push Notifications, News/Announcements, Analytics, Segmentation, Stats/User Properties, Commerce/Storefront, Payments (Steam, Windows Store, iOS, Google Play, Amazon, Facebook/Gameroom, Flexion), Inventory, and a Relay Server for deterministic real-time multiplayer and turn-based multiplayer. Also available as a self-managed or fully managed private cloud install with optional source code access. | - | Live in more than 190 games, official UGC support is enabled across PC, PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo Switch, mobile, and VR. | ? | Modular: Pick the Snaps (our of the box game services) you need and only pay for what you need. Flexibility & Customization: Using BYOSnaps, write custom services in any language you want on top of Snapser Ease of Use and Speed: Go from zero to a custom backend with a client SDK in less than 90 seconds Partner Ecosystem: Need to bring in a 3rd party service? Snapser offers Partner Snaps (i.e. KWS, Quago, Photon and more to come) No Vendor Lock-in: Go month to month or term based with options to go from Snapser-hosted to self-hosted. Native Observability & Monitoring Tooling: Fully Managed doesn't have to mean using a black box. You have visibility into the health of your services directly built into the Snapser admin dashboard. | Start by using pre-built modules (steam auth, mtx validation, leaderboards) or build the next revolutionary system on top of this easy to learn platform. Unisave is extensible with modules, just like Unity is extensible with assets. There are no limits to what can be built. | Flexibile pricing structures ranging from do-it-yourself royalty based, premium support contracts to fully managed hosted solutions with simple per MAU pricing. The team's lead's former experience has experience working with AAA titles such as Hawken and XCOM 2. | Featuring authentication and cross-network identity, leaderboards, inventory and economy management, analytics, hosted multiplayer servers, matchmaking, groups, CMS, CDN, robust engagement features, cloud server functions*, voice chat, RT P2P networking, push notifications, and more. *Cloud script accepts a link to a raw Azure Function, completely detached from PF. *Unity is immensely priroitized over Unreal. | ||||||
15 | GBaaS Community Awards "Mods Choice" | ⭐ 2025 Most complete all-in-one ⭐ 2024 Intuition, support and features | 🫂 2025 Best client-authoritative service | 🎁 2025 Most forward-thinking | ⭐2024 Intuition, support and features | ||||||||||||||||
16 | Top 5 Pros[0] (Max 125 chars) | The most-similar spiritual successor to GameSparks (best all-in-one UI with cloud script editor/debugger) | 100% Free | Easy to setup, where the DB SDK autogenerates itself upon each change via Cecil with explicit funcs/models | Built by industry veterans behind major online systems and adopted by AAA publishers for leading game platforms | Only $100/mo with very generous caps | #1 in uptime reliability (and assuming DDoS-free?), scaling with unlimited potential | * Unity and Unreal SDK with custom tooling and workflow, including C# server-side code | Seems extremely affordable | Free to use (with optional premium white label features available) | AAA features/support sets with timeless live titles, such as League of Legends | Arguably the least-expensive to scale (?) | Free until you profit (flat 5% rev share), including free support and enterprise/AAA feats | The web-based economy is intuitive to initially setup | |||||||
17 | Top 5 Pros[1] | Very robust, speedy support (<24h), often from the creator himself | Has native anti-cheat service to compensate for client-side hack vulnerabilities | Pub/sub based - easy to massively dispurse server updates | Supports cross-platform play & progression, including seamless crossover between title | Easily transitions into "AB Premium" if you explode with traffic | Greater control + unlimited flexibility | Fully articulated Web based game management, Liveops Portal, analytics dashboard and speedy support responses | Supports realtime sockets | Works with any game engine | <TODO: What else is great about this service?> | Primarily an extensible platform with which you can build anything +community modules | The most publicly-active team within the GBaaS community for numerous years - find questions answered almost immediately (both in the GBaaS or their own Discord) | Raw Azure for cloud scripts allows for any server-side language | |||||||
18 | Top 5 Pros[2] | Cheap (or even free) to start until you get notable traffic | Unspoken likilihood of increasing your chances to get on Epic Store | They eat their own dogfood beyond anyone else with an MMO (BitCraft) | More features than most other services (what you'd normally expect from entrerprise/AAA), including hiring AB staff for custom services | Tons of premade features with arbitrary data for custom modules | The best way to "future-proof" your game and eliminate bottlenecks | Created and supported by a company that build and shipped a number of successful mobile titles | Supports native NoSQL DB | Certified for use on PC, PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo Switch, VR, and mobile | <TODO: What else is great about this service?> | Backend code written in C#, stored inside you Unity project | Huge MMO feature set with more GBaaS features than most services | The forums have been around for years full of FAQ [Con] (forums were randomly nuked in 2024 --Xblade) | |||||||
