SHSelfHostIndex

ArchiSteamFarm vs Terraforming Mars

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?
AR ArchiSteamFarm Tool for farming Steam cards from multiple accounts VS TE Terraforming Mars Implementation of Terraforming Mars board game
FeatureArchiSteamFarmTerraforming Mars
CategoryGame ServersGame Servers
LicenseApache-2.0GPL-3.0
LanguageC#TypeScript
Setup difficultyMediumEasy
Min. RAM256 MB50 MB
Deploymentdocker, binarybare-metal
GitHub stars★ 13,601★ 939
First released20152023
ReplacesIdle Master—

Why pick each one

Choose ArchiSteamFarm if…

  • Released under the Apache-2.0 license
  • First-class Docker support for quick deployment
  • Mature project with 13.6k GitHub stars
  • Written in C#
ArchiSteamFarm details

Choose Terraforming Mars if…

  • Released under the GPL-3.0 license
  • Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
  • Written in TypeScript
  • Tiny footprint — runs in 50 MB RAM
Terraforming Mars details

Frequently asked questions

Is ArchiSteamFarm or Terraforming Mars better?

Neither is universally better. ArchiSteamFarm has the larger community, while Terraforming Mars is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.

Are ArchiSteamFarm and Terraforming Mars free and open-source?

Yes. ArchiSteamFarm is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Terraforming Mars under GPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run ArchiSteamFarm and Terraforming Mars with Docker?

ArchiSteamFarm: yes. Terraforming Mars: check the project docs for container support.

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