Curse of War vs Unciv

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

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FeatureCurse of WarUnciv
CategoryGame ServersGame Servers
LicenseGPL-3.0MPL-2.0
LanguageCKotlin
Setup difficultyEasyEasy
Min. RAM32 MB512 MB
Deploymentbare-metal, binarybare-metal, binary, docker
GitHub stars★ 361★ 11,071
First released20132018
Replacescommercial RTS gamesCivilization V

Why pick each one

Choose Curse of War if…

  • Released under the GPL-3.0 license
  • Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
  • Written in C
  • Tiny footprint — runs in 32 MB RAM
Curse of War details

Choose Unciv if…

  • Released under the MPL-2.0 license
  • Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
  • First-class Docker support for quick deployment
  • Mature project with 11.1k GitHub stars
Unciv details

Frequently asked questions

Is Curse of War or Unciv better?

Neither is universally better. Unciv has the larger community; both share a easy setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.

Are Curse of War and Unciv free and open-source?

Yes. Curse of War is licensed under GPL-3.0 and Unciv under MPL-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run Curse of War and Unciv with Docker?

Curse of War: check the project docs for container support. Unciv: yes.

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