19 | Top 5 Pros[3] | Semi-open Mongodbl + NoSQL access for the !free tiers (even the lower ones) | Support for standalone Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, iOS | Rust or C# server code choices | Comprehensive game backend services with custom C++ SDKs and whitelabel PC/web launcher integration | Created to have more focus on your game, less on devops | All vulnerabilities will be fixed as soon as its identified, ultimately saving your future self money from outages | Many features highly tailored to best practices of building, operating, and scaling item based economies | <TODO: What else is great about this service?> | Easy to integrate with our REST API | <TODO: What else is great about this service?> | Seamless Unity integration, just click the [ ▶ ] button | Live Scripting System for editing any code without requiring redeployment (with live/remote script debugging) | [Con] You need to code/manage your own Azure barebone infrastructure to get any Cloud Scripts working. Massive learning curve. PF won't offer support for this - you need paid support Azure tiers. Forum is nuked and Discord is meager. | |||||||
20 | Top 5 Pros[4] | The most user-friendly and intuitive dashboard/API to-date | <TODO: What else is great about this service?> | The creator is also the lead dev. Not only do they eat their own dogfood, the owner knows their own product. | Single-Tenant Deployments for each client which enables wide range of customization options and ownership of platform user data | <TODO: What else is great about this service?> | <TODO: What else is great about this service?> | Growing support for Web3 and genAI content pipelines and integrations | <TODO: What else is great about this service?> | Fully customisable modular in-game UI and UGC hubs to use on your website | <TODO: What else is great about this service?> | Provides direct access to a NoSQL database (ArangoDB) | Access to active development of full source code, forkable, customizable | [Con] Lobby/Matchmaking is broken on Unreal without coding your own standalone PubSub system using SignalR (PF support won't assist with this) | |||||||
21 | Top 5 Cons[0] (Max 125 chars) | No premade typed models - need to make your own | No global data persistence, yet | Cloud functions can't be async | Expensive, targeting AAA | Too new to trust 100%, but AB is known for reliability so perhaps we can bypass this | Misleadingly identical to barebones AWS: GameTech is essentially just a collection of docs specific to gaming (no dash) | Documentation lags behind features | Very barebones (eg, need to setup even your own db rules) | <TODO: Everyone has cons; it's just not yet doc'd!> | Somewhat mysterious - not much public info available | Young, one-man team company | Dashboard is very minimal / does not feel modern | PF support will not assist you with Azure, cloud scripts, SignalR, or SDKs beyond the "core" SDK (there are numerous others) | |||||||
22 | Top 5 Cons[1] | App scaling can get expensive due to elastic pricing and 0.5 server-to-server API call consumption costs (high-traffic folks can negotiate private licenses to combat this) | Updates have slowed dramatically, disbanding the roadmap | Cloud functions can't return values (triggers event subscribers) | Somewhat mysterious - not much public info available | You can "do anything with it", but there seems to be some database restrictions not yet fully understood (TODO) | Has no native support for Steam auth | Sample projects often use prior versions | Lack of robustness aside from OAuth2 | <TODO: Everyone has cons; it's just not yet doc'd!> | <TODO: Everyone has cons; it's just not yet doc'd!> | Number of available modules is currently limited, the backend logic needs to be built on the platform | Small # of staff | Breaking bugs have been known to take years to fix with instructions to make an entirely new title to get unstuck (stats, leaderboard...) | |||||||
23 | Top 5 Cons[2] | Minimal/innaccurate stack tracing capabilities can make debugging difficult (but many competitor services don't even offer *any* cloud script debugging) | No official dev support/ticket/chat (community forum only) | Cannot connect to external services | <TODO: Everyone has cons; it's just not yet doc'd!> | <TODO: Everyone has cons; it's just not yet doc'd!> | Costs money while developing | Free support on Discord sometimes takes many days to get a response | <TODO: Everyone has cons; it's just not yet doc'd!> | <TODO: Everyone has cons; it's just not yet doc'd!> | <TODO: Everyone has cons; it's just not yet doc'd!> | <TODO: Everyone has cons; it's just not yet doc'd!> | Insufficient/dated docs (but revamp actively WIP by yours, truly! --Xblade) | Hyped pubsub feature vanished. Instead of something native, they low-effort said "Just implement SignalR, instead" without actually telling clients in the API docs that SignalR is required. The docs make it look like it's a native callback to the SDK (in Unreal, at least) - it is not. SignalR is a complex beast you must implement on your own without any help from PF. | |||||||
