Software Alternatives & Reviews

JMonkeyEngine VS SDL

Compare JMonkeyEngine VS SDL and see what are their differences

JMonkeyEngine logo JMonkeyEngine

What is jMonkeyEngine? It's a free, open source game engine, made especially for Java game developers who want to create 3D games using modern technology.

SDL logo SDL

Simple DirectMedia Layer is a cross-platform multimedia library designed to provide low level...
  • JMonkeyEngine Landing page
    Landing page //
    2021-09-20
  • SDL Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-09-26

JMonkeyEngine videos

A Closer Look at the jMonkeyEngine

More videos:

  • Review - jMonkeyEngine -- The Others Game Engine Series
  • Review - jMonkeyEngine3 Engine Showcase

SDL videos

Useful review features in SDL Trados Studio

More videos:

  • Review - Reviewing translations in SDL Trados Studio 2019
  • Review - Doral SDL-A All-Season TIRE REVIEW + SNOW

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to JMonkeyEngine and SDL)
Game Engine
58 58%
42% 42
Game Development
58 58%
42% 42
3D Game Engine
57 57%
43% 43
Localization
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare JMonkeyEngine and SDL

JMonkeyEngine Reviews

The Top 10 Video Game Engines
Right off the bat, the team boldly claims that using their engine will be easier than utilization and outright learning C++, which is true. C++ can be a hang-up for many not familiar with programming, and jMonkeyEngine can be a great option for those who want to create games without really breaking your back trying to learn a whole new language.

SDL Reviews

We have no reviews of SDL yet.
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Social recommendations and mentions

JMonkeyEngine might be a bit more popular than SDL. We know about 23 links to it since March 2021 and only 18 links to SDL. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

JMonkeyEngine mentions (23)

  • Unity's Licensing Changes: Discover Stride a Community-Driven Open-Source Engine
    > Unfortunately, this is yet another open source game engine with too small a user base. I wonder why some engines are seemingly destined for success and others... aren't. Godot got really big, despite a somewhat similar feature set: https://godotengine.org/ (really nice 2D support, 3D rendering was worse until version 4, GDScript has both a nice iteration speed but also has gotten some criticism, while C# was a... - Source: Hacker News / 8 months ago
  • My recommendation on which language and libraries to use for the engine.
    There more `bare-metal` engines like https://jmonkeyengine.org/ (well it is not C++, it is Java based)... Source: about 1 year ago
  • [Hobby] Need help implement Continuous Collision Detection in a classic top-down multiplayer space shooter
    This project develops a cross-platform Subspace client and server written in Java. It was developed from scratch on the idea of extensibility and modularity. The server is based on modules/frameworks highly optimized for scaled, networked, grid-based, infinite world physics. The client is based on the JMonkeyEngine, a minimalistic modern developer friendly, open source, game engine. Source: about 1 year ago
  • Godot 4.0 Stable
    > Godot is one of those pinnacle FOSS projects that just totally impresses me, especially given the state its in now, with 4.0. It is definitely one of the success stories, at least so far. For example, there are projects like jMonkeyEngine (a game engine in Java, on top of LWJGL) that don't get as much attention and their movement forwards is way slower: https://jmonkeyengine.org/ There's also Stride 3D, which is... - Source: Hacker News / about 1 year ago
  • I can't think about another video game using Java. I mean, there WILL be more but i haven't saw them.
    It is, or at least was, efficient. Java has a great game engine called https://jmonkeyengine.org/ that at the time could compete with Unity, not sure the status now. And LWJGL, the lower layer for ooengl, was quite nice to use and it is efficient to go that low level if you plan to do a game that does not fit the stereotypes in such game engines, as you will find yourself fighting the engine more than the actual... Source: over 1 year ago
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SDL mentions (18)

  • How was Pico8 made?
    In addition to the excellent video /u/DookieChumo linked, you can also look in the manual to see some of the technologies used. It's written in C, using SDL. If you're interested in something like a devlog, you could read the changelog to see its changes and the development of features over the years. Lua is fairly easy to embed into other programs, so you can write programs that use Lua scripts to decide what to... Source: over 1 year ago
  • How does one make their own GUI from scratch? (no GUI libraries)
    You could use the cross-platform library SDL. It has Python bindings: PySDL2. Source: over 1 year ago
  • I want to become a game dev one day, can you guys help me?
    You can use SDL, which is pretty easy to get into, has straight-forward (if somewhat sparse) documentation and has lots of pretty decent tutorials - see the links on the web site. Source: over 1 year ago
  • what #include<iostream> does in C++ Program ?
    Official website is https://libsdl.org where you can read more about download and install this library because it might not work on your computer. Source: over 1 year ago
  • which Library is used to Develop 2D Game in C++ ?
    To Develop 2D Game mostly Game Developer Prefers to use SDL Library it is Simple Media Layer originally Written in C Language but compatible with C++ and run Natively. The website of Libsdl is https://libsdl.org. It is free to use. Source: over 1 year ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing JMonkeyEngine and SDL, you can also consider the following products

Unity - The multiplatform game creation tools for everyone.

Rev.com - Transcriptions, captions, and subtitles that are affordable, fast, and high-quality.

Unreal Engine - Unreal Engine 4 is a suite of integrated tools for game developers to design and build games, simulations, and visualizations.

Lilt - A Twitter text adventure

Blender - Blender is the open source, cross platform suite of tools for 3D creation.

One Hour Translation - Professional translation services for 75 languages on a 24/7 basis.