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Open 3D Engine VS Flax Engine

Compare Open 3D Engine VS Flax Engine and see what are their differences

Open 3D Engine logo Open 3D Engine

Open 3D Engine is an open-source 3D game development engine in real-time.

Flax Engine logo Flax Engine

Best development performance out there Unleash your creativity and be more productive. With Flax you can boost your game development and bring it to another level. We’ve created tools that are slim and agile. No Read more…
  • Open 3D Engine Landing page
    Landing page //
    2024-07-04
  • Flax Engine Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-09-01

Open 3D Engine features and specs

  • Open Source
    Open 3D Engine is freely available under the Apache 2.0 license, allowing developers to access, modify, and distribute its source code without licensing fees.
  • High Customizability
    The engine's open-source nature and modular design enable extensive customization, making it possible for developers to tailor the engine to specific needs and workflows.
  • Cross-Platform Support
    Open 3D Engine supports development for multiple platforms including Windows, Linux, and macOS, broadening the scope for developers targeting different audiences.
  • Robust Toolset
    The engine provides a comprehensive set of tools for 3D development, including a visual scripting environment and a powerful asset processing pipeline.
  • Active Community and Contributions
    An active and growing community contributes to the continuous improvement and updating of the engine, providing support and a wealth of shared resources.

Possible disadvantages of Open 3D Engine

  • Steep Learning Curve
    Due to its complexity and extensive feature set, mastering Open 3D Engine can be challenging, especially for beginners.
  • Resource Intensive
    Running and developing with Open 3D Engine can require significant hardware resources, which may not be suitable for all developers or projects with limited capabilities.
  • Evolving Ecosystem
    As a relatively new entrant in the field, the ecosystem around Open 3D Engine is continuously evolving, which might lead to occasional instability or rapidly changing documentation.
  • Limited Third-Party Plugins
    Compared to more established engines, Open 3D Engine currently has fewer third-party plugins available, which could limit out-of-the-box functionality for some specialized needs.
  • Complex Project Setup
    Setting up projects and configuring the engine might be more complex compared to other engines, requiring more initial time investment to get started.

Flax Engine features and specs

  • High Performance
    Flax Engine is designed with performance in mind, providing efficient memory and CPU usage, making it suitable for developing high-performance games.
  • C# Scripting
    Developers can use C# for scripting, which is a popular language with a large developer community, making it easier to find learning resources and support.
  • Cross-Platform Support
    Flax Engine provides support for multiple platforms such as Windows, Mac, Linux, Xbox, and PlayStation, which helps in developing games for a wide audience.
  • Visual Editor
    The engine has a comprehensive and user-friendly visual editor which allows for easier game development and design, with features like drag-and-drop functionalities.
  • Open Source
    Parts of Flax Engine are open source, allowing developers to customize and extend the engine to better suit their project needs.

Possible disadvantages of Flax Engine

  • Smaller Community
    Compared to other game engines like Unity and Unreal, Flax Engine has a smaller user base, which might lead to fewer community resources and tutorials.
  • Limited Third-Party Integrations
    Flax may have limited support for third-party assets and plugins compared to more established engines, which can be a hurdle for some developers.
  • Less Mature
    Being a relatively newer engine, Flax might not be as mature or feature-rich as long-established competitors, potentially impacting complex game developments.
  • Learning Curve
    For developers transitioning from other engines, there may be a learning curve due to differences in workflows and editor interfaces.
  • Documentation Gaps
    Some users might find gaps or less comprehensive documentation compared to larger engines, which could slow down the development process.

Open 3D Engine videos

Lumberyard Engine Open Sourced!! -- O3DE or "Open 3D Engine" is the new name

More videos:

  • Review - Welcome to OPEN 3D Engine (O3DE)
  • Review - Announcing Open 3D Engine (O3DE)

Flax Engine videos

Flax Engine 1.6 -- A Shockingly Powerful Game Engine

More videos:

  • Review - Flax Engine 1.5 -- A Huge Update!
  • Review - Flax Engine Features Showcase

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Open 3D Engine and Flax Engine)
Game Engine
54 54%
46% 46
Game Development
50 50%
50% 50
3D Game Engine
44 44%
56% 56
Gaming Software
79 79%
21% 21

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Open 3D Engine and Flax Engine