24 | Top 5 Cons[3] | Debug info from 3rd-party APIs is excluded | For Unity devs: SDK + documentation favors Unreal/C++ | Storage pricing ($10/GB) is is 80x more expensive than Supabase ($0.125/GB) | <TODO: Everyone has cons; it's just not yet doc'd!> | <TODO: Everyone has cons; it's just not yet doc'd!> | Overbearingly difficult to calculate/predict fees | Anonymous authentication cannot be disabled | <TODO: Everyone has cons; it's just not yet doc'd!> | <TODO: Everyone has cons; it's just not yet doc'd!> | <TODO: Everyone has cons; it's just not yet doc'd!> | <TODO: Everyone has cons; it's just not yet doc'd!> | Can be confusing to get started (mostly related to the docs issue^) | There's essentially 0 Unreal support: no inline/external docs (that are not focused on v1 - where v2 docs don't exist, conflict or are obsolete), no examples, difficult to find Q+A, and even PF staff seem to have no clue (Unreal modules outsourced?). | |||||||
25 | Top 5 Cons[4] | Does not directly support item bundles or quantity limitations; Promo features cannot be redeemed for virtual currency (RLM only) | <TODO: Everyone has cons; it's just not yet doc'd!> | Supported only in Unity | <TODO: Everyone has cons; it's just not yet doc'd!> | <TODO: Everyone has cons; it's just not yet doc'd!> | Learning curve is significantly higher, causing greater development times | <TODO: Everyone has cons; it's just not yet doc'd!> | <TODO: Everyone has cons; it's just not yet doc'd!> | <TODO: Everyone has cons; it's just not yet doc'd!> | <TODO: Everyone has cons; it's just not yet doc'd!> | <TODO: Everyone has cons; it's just not yet doc'd!> | There's a demo, but no self-serve signup form | Friends list featured are limited to add, remove, list. No online indicator. No rich presence. No invite/accept system. No block/unblock system. Pretty low-effort, considering all modern games and competitor servicess seem to at least suport invite requests and block systems. [ More Cons ] | |||||||
26 | Is under active development (NOT sunsetting/abandoned) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ Only fluff additions; not fixing incomplete APIs | ||||||
27 | Indie program || Free/cheap tier (if any) | ✓ $15 month lowest tier (1 million API calls) and free during Development | ⭐✓ 100% FREE! | ⭐✓ 100% FREE! (Standalone Package) | ✓ See this AB Starter column >> | ✓ Free up to 1 million players No longer free; no grandfathered pricing | Free tier across all AWS services for new accounts (free trial, but lengthy - 1y?) | ✓ Free under 100,000 Monthly API Calls, 1 dev seat, 3 C#MS. | ✓ "Spark" tier is free for ~100CCU (and other factors) https://firebase.google.com/pricing | ✓ | ? | ✓ | ✓ Free during development (max 10 DAU) | ⭐✓ Flat 5% Rev Share (not an indie program, but extremely indie-friendly) | ✓ | ||||||
28 | Priced by +Actual numbers, if available +Actual meters, if available | Base monthly fee + avg $10 per million API calls (gets lower as usage scales) Starts at $15 Lite and $25 Lite Plus, with full (free) support from the creator, himself. Higher level plans bundle more free API calls, some enterprise features (plus SLA). Bulk+ plans for discounts at higher player levels. | ⭐ n/a Free | https://spacetimedb.com/pricing DB Storage + Hourly | Flat $1,500 per month during development One-time setup fee depending on the services of interest Passthrough infrastructure cost (AWS, GCP) Starts from $0.005 per CCU per hour | Free for up to 1 million players Flat $100/mo + $$ for extras Include up to 50K total player hours using any AGS solution | Usage per service varies | $10 per 1 mln API calls Subscription tiers with Developer Seats and Microservices limits $30 per month Indie Tier available $100 a month minimum tier above 100k API calls Direct Athena Database Access starts at $300 per month Pro support starts at $600 per month | Base ("Spark") is free while under development or low activity, but after that: AWS-like micropricing (confusing) meters x25: Pay-as-you-go pricing varies based on product. Too many meters to list; go here: https://firebase.google.com/pricing | Core Tech Free (all features required to launch an integrated, cross-platform creator community) 10% fee to use our UGC monetization marketplace feature Optional paid premium features including custom SSO and whitelabel mod hub, for studios who want a branded version of mod.io, starting at $0.004/cents a UGC download | ? | Per Snaps/month or Usage (depending on Tier) | Consumed resources (CPU time, DB requests, disk space) https://unisave.cloud/pricing | ⭐ Flat 5% Rev Share Free Hosting | (2022) 17x micro calculations (See "PF Calc" tab) + Separate Azure fees + Hidden "Proxy Fees" | ||||||
29 | Pricing schema clear/easy? Number of price calculations? Some GBaaS can be impossible to predict how much you'll actually pay due to numerous amounts of "meters" running | ✓ 1~2 | ⭐✓ 0 Free | ✓ | ✓ 1~2 | ✓ 1~2 | ? | ✓ 1~2 | ✗ 25 | ✓ 1 | ? | ✓ Easy-to-Use Pricing Calculator Provided within Pricing UI Plan Subscription (if applicable) + Number of Snaps + Usage (up to 6 optional metered services) | ✓ 1~2 | ⭐1 | ✗ Meters x17 + Azure Fees: See above or "PF Calc" tab | ||||||
30 | Lowest price | $15 base/mo for intro plan (incl 1M API calls)* Real-Time Tech Lowest price plan starts at 25$/month *Note that you're likely going to pay more than this if you include realtime services and extras like database calls/stats/leaderboards/etc For detailed pricing, navigate to BC Calculator Tab of this sheet | ⭐Perpetually Free, even for production | ⭐ Free up to a ~few thousand players | One-time setup fee depending on the services of interest Passthrough infrastructure cost (AWS, GCP) Starts from $0.004 per MAU | ⭐ Free up to 1 million players | ? | Free under 100,000 monthly API calls, 1 dev seat, 3 C#MS Then $10 per 1 mln API calls | Free while under limitations (likely not for production, though) | Free | ? | Free (Starter Tier, while in development) | Free below 10 DAU | ⭐ Free when !revenue (flat 5%) | [2020] Free tier: $0 +17 other metered calculations (AWS-like microfees) Standard Tier: $99/mo + 16 other calculations, including time clients are connected (similar to a LAN center) [2019] Indie Tier: $99/mo, up to 100K MAU. Pro tier: $0.008 per MAU, $299 monthly minimum, lower prices at high (500K+) MAU | ||||||
