Side by side
Agones vs Rivet
Both stand on game server orchestration software. Which one you can start free with, which one lets you read the code, and what each costs once you pay.
Free plan APILinuxSelf-hosted
Choose Agones if you need a free, self-hosted way to manage dedicated multiplayer game servers on Kubernetes and can integrate its client SDK. Look elsewhere if you need a managed deployment model or cannot take responsibility for cluster configuration and security.
Visit Agones Free plan APILinuxSelf-hosted+1
Visit Rivet The facts
| Agones | Rivet | |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Open source | Not published | Not published |
| Runs on | API, Linux, Self-hosted | API, Linux, Self-hosted, Web |
| Lowest paid plan | Free or on request | Hobby: $20 a month |
| Plans published | 1 | 4 |
| Maker | Not published | Not published |
| Website | agones.dev | rivet.dev |
| On game server orchestration software | #3 of 23 | #7 of 23 |
Agones: what it does well
- Free and open source, with a self-hosted deployment model.
- Updates fleets without stopping servers that have active players.
- Includes autoscaling, metrics, and log aggregation.
- Supports SDKs for Unreal Engine, Unity, and several languages.
- Lists GKE, AKS, Amazon EKS, and Minikube as supported environments.
What to know first
- Game servers must integrate an Agones client SDK.
- Linux arm64 and Windows amd64 support are alpha.
- Security depends on correct cluster configuration.
- The project recommends clusters no larger than 500 nodes as a rule of thumb.