Phaser
Game Engines & FrameworksFast HTML5 game framework for browser games you host yourself
Replaces Construct, GameMaker
Best No-Database Game Engines & Frameworks for self-hosting
The 5 best No-Database game engines & frameworks you can self-host, ranked by community traction.
melonJS
Game Engines & FrameworksLightweight HTML5 game engine for browser games
Replaces GameMaker, Construct
EmulatorJS
Game Engines & FrameworksSelf-hosted in-browser retro game emulator
Replaces RetroArch web
Excalibur
Game Engines & FrameworksTypeScript-first 2D game engine for the web
Replaces GameMaker, Construct
mcrcon
Game Engines & FrameworksCommand-line RCON client for Minecraft servers
Replaces In-game server console
No apps match these filters.
At a glance
| App | Deploy effort | Difficulty | Min. RAM | License | ★ Stars |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Phaser | Read-the-docs project | Medium | 128 MB | MIT | 40,470 |
| melonJS | Read-the-docs project | Medium | 128 MB | MIT | 6,412 |
| EmulatorJS | Under-an-hour setup | Easy | 256 MB | GPL-3.0 | 4,265 |
| Excalibur | Read-the-docs project | Medium | 128 MB | BSD-2-Clause | 2,353 |
| mcrcon | Read-the-docs project | Easy | 16 MB | Zlib | 1,094 |
Quick picks
- Most adopted: Phaser (40,470 GitHub stars).
- Lightest footprint: mcrcon (from 16 MB RAM, against 256 MB for the heaviest here).
- Licensing: 2 of 5 use MIT; check the rest individually if you plan to modify and redistribute.
Every option here is open-source and self-hostable, tagged No-Database within the game engines & frameworks category. Deploy effort is graded from published container recipes, not vendor claims — see the methodology.