31 | Free, hassle-free prototyping/pre-release (Public terms with self-serve registration) | ✓ Free for 100 DAU, 1000 total users, up to 1M API Calls | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ Has [Start for Free] button, but no public terms before registering | ✓ | Minimum thresholds; 1-year timers for premium (but only for new accounts) | ✓ | ✓ Free (including App Distribution, a free product to distribute test versions of your mobile apps). | ✓ | ✗ Contract only | ❌ No self-serve, ✅ Free to start | ✓ | ✗ Server-side k8s is very difficult to spin up and get started | ✓ | ||||||
32 | CDN (+Binary Storage) Pricing Realistic-use examples below checkbox | ✓ 1+ GB free (per plan level) and 10 GB free transfers, then $0.05 per GB and $0.15 per GB transfer | ✓ Free, but capped @ 400MB/Player | ? | Passthrough | ? | Amazon Cloudfront charges are based on actual usage of the service in five areas: (1) Origin/Inet Data Transfer Out (2) HTTP(S) Reqs (3) Invalidation Reqs (4) Field-Lvl Encryption Reqs (5) Dedicated IP Custom SSL Certs (Cloudfront Distribution) | Free, for all files stored for managed service use (primarily message campaign binaries) | ⭐✓ Free CDN for Firebase Hosting. https://firebase.google.com/docs/hosting | ✓ Free | ? | via the Snapser "Assets" Snap | Feature not provided | Passthrough CDN Support: AWS S3 (+ CloudFront) Azure BunnyCDN GCP | "$0.05/GB Americas (except Brazil) and Europe $0.08/GB All other except Brazil $0.20/GB Brazil" --PF TODO: Who knows CDN rates? Is this good? | ||||||
33 | Free server2server (in-house) API calls (Metered per-server-call, not per-script?) Client >> Server >> Server == 1 API call For example: Client calls backend "Foo1" >> Script 'Foo1" calls "Foo2" >> Since server2server, "Foo2" call is free | First 2 API Calls (client >> server >> server) count as only 1 call. Then >> additional API calls count as 1/2 per | n/a (No authoritative) | ? | ✓ | ? | ? | ✓ | ? | ✓ Free | ? | ✓ Free | ✓ Free | ✓ | n/a Server-to-server calls do not count as an API call, but other billable meters are still running as this is called (CPU time, bandwidth, etc). | ||||||
34 | LIMITATIONS, FAIR-USE | LIMITATIONS, FAIR-USE | LIMITATIONS, FAIR-USE | LIMITATIONS, FAIR-USE | LIMITATIONS, FAIR-USE | LIMITATIONS, FAIR-USE | LIMITATIONS, FAIR-USE | LIMITATIONS, FAIR-USE | LIMITATIONS, FAIR-USE | LIMITATIONS, FAIR-USE | LIMITATIONS, FAIR-USE | LIMITATIONS, FAIR-USE | LIMITATIONS, FAIR-USE | LIMITATIONS, FAIR-USE | LIMITATIONS, FAIR-USE | LIMITATIONS, FAIR-USE | |||||
35 | Multi-title support One account, multiple games | ✓ | ? | ? | ✓ | ? | ? | ✓ | ? | ✓ | ? | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ [2022] I believe this was added within the past year or two, but needs confirmation. I saw some param opts in the Unreal SDK to indicate yes, but unsure if this is experimental/stable. --Xblade | ||||||
36 | Links to fair-use policy limitations and/or EULA/Terms of Service | https://getbraincloud.com/terms-of-service/ | https://dev.epicgames.com/en-US/services/terms ⭐TL;DR: "Use as Intended" (You'll get an email rather than hard-capped if being blatantly abusive) | (1) spacetimedb.com/terms-of-service (2) LICENSE.txt | EULA-bound | ? | ? | https://www.beamable.com/tos | https://firebase.google.com/terms | Terms of use: https://mod.io/terms Acceptable Use: https://mod.io/aup | EULA-bound | https://snapser.com/resources/tos | https://unisave.cloud/legal/terms-of-service-agreement | https://docs.xsolla.cloud/en/latest/eula/index.html | https://playfab.com/limits/ Any Tier: Hard-capped (API calls will auto-fail). Lifting restrictions costs +money/mo. | ||||||
37 | Fair-use policy fairness, 1~10 By comparison to competitors | 9 | ⭐10 Almost no fair-use (Near-limitless) | ? | ? | ? | ⭐10 No Fair-Use (Limitless) | ? | ⭐10 Almost no fair-use (Near-limitless) | ? | ⭐10 Almost no fair-use (Near-limitless) | ⭐10 Almost no fair-use (Near-limitless) | ⭐10 No Fair-Use (Limitless) | 3 | |||||||
38 | API Throttle Timeout Info Rejected if called too many times? Hard throttle (err returned)? Soft throttle (they email you)? | ⭐No throttle timeout | Seems Limitless? | ? | No Limit | ? | ? | 60 seconds timout on any C#MS calls | ? | Cloudflare level rate limiting - dynamic depending on use Hard throttle, with timeout given | ? | Rate limit of 1000 RPS on Starter Tier No rate limits on all other tiers | ⭐No throttle timeout (Soft-capped via hardware resources) | ⭐No throttle timeout (Soft-capped via hardware resources) | [2023] Matchmaking docs recommend once/6s [2022] "Max 10 times per minute" [<2022] This thread says soft throttle is >2m polling. TODO: Is there also a hard throttle? | ||||||
