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Photon Engine VS Beamable

Compare Photon Engine VS Beamable and see what are their differences

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  3. » Reviews
  4. » Alternatives

Photon Engine logo Photon Engine

Independent networking engine and multiplayer platform.

Beamable logo Beamable

Beamable provides an SDK that enables game makers to easily add social, commerce and content management features to their games with drag-and-drop prefabs inside Unity.
  • Photon Engine Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-04-25
  • Beamable Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-05-07

Photon Engine features and specs

  • Scalability
    Photon Engine can handle thousands of concurrent users, making it ideal for both small and large-scale multiplayer games.
  • Cross-Platform Support
    Photon supports multiple platforms including Windows, macOS, iOS, Android, and HTML5, allowing developers to reach a wider audience without platform-specific re-coding.
  • Ease of Use
    The engine provides comprehensive documentation and an intuitive API, which makes it easier for developers to integrate and implement multiplayer functionalities.
  • Real-time Communication
    Photon Engine excels in providing low latency and real-time communication, which is crucial for multiplayer gaming experiences.
  • Community and Support
    A robust community and active forums provide support and shared knowledge to solve common issues and improve development workflows.

Possible disadvantages of Photon Engine

  • Pricing
    While Photon Engine offers a free tier, advanced features and higher CCU (concurrent user) limits require a paid subscription, which can be costly for small developers.
  • Complexity for Beginners
    Despite having good documentation, the complexity of setting up multiplayer features can be challenging for novice developers without prior networking experience.
  • Limited Customization
    Some developers may find the out-of-the-box solutions limiting if they require highly customized networking features not directly supported by Photon.
  • Third-party Dependence
    Relying on an external service for networking can make a project dependent on the service's uptime and business decisions.
  • Latency Variance
    Although generally low, network latency can vary based on server locations, which might affect game performance in some regions.

Beamable features and specs

  • Ease of Integration
    Beamable provides a convenient SDK that integrates easily into Unity, simplifying the process of adding live game services to a project without extensive server-side development.
  • Comprehensive Features
    It offers a wide range of built-in features like leaderboards, cloud data storage, and in-game notifications, which cover most of the needs for live game services.
  • Developer-Friendly
    The platform is designed with game developers in mind, providing robust documentation and a user-friendly interface that aids faster development and deployment cycles.
  • Scalability
    Beamable is built to scale with a game’s user base, ensuring that performance remains consistent even as more players join.
  • Cross-Platform
    By supporting multiple platforms, Beamable allows developers to build games that can reach a wider audience seamlessly.

Possible disadvantages of Beamable

  • Cost Considerations
    While it offers valuable features, using Beamable can introduce additional costs, potentially impacting budgets, especially for smaller indie developers.
  • Dependency on Third-Party
    Relying on a third-party service means that any changes or downtimes on Beamable's side can directly affect the game’s performance and availability.
  • Customization Constraints
    While Beamable offers many features, there could be limitations on how much these can be customized to fit very unique or specific game requirements.
  • Learning Curve
    For developers unfamiliar with Beamable or similar platforms, there may be a learning curve to fully understand and utilize all its features effectively.

Photon Engine videos

+ Add

Unet vs Photon Engine - A comparison

Beamable videos

+ Add

Archer: Danger Phone built on Beamable

More videos:

  • Review - Perform V Manual 4 - Beamable Presets
  • Review - Beamable presents Game-A-Thon: GameMakers Unite for Pehel Foundation

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Photon Engine and Beamable)

Photon Engine

Beamable

Game Development
70 70%
Game Development
30% 30
Developer Tools
87 87%
Developer Tools
13% 13
Game Engine
68 68%
Game Engine
32% 32
Games
0 0%
Games
100% 100

User comments

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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Photon Engine seems to be more popular. It has been mentiond 2 times since March 2021. 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.

Photon Engine mentions (2)

  • 'Foxhole' players launch organised in-game strike to demand change
    Source: photonengine.com (provides server networking and hosting for tens of millions of daily users on steam and other platforms). Source: over 3 years ago
  • steam vs itch.io
    With Steam you get 70% of the money you make from your game, and it costs $100 to put your game on the platform. But you get stuff like Steam Networking, VAC, Steam Achievements, etc. You might also get more sales if you put your game on Steam. With itch.io however, you get 100% of the money you make, and it's free to put your game on the platform. The problem is you will get less players than if you were to put... Source: over 3 years ago

Beamable mentions (0)

We have not tracked any mentions of Beamable yet. Tracking of Beamable recommendations started around Mar 2021.

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Photon Engine and Beamable, you can also consider the following products

PlayFab - PlayFab is a backend platform for games, delivering powerful real-time tools and services for LiveOps.

Nakama - Nakama is an open-source distributed social and realtime server for games and apps.

Unity Multiplayer - Create real-time, networked games.

Metaplay.io - Build and operate Unity games at scale, featuring a liveops platform, game economy pipelines, scalable cloud servers, game programming tools, and more.

Colyseus - Multiplayer Game Server for Node.js. Focus on the gameplay instead of networking.

Apple Game Center - Game Center brings social gaming to OS X and iOS apps.

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