Nakama vs Waterfall
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 Waterfall 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 Velocity
Feature Nakama Waterfall Category Game Servers Game Servers License Apache-2.0 MIT Language Go Shell Setup difficulty Medium Medium Min. RAM 512 MB 512 MB Deployment docker, kubernetes, binary bare-metal, docker GitHub stars ★ 13,121 ★ 751 First released 2017 2016 Replaces PlayFab, Firebase BungeeCord
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 Waterfall if… Released under the MIT license First-class Docker support for quick deployment Written in Shell Lightweight — runs in 512 MB RAM Waterfall details
Frequently asked questions Is Nakama or Waterfall 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 Waterfall free and open-source? Yes. Nakama is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Waterfall under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Nakama and Waterfall with Docker? Nakama: yes. Waterfall: yes.