39 | Max API call limitations Per tier, if any. Any and all forms of limitations, hard caps, soft caps, throttling. | No limit | Limitations specified at the bottom of every page for each service in their docs. Eg: https://dev.epicgames.com/docs/services/en-US/GameServices/Lobbies/index.html#usagelimitations From the example link above, the avg appears to be 30~100 requests/min. | ? | No Limit | ? | ? | No limit | ? | No limit | ? | Rate limit of 1000 RPS on Starter Tier No rate limits on all other tiers | Limited by resource usage for the given pricing tier, not the number of API calls | No limit | * Confusing and always-changing price schema (with no grandfathered prices upon changing). * Charges per-minute rather than per-MAU (a con to most, a pro to some). * Breaking bugs have been known to take years to fix with instructions to make an entirely new title to get unstuck. * Hyped features (pub/sub) removed, leaving lackluster messaging support. * No realtime messaging, no socket connections; yet, can only poll max a few times per minute before being throttled. * Hyped pubsub feature vanished. * For serverless scripts, the 1st call after a while will take ~10 seconds to "spin up". This may only apply to pay-as-you-go tier. | ||||||
40 | Bandwidth/Data Processing limitations Per tier, if any | No limit | Seems Limitless? | ? | No Limit | ? | ? | No limit | ? | No limit | ? | No limit | Per tier (but compute tme will likely run out first) | No limit | No limit (Except for CDN) | ||||||
41 | Connections/CCU/MAU Limitations Per tier, if any | ⭐Development Tier is Free but limited to 100 DAU / 1000 max accounts (No limits on other tiers) | Seems Limitless? | ? | No Limit | ? | ? | No limit | ? | No limit | ? | No limit | No limit | ⭐Unlimited CCU: Only soft-capped by hardware resources | Free tier: Max 100k accounts $99/mo (Standard) tier: No max: Includes $400 meter credit, then charged via meter rates (similar to AWS). $1,999/mo (Premium) tier: No max:Includes $8k meter credit, then charged via meter rates (similar to AWS). | ||||||
42 | Polling limitations/cooldowns n/a == Websockets == persistent | RTT uses Realtime Sockets (No limit) | n/a: Realtime Sockets | ? | No Limit | ? | ? | No limit | ? | No limit | ? | No limit | No need to poll (the broadcasting system can ping the client) | n/a: Realtime Sockets | [2023] One call per 6s (from Multiplayer::Matchmaking doc) [2022] iMax 2 calls per 2s (Hard-capped, if !enteprise tier) "Few calls per minute on average" soft cap | ||||||
43 | Supports bursts Allow temp limit exceeds without hard-errors? Eg, a famous streamer plays your game once | ✓ Limitless | ✓ Limitless | ? | No Limit | ? | ? | No limit | ? | No limit | ? | No limit | feature not provided | ✓ Limitless | ✓ Limitless | ||||||
44 | Binary Storage Limitations Honestly, you may want to look into saving binary storage WITHIN a db unless using your own patcher: It's generally cheaper/more-scalable. | 2+ GB free in paid plans, No hard cap, +0.05 per GB, 50GB per file soft cap (adjustable) | ⭐ 400mb/Player | ? | No Limit | ? | ? | No limit | ? | No limit | ? | No limit | feature deliberately not provided (integrate with an Object Storage instead) | No Limit | ⭐ Free Plan: 2GB Global? Standard Plan: 10GB (+$1.40 per +1GB) | ||||||
45 | TECHNICAL, SCOPES | TECHNICAL, SCOPES | TECHNICAL, SCOPES | TECHNICAL, SCOPES | TECHNICAL, SCOPES | TECHNICAL, SCOPES | TECHNICAL, SCOPES | TECHNICAL, SCOPES | TECHNICAL, SCOPES | TECHNICAL, SCOPES | TECHNICAL, SCOPES | TECHNICAL, SCOPES | TECHNICAL, SCOPES | TECHNICAL, SCOPES | TECHNICAL, SCOPES | TECHNICAL, SCOPES | |||||
46 | Native Game Integration Engine Integrations Eg, Unity SDK rather than a generic C# SDK or web-based API? | ✓ Unity SDK ✓ Unreal SDK ✓ Godot SDK ✓ Dart/Flutter SDK ✓ Generic C# SDK ✓ Generic C++ SDK ✓ JavaScript SDK ✓ Java SDK | ✗* | ✓ Unity SDK | ✓ Unity SDK UE4 SDK Custom C++ SDK | ? | ? | ✓ Unity SDK ✓ Unreal | ✓ Unity SDK | ✓ Unity SDK ✓ UE4 SDK ✓ UE5 SDK ✓ GameMaker SDK | ? | ✓ Unity SDK ✓ Unreal SDK ✓ Cocos SDK ✓ Godot SDK ✓ Roblox SDK ✓ Android SDKs ✓ iOS SDKs ✓ Web SDKs | ✓ Unity (Asset Store page) | ✓ Unity SDK ✓ Unreal SDK ✓ Generic C++ SDK ✓ Generic C# SDK ✓ JavaScript SDK | ✓ | ||||||
47 | Hosted Backend Host | AWS (us-east-1) | ? | ? | ? | ? | AWS | AWS (us-west-2) | ? | AWS / Cloudflare | ? | AWS | Digital Ocean | Free Hosting: Private Cloud running on bare metal servers Self-Hosted: Supports AWS, Azure, GCP, DO, private cloud. Can run anywhere Kubernetes runs | [2022] This is becoming more-and-more Azure, now that they are owned by Microsoft. AWS (us-west-2) / Azure (USW2) | ||||||
48 | Backend Engine | Rhino JS + Some ES6 Javascript Support [Extremely watered down] | ? | ? | Microservices on AWS or GCP | ? | ? | Scala microservice architecture running on AWS | ? | ? | ? | Go, Kubernetes | C#, Mono, Kubernetes | NodeJS micro-services on Kubernetes | Vanilla JS + Azure/AWS | ||||||
49 | Direct NoSQL access Proprietary (closed/limited) access? Direct/open access? | ✗ (proprietary - but rich api, full json support) | ✗ (proprietary/closed) | ? | ✗ | ? | ? | ✓ MongoDB | ? | ? | ? | ✓ SQL Access to the Analytics warehouse ✗ no direct access to the DBs for other snaps | ✓ ArangoDB | ⭐✓ | ✗ | ||||||
50 | Supports REST API 3rd-party access API access points w/separate scopes? Eg, stats/profiles for fan sites to use | ✓ | ✗ | ? | ✓ | ? | ? | ✓ | ? | ✓ | ? | ✓ | not yet, but planned | ✓ | ✗ (supported, but no separate scopes) | ||||||
51 | Webhook Support | ✓ | ? | ✗ | ✓ | ? | ? | ✓ Custom microservice apis | ? | ✓ | ? | ✓ | not yet, but planned | ✓ | ✓ [2022] TODO: Is this still true? | ||||||