Open 3D Engine Reviews

Best Unity alternatives for game development
Now, if you're looking for an engine that focuses on 3D, Open 3D Engine is a stellar choice (even if it is a bit finicky). You will notice that Open 3D Engine is essentially the successor to Amazon Lumberyard (however, Open 3D Engine is managed by the Linux Foundation). But this time, it is open-sourced and equipped with the Apache 2.0 license. Learning on this platform may...
What Are the Best Game Engines?
Lumberyard is a free, cross-platform engine. But recently, Amazon has taken its game engine and transformed it into an open-source model. Open3D is the latest from Amazon. It builds on top of Lumberyard and creates a more modular approach to game development.

Flax Engine Reviews

20 Best Scratch Alternatives 2023
Flax Engine is free but only for personal use. If you publish your games, you have to pay a 4% royalty fee per quarter when your game earns up to $25,000.

Social recommendations and mentions

Open 3D Engine might be a bit more popular than Flax Engine. We know about 17 links to it since March 2021 and only 12 links to Flax Engine. 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.

Open 3D Engine mentions (17)

  • Unreal Engine change its price for non-game apps
    O3DE[0] looks interesting - owned by the Linux Foundation, originally based on Amazon's Lumberyard, and it has some big players involved: Amazon, Epic Games(!), Microsoft, NVIDIA, Intel, Huawei, Red Hat, [0] https://o3de.org. - Source: Hacker News / over 1 year ago
  • Alternative Game Engines for Marooned Unity Developers
    03DE: Open source game engine, under Apache License 2.0, developed by Amazon and the linux foundation. Seems to work under a modular package called "gems", that you can use to pull in the functionality you need. It uses c++ as it's main language, but you can use Lua, python or visual scripting for scripting stuff. Has multiplayer built into the engine and what they call a "robust" system for open-world games.... Source: over 1 year ago
  • Someone dropped the source code for Far Cry 1 on archive.org
    Note that Lumberyard became "Open 3D Engine" (yes, very inspired name) which is Apache 2 licensed: https://o3de.org/ https://github.com/o3de/o3de/ AFAIK all development in Lumberyard has ceased and moved to O3DE. - Source: Hacker News / almost 2 years ago
  • Did they take down the post about motion matching recently?
    Many pages in o3de.org are down. They are working on it. Source: almost 2 years ago
  • Is SPIRV-Cross a valid option to target Metal from HSSL?
    I've worked on this a bit as part of the shader pipeline of Open3DEngine, From my experience there are very few compatibility issues between hlsl and sprir-v, sprir-v to msl however does run into a few issues.Here are the ones I remember. Source: about 2 years ago
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Flax Engine mentions (12)

  • Valve releases Team Fortress 2 game code
    O3DE came from Amazon Lumberyard which came from CryEngine, so it's quite possibly one of the better looking open source 3D game engines that you can currently get, no strings attached: https://github.com/o3de/o3de) and Flax (https://flaxengine.com/) but they suffer from the same issues as O3DE, even if otherwise are promising. - Source: Hacker News / 2 months ago
  • I would say to Unity developers, don't use Godot.
    For 3D games, check out the engine: Stride Engine or Flax Engine. Source: over 1 year ago
  • Alternative Game Engines for Marooned Unity Developers
    Flax Engine: C# and C++, Global Illumination system, Visual scripting, Full Source Code Available, 4% royalties after $250,000 (threshold is per quarter, not all time). The engine honestly looks really good, so it could be worth taking a closer look, but does lack tutorials. Source: over 1 year ago
  • What features would you like to see that are not available in leading game engines
    It sounds like you're asking them to just remake https://flaxengine.com. (Minus ECS). Source: almost 3 years ago
  • What are people's thoughts on Flax Engine?
    As the title says, what are people's thoughts on Flax Engine. (Link for anyone who hasn't heard of it). Source: almost 3 years ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Open 3D Engine and Flax Engine, you can also consider the following products

Godot Engine - Feature-packed 2D and 3D open source game engine.

Unity - The multiplatform game creation tools for everyone.

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

Cyberix3D - Free online 3D Game Maker. Make your own 3D games online!

Unigine - Unigine Engine is a proprietary cross-platform middleware, developed by Unigine Corp.

Castle Game Engine - An open-source 3D/2D game engine for ObjectPascal.