Nakama vs Sponge
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?
Compare Nakama with
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Compare Sponge with
choose an app… Mindustry Lichess OpenRCT2 papermc-docker ArchiSteamFarm Cytopia Note - games browser alt 2048 Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead Paper Note - PaperMC server alt Spigot Unciv
Feature Nakama Sponge Category Game Servers Game Servers License Apache-2.0 MIT Language Go Java Setup difficulty Medium Medium Min. RAM 512 MB 2,048 MB Deployment docker, kubernetes, binary bare-metal GitHub stars ★ 13,121 ★ 434 First released 2017 2014 Replaces PlayFab, Firebase Bukkit
Why pick each one
Choose Nakama if… Released under the Apache-2.0 license First-class Docker support for quick deployment Kubernetes-ready with Helm charts available Mature project with 13.1k GitHub stars Nakama details Choose Sponge if… Released under the MIT license Written in Java Sponge details
Frequently asked questions Is Nakama or Sponge better? Neither is universally better. Nakama has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Nakama and Sponge free and open-source? Yes. Nakama is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Sponge under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Nakama and Sponge with Docker? Nakama: yes. Sponge: check the project docs for container support.