52 | Source Available? ✓ FOSS? ✓ Module? ✓ License? | ✓ Source Available client sdks Proprietary License | ✗ | ✓ Source Available client sdks, server, client Proprietary License Converts to AGPL May 2030 | ? | ? | n/a Nothing to view! GameTech is just a collection of docs recommending particular services | ✓ Source Available client sdks Proprietary License | ✓ Source available client sdks Proprietary License | ⭐✓ FOSS client sdks MIT License | ? | ? | ⭐✓ FOSS client sdks MIT License | ✓* Source Available (*Requires EULA to view) Most everything has Proprietary License | ✓ Open Source SDKs | ||||||
53 | Intellisense / Typings / Autofill For cloud script online IDE | Multi-pane Online IDE with Intellisense! ✓ | n/a (No authoritative scripts) | ⭐✓ Uses Cecil to explicitly generate models and db functions on-the-fly | N/A (Remote Edit)* | ? | ? | ✗ No online IDE, Author inside of Unity, Unreal, C# IDE | ? | ? | ? | ? | Cloud code is just C# code in your Unity project | ? | ✗ No online IDE | ||||||
54 | Dashboard/SDK updates, 1~10 | 9/10 ^September 2023 Update: Massive DashBoard overhaul | ?/10 | 10/10 SDK Updates - very active | 10/10 | ?/10 | ?/10 | 10/10 - Constantly updated and in development | ?/10 | 10/10 - Constantly updated and in development | ? | ?/10 | 3/10 Updates seemingly halted | [2023] (Unity + Backend?) 10/10 Ships updates 2x/wk; major updates 1x/mo (Unreal) 10/10 for update schedules 4/10 for updates we want: ----------------- Updates for new features, but 0 refinement to much-needed upgrades to low-effort modules. Eg: * There are still no updates to the "lazy Blueprint models" that contain only 1 prop of json (no explicit typings) for tons of models. * There are no parsing utils between CPP + BP models, wasting time to reinvent the wheel when using both CPP+BP models. [2017] 3 | |||||||
55 | Overall server/SDK expected feats/stability, 1~10 | 9/10 | 5/10 | 6/10 | 10 | ? | ?/10 | 9/10 | ?/10 | 10/10 | ? | 9/10 | 4/10 Stability seemed to drop in 2025 | 6/10 | |||||||
56 | Well-suited for MMO dev? Deeply authoritative with realtime scripting. Name example(s), if publicly known. | ✗ | ✗ | ? | ✓ In theory | ? | ? | ✗ | ✗ | ? | ? | ✓ | ✓ THE BEST due to the extensibility of the platform Needs to be combined with a realtime service, such as Photon. Example: Engine Evolution (2M registered players) | ✗⌛ Awaiting docs, Awaiting MMO using XBE for proof of features in-use | ✓ PF staff claims "multiple MMO's rely on PF as a backend" (awaiting src). Architecture is "replicable authoritative game logic server that caches & utilizes PF as a backend for inventory, Catalog & Networking. | ||||||
57 | Explicit Known/System Models in SDK Do you need to create your own models? | ✗ My #1 feat request --Xblade | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ? | ? | ? | ✓? Probably | ✓ | ? | ✗ | ✓ | ||||||
58 | Auto-Generated Custom Models Will the SDK do it for me? | ✗ | ✗ | ✓🌟 Auto-generates new models on-the-fly with [Attribute] updates via Cecil | ? | ? | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ? | ✓⭐ Generates from openapi-like schema | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ||||||
59 | CORE FEATURES | CORE FEATURES | CORE FEATURES | CORE FEATURES | CORE FEATURES | CORE FEATURES | CORE FEATURES | CORE FEATURES | CORE FEATURES | CORE FEATURES | CORE FEATURES | CORE FEATURES | CORE FEATURES | CORE FEATURES | CORE FEATURES | CORE FEATURES | |||||
60 | Stats/Leaderboards w/dashboard | ✓ Leaderboards ✓ Dashboard | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ | ✓? Probably | ? | ✓ | ✓ Open-source leaderboard | ✓ Leaderboards ✓ Dashboard | ? | ✓ Leaderboards ✓ Dashboard | in development | ✓ Leaderboards ✓ Dashboard | ✓ Stats* ✓ Dashboard* ✓ Can delete leaderboard (as of 2023) | ||||||
61 | Virtual Items/Goods w/dashboard | ✓ Virtual Items/Goods ✓ Dashboard | ? | ✗ | ✓ | ✓? Probably | ? | ✓ | ? | ✓ Virtual Items/Goods ✓ Dashboard | ? | ✓ Virtual Items/Goods ✓ Dashboard | not yet | ✓ Virtual Items/Goods ✓ Dashboard | ✓* | ||||||
62 | Native Backups/Snapshots If !native, at least has a wrapper | ✓ Snapshot of configuration captured before deployments. 1-click restore. | ? | ✗ | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ✓ | ? | ✓ | ✗ No native feature ✓ Unreal Marketplace has a plugin | ||||||
63 | Environments eg, dev >> staging >> production | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ 2 stages | ✓ | ✓? Probably | ? | ✓ | ? | ✓ | ? | ✓ | ✓ | ✓* | ✗ | ||||||
64 | Friends System Add/remove? Request/accept system? Socket notifications on requests? | ✓ Add/remove ✗ Request/accept ^^Can be implemented using RTT events ✓ socket notifications ✓ online/status indicator ✓ rich presence ✗ No block/unblock ✗ No Discord integration | ✓ Doc | ✗ | ? | ? | ? | ✓ | ? | Follow Creator feature | ? | ✓ | not yet | ✓ | ✓ Add/remove ✗ No request/accept ✗ No socket notifications ✗ No online/status indicator ✗ No rich presence ✗ No block/unblock ✗ No Discord integration | ||||||
65 | Realtime Services w/Dedicated Servers RPCs, deployment, containerization, etc | ? | ✓ Doc | ✓ | ? | ? | ✓ | ✓ | ? | N/A | ? | ✓ | ? | ✓ | ✓ | ||||||
66 | BONUS FEATURES | BONUS FEATURES | BONUS FEATURES | BONUS FEATURES | BONUS FEATURES | BONUS FEATURES | BONUS FEATURES | BONUS FEATURES | BONUS FEATURES | BONUS FEATURES | BONUS FEATURES | BONUS FEATURES | BONUS FEATURES | BONUS FEATURES | BONUS FEATURES | BONUS FEATURES | |||||
