SHSelfHostIndex

PixiJS vs Retrom

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

Not the right match-up?
PI PixiJS Fast 2D WebGL rendering engine for browser games VS RE Retrom Self-hosted game library server with launcher clients
FeaturePixiJSRetrom
CategoryGame Engines & FrameworksGame Engines & Frameworks
LicenseMITGPL-3.0
LanguageTypeScriptTypeScript
Setup difficultyMediumMedium
Min. RAM128 MB512 MB
Deploymentsourcedocker, source
GitHub stars★ 47,976★ 2,032
First released20132024
ReplacesAdobe Animate runtimePlaynite, Steam library

Why pick each one

Choose PixiJS if…

  • Released under the MIT license
  • Mature project with 48k GitHub stars
  • Written in TypeScript
  • Tiny footprint — runs in 128 MB RAM
PixiJS details

Choose Retrom if…

  • Cross-device sync
  • Modern stack
Retrom details

Frequently asked questions

Is PixiJS or Retrom better?

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

Are PixiJS and Retrom free and open-source?

Yes. PixiJS is licensed under MIT and Retrom under GPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run PixiJS and Retrom with Docker?

PixiJS: check the project docs for container support. Retrom: yes.

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