A Dark Room vs Mindustry

A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted game servers options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.

Not the right match-up?
FeatureA Dark RoomMindustry
CategoryGame ServersGame Servers
LicenseMPL-2.0GPL-3.0
LanguageJavaScriptJava
Setup difficultyMediumEasy
Min. RAM512 MB512 MB
Deploymentbare-metaldocker, bare-metal, binary, source
GitHub stars★ 8,210★ 28,532
First released20232017
ReplacesFactorio

Why pick each one

Choose A Dark Room if…

  • Released under the MPL-2.0 license
  • Mature project with 8.2k GitHub stars
  • Written in JavaScript
  • Lightweight — runs in 512 MB RAM
A Dark Room details

Choose Mindustry if…

  • Lightweight server
  • Large active community
Mindustry details

Frequently asked questions

Is A Dark Room or Mindustry better?

Mindustry is the stronger all-round pick: it has both the larger community and the simpler easy setup. Consider A Dark Room if its specific feature set fits your needs better.

Are A Dark Room and Mindustry free and open-source?

Yes. A Dark Room is licensed under MPL-2.0 and Mindustry under GPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run A Dark Room and Mindustry with Docker?

A Dark Room: check the project docs for container support. Mindustry: yes.

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