67 | Exclusive GBaaS Community Perks Aside from pingable, active devs If sponsored - or I get something out of this - I'll let you know --Xblade | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | While developing: First 25k HAU FREE (Practically unlimited dev time) | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | While developing: $0/mo platform fee Free auth snap | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ||||||
68 | Multiple characters (bound to 1 account) | Can be done via parent-child apps | ? | ✗ | ✗? | ✗? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ⭐✓ Personas | ✓ Characters | ||||||
69 | Facton/Reputation System | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ via the Trackables snap | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ||||||
70 | End-of-Life (EOL) / Sunset / Legacy Feats How to keep your game alive post-death? | 🤔 Considering this | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ||||||
71 | QOL, DOCS, SUPPORT | QOL, DOCS, SUPPORT | QOL, DOCS, SUPPORT | QOL, DOCS, SUPPORT | QOL, DOCS, SUPPORT | QOL, DOCS, SUPPORT | QOL, DOCS, SUPPORT | QOL, DOCS, SUPPORT | QOL, DOCS, SUPPORT | QOL, DOCS, SUPPORT | QOL, DOCS, SUPPORT | QOL, DOCS, SUPPORT | QOL, DOCS, SUPPORT | QOL, DOCS, SUPPORT | QOL, DOCS, SUPPORT | QOL, DOCS, SUPPORT | |||||
72 | Has web interface Dashboard/Portal | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ | ? | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ console.firebase.google.com | ✓ mod.io/g/GAME-NAME/admin/settings | ? | ✓ | ✓ unisave.cloud/app | ✓ | ⭐✓ | ||||||
73 | Dashboard/portal ease-of-use, 1~10 | 9/10 | New? 3/10* Past init? 7/10 | n/a - no portal | ?/10 | ?/10 | ?/10 | 9/10 | ?/10 | 9/10 | ? | ?/10 | 7/10 | ⭐10/10 | |||||||
74 | Has built-in (step-thru) portal debugger | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ? | ? | ? | ✗ not in the portal Supports IDE step through debugging | ? | N/A | ? | ✗ | ✓ | ✗ There is no cloud script available via the portal. (However, if using new Azure Functions CloudScripts, can access a step debugger via VS Code integration) | |||||||
75 | Online docs quality, 0~10 via their website/wiki. (0 for non-existing) | 9/10 | 3/10 | ? | ?/10 | ?/10 | ?/10 | Unity: 8/10 Unreal: 2/10 (Unreal docs are very new) | ?/10 | 10/10 | ? | ⭐10/10 | 6/10 [Q3 2024] 📢 I'm personally updating these 40h/wk; prepare for epic docs! --Xblade 3/10 [2022] | ⭐Unity: 8/10 ⚠️Unreal: 0/10 (Dupe modules, many completely removed, years behind) | |||||||
76 | Inline docs quality, 0~10 via their SDK within the actual code (0 for non-existing) | 8/10 | ? | ? | ?/10 | ?/10 | ?/10 | 8/10 | ?/10 | 10/10 | ? | ✗ | 9 | 2/10 (Mostly redundant) | |||||||
77 | Docs/Tutorials up-to-date, 0~10 (0 for non-existing) | 9/10 *New docs came with Version 5.0 https://brainclouddocs.netlify.app/learn/introduction | 3/10 | ? | ?/10 | ?/10 | ?/10 | 6/10 | ?/10 | 10/10 | ? | 7/10 | 9 | Unity: 8/10 ⚠️0 for Unreal | |||||||
78 | Demo/Tutorials quality, 0~10 For memo: Did the demo have a native SDK for your engine? (0 for non-existing) | 10/10 Probably the first Service to offer free online courses https://bootcamp.braincloudservers.com/ | Unreal Demo: ? Unity Demo: None C# WFP (Non-Unity) Demo: 7 | ? | ?/10 | ?/10 | ?/10 | 7/10 | ?/10 | 10/10 | ? | 9 | 5 | Unity: 6/10 ⚠️Unreal: 0/10 | |||||||
79 | Customer service, 0~10 Response time, accessibility, reliability, QoL (0 for non-existing) | 10/10 Direct chat support even on free tier with fast responses (Replies during Canada business hours) | 10/10 - Fast answers in Discord 1/10 - Community Forums Only | ? | ?/10 | ?/10 | ?/10 | 8/10 | ?/10 | ⭐10/10 | ? | ⭐10/10 | 10/10 Live Discord chat, quick responses, fast action | [2022] * For cloud script (raw Azure) = 0. Note that any cloud script/Azure issues will not be handled by PF. Average Azure ticket reply is 5-days with initial bot auto-followups and low-level English. [2022] Has Discord support for any tier, but unofficial - some questions don't get answered (esp if it comes to Unreal/Azure questions). This is better for community Q+A, but a community of Unreal devs don't really exist here. Better for Unity/C# devs. [2017] * For non-cloud-script = 5. (Could be higher in 2022+) | |||||||
80 | Porting tools from other services? | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ? | ? | ? | ✗ | ? | ✗ | ? | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | |||||||
81 | REALTIME, SOCKET, RPC | REALTIME, SOCKET, RPC | REALTIME, SOCKET, RPC | REALTIME, SOCKET, RPC | REALTIME, SOCKET, RPC | REALTIME, SOCKET, RPC | REALTIME, SOCKET, RPC | REALTIME, SOCKET, RPC | REALTIME, SOCKET, RPC | REALTIME, SOCKET, RPC | REALTIME, SOCKET, RPC | REALTIME, SOCKET, RPC | REALTIME, SOCKET, RPC | REALTIME, SOCKET, RPC | REALTIME, SOCKET, RPC | REALTIME, SOCKET, RPC | |||||
82 | Realtime gameplay support Beyond just messaging systems | ✓* Requires a Plus Plan Minimum Price 25$/month (WebSocket) | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ | ? | Multiple solutions including Amazon GameLift, Amazon Ec2, Fleet IQ. Flex Match and containers ECS and Amazon Fargate, | ✗ | ? | ✓ | ? | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ | ✗ Most SDK modules are missing socket events ✗ OLD matchmaking modules had it, but not new (need to poll matchmaking updates every 6s) ✓ Lobby has 2 socket subs (!) Supports SignalR, but completely detached from PF and extremely complex to implement. Similar to Azure cloud scripts, expect 0 support from PF staff to help you with this. Very minimal documentation to get this setup. Underwhelming. | ||||||
