Comparison

How Asobi compares to other open-source game backend platforms.

Feature Matrix

Feature	Asobi	Nakama	Colyseus	PlayFab
Runtime	BEAM (Erlang/OTP)	Go	Node.js	Cloud
Authentication	Built-in	Built-in	Plugin	Built-in
Player Management	Built-in	Built-in	Manual	Built-in
Real-Time Multiplayer	WebSocket	WebSocket	WebSocket	WebSocket
Server-Authoritative Game Loop	Built-in (tick-based)	Lua scripting	Room-based	CloudScript
Matchmaking	Query-based	Query-based	Manual	Built-in
Leaderboards	ETS + PostgreSQL	Built-in	Manual	Built-in
Virtual Economy	Wallets, store, inventory	IAP validation	Manual	Built-in
Friends / Groups	Built-in	Built-in	Manual	Built-in
Chat	Built-in (channels)	Built-in	Manual	Manual
Tournaments	Built-in	Built-in	Manual	Manual
Cloud Saves	Built-in	Storage API	Manual	Built-in
Notifications	Built-in	Built-in	Manual	Built-in
Background Jobs	Shigoto (built-in)	Manual	Manual	Scheduled tasks
Admin Dashboard	Arizona LiveView	Built-in	Monitor	Portal
Database	PostgreSQL (Kura ORM)	CockroachDB	MongoDB / custom	Managed
Self-Hosted	Yes	Yes	Yes	No

Runtime Characteristics

Concern	Asobi (BEAM)	Nakama (Go)	Colyseus (Node.js)
Garbage Collection	Per-process -- isolated per match	Stop-the-world -- affects all matches	Stop-the-world -- affects all rooms
Fault Tolerance	OTP supervision -- crashed matches restart	Panic recovery -- manual	Process crash -- manual
Hot Code Upgrade	Native -- zero-downtime deploys	Restart required	Restart required
Pub/Sub	`pg` module -- cluster-native	Built-in + optional Redis	Built-in (single node)
In-Memory State	ETS -- zero serialization	In-process maps	In-process objects
Clustering	Distributed Erlang -- built in	etcd / Consul	Redis (presence only)
Scheduling	Preemptive -- fair across all processes	Cooperative goroutines	Single-threaded event loop
Connection Density	~500K+ per node	~100K per node	~10K per node

When to Choose Asobi

You want a single deployable with auth, matchmaking, economy, social, and real-time multiplayer
You need fault-tolerant game sessions that survive crashes without losing state
You want hot-reloadable Lua so bug-fixes ship without kicking players
You want zero-downtime deploys for game logic updates
You're building for high concurrency (many simultaneous matches/rooms)
You prefer self-hosted Apache-2 over closed managed clouds, with a real exit guarantee (see exit.md)
You want a PostgreSQL-backed system with a proper ORM

Don't know Erlang?

You don't need to. Use asobi_lua — the same engine packaged as a Docker image with Lua scripting. Write your match logic in a .lua file, docker compose up, you're running. The Erlang is underneath but you never touch it.

The Erlang-library path (depending on asobi directly via rebar.config) is for teams that already write OTP and want to compose asobi with the rest of their release.

When to Choose Something Else

You need sub-3ms UDP latency for a twitch FPS / fighting game / racer. Pair asobi with a UDP relay, or use Photon Fusion / Quantum for the physics.
You need deep LiveOps tooling (A/B testing, segmentation, push campaigns) today. PlayFab still leads here, though it's an operational/trust trade-off post-v2 migration.
You need a fully managed cloud and are willing to pay cloud-scale prices. Our managed tier opens later in 2026; until then, self-host.
You're building a single-player game that only needs analytics and IAP. Firebase Analytics + a simple store validator is cheaper than any backend here.

Client SDKs

First-class SDKs for Godot, Defold, Unity, Unreal, JavaScript/TypeScript, Dart/Flutter, Flame — see the asobi_lua README for the table.

Migrating from another backend?

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