83 | Realtime messaging system (eg, Sockets - not polling) | ✓ | ? (Probably) | ✓ | ✓ | ? | Partial via Amazon API Gateway | ✓ | ? | ✓ Yes | ? | ✓ | ✓ ServerSentEvents protocol | ✓ | ✗ | ||||||
84 | ANALYTICS, COLLABORATION | ANALYTICS, COLLABORATION | ANALYTICS, COLLABORATION | ANALYTICS, COLLABORATION | ANALYTICS, COLLABORATION | ANALYTICS, COLLABORATION | ANALYTICS, COLLABORATION | ANALYTICS, COLLABORATION | ANALYTICS, COLLABORATION | ANALYTICS, COLLABORATION | ANALYTICS, COLLABORATION | ANALYTICS, COLLABORATION | ANALYTICS, COLLABORATION | ANALYTICS, COLLABORATION | ANALYTICS, COLLABORATION | ANALYTICS, COLLABORATION | |||||
85 | Collaboration Support Invite others via email | ✓ | ? | ? | ✓ | ? | ? | ✓ | ? | ✓ | ? | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ | [2022] ⚠️For Azure Functions (cloud scripts), collaboration is a nightmareish experience - not a single preson at PF knows how to set this up. You will likely end up giving Admin to your collaborators - be sure you trust them. [For Azure] ✗ [For Non-Azure PF] ✓ "You've always been able to invite others to join your studio by email, and we have a full Role model for controlling what you give them access to." --PF | ||||||
86 | Collaboration Scopes / User Mgmt Eg, read-only, access to x or y features only, access to edit... | ✓ | ? | ? | ✓ | ? | ? | ✓ | ? | ✓ | ? | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ "Yes, see above. We've had a Role system for all permissions for years." --PF | ||||||
87 | CCU Analytics Hourly? Daily? Weekly? Monthly? | ✓ Hourly (via RTT CCx) ✓ Daily ✓ Weekly ✓ Monthly | ? Hourly ? Daily ? Weekly ? Monthly | ? | ✓ | ? | ? Hourly ? Daily ? Weekly ? Monthly | ✓ | ? Hourly ? Daily ? Weekly ? Monthly | ✓ | ? | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ Hourly ✓ Daily ✓ Weekly ✓ Monthly | Non-Native: "Since the core service doesn't use socket connections, we don't have a CCU measure. You can use events as a proxy to compute this." --PF | ||||||
88 | MAU Analytics | ✓ (new in 5.3) | ? | ? | ✓ | ? | ? | ✓ | ? | ✓ | ? | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ "Yes, multiple reports are pre-generated for the title on a daily and monthly basis, including MAU analytics." --PF | ||||||
89 | Player Session Durations Stats between users logging in<>out | ✓ (new in 5.2 <- apps must call logout()) | ? | ? | ✓ Data Available Requires 3P DW | ? | ? | ✓ | ? | ✗ | ? | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | Dependent on client SDK support. Works in Unity, but not all engines/languages. | ||||||
90 | Analytics TTL How long are stats retained for? | ✓ Engagement analytics TTL is 30 days, Purchase analytics is forever. | ? | ? | ✓ | ? | ? | ⭐Indefinite | ? | ⭐Indefinite | ? | ⭐Indefinite | ⭐Indefinite | ⭐Indefinite | "By default, 30 days, but you can adjust that to whatever you need." --PF | ||||||
91 | Retention Analytics (Funnels) | ✓ Both Classic and Rolling Retension | ? | ? | ✓ Data Available Requires 3P DW | ? | ? | ✓ | ? | ✓ | ? | ✓ | ✗ | ✓* | By default can generate a retention report tracking D1-7, D14, and D30 across a cohort, with the ability to generate additional custom reports | ||||||
92 | Players by Country | ✓ | ? | ? | ✓ Data Available Requires 3P DW | ? | ? | ✓ | ? | ✓ | ? | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ "Yes, player profile contains country for user's first login, and you can get current country from every login event." --PF | ||||||
93 | Players by Device | Portal shows players by device Platform, not specific device types. | ? | ? | ✓ Data Available Requires 3P DW | ? | ? | ✓ | ? | ✓ | ? | ✓ | ✗ | ? | ✓ "Device report on by default, if using their SDKs" --PF | ||||||
94 | Business Intelligence (BI) Big Data Analytics on steroids | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✓? Probably | ✗? Probably Not | ? | ✗ | ? | ✗ | ✓? Probably | ✓ +Snap ($30/mo) Includes AI querying | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ||||||
95 | AI/AGENT READINESS | AI/AGENT READINESS | AI/AGENT READINESS | AI/AGENT READINESS | AI/AGENT READINESS | AI/AGENT READINESS | AI/AGENT READINESS | AI/AGENT READINESS | AI/AGENT READINESS | AI/AGENT READINESS | AI/AGENT READINESS | AI/AGENT READINESS | AI/AGENT READINESS | AI/AGENT READINESS | AI/AGENT READINESS | AI/AGENT READINESS | |||||
96 | Code *easily* editable/deployable/debuggabl via IDE with SDK for local agentic flows (Cursor)? | ✗ | n/a - No cloud scripts | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓⚠️ Pure Azure - not PF | ||||||
97 | Docs AI chat? | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ AI Chat | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ | ✓⚠️ Pure Azure - not PF | ||||||
98 | Docs AI search (fast+reliable+relative)? | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ Embedded in AI Chat | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ | ✓⚠️ Pure Azure - not PF | ||||||
99 | Create/update cloud scripts via agent? | ✗ | n/a - No cloud scripts | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ Limited | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✓⚠️ Pure Azure - not PF | ||||||
100 | AI Analytics Query Tool | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ Included with Business Intelligence (BI) Snap | ✗ | ✗ | ✓⚠️ Pure Azure - not PF |