Software Alternatives & Reviews

Playnite VS GOG Galaxy

Compare Playnite VS GOG Galaxy and see what are their differences

Playnite logo Playnite

Source code generated using layoutit.com

GOG Galaxy logo GOG Galaxy

Truly gamer friendly, DRM-free online gaming platform.
  • Playnite Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-08-05
  • GOG Galaxy Landing page
    Landing page //
    2018-10-10

Playnite videos

Checking out the Playnite 5.5 Update and it's damned good

More videos:

  • Review - Is the best Launcher even BETTER? - Playnite 5 Review
  • Review - Playnite games launcher Quick Look and Impressions
  • Demo - Youtube.com

GOG Galaxy videos

GOG Galaxy 2.0 Review!

More videos:

  • Review - GoG Galaxy 2.0 - The Ultimate Central Gaming Library - Beta Review
  • Review - GOG Galaxy 2.0 Solves One Of PC Gaming’s Biggest Problems

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Playnite and GOG Galaxy)
Gaming
85 85%
15% 15
Games
72 72%
28% 28
Emulators
85 85%
15% 15
Online Games
68 68%
32% 32

User comments

Share your experience with using Playnite and GOG Galaxy. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Playnite and GOG Galaxy

Playnite Reviews

Best Free Game Launcher for Windows PC
Presenting you, Playnite, a game launcher, containing a nice set of features. In this, you can scan the games on your device, get a nice combination of features with a user-friendly UI. You will not only get a launcher but also emulators.
Top 6 best launcher games to launch and organize PC games
This is due to the open source of the project. Playnite has many contributions and so it grows quickly. In addition to the launcher, Playnite also supports many emulators, it can handle retro games effectively.
Source: tipsmake.com

GOG Galaxy Reviews

Best Free Game Launcher for Windows PC
Let us begin with the first free game launcher, GOG Galaxy. GOG Galaxy is a game launcher that provides you with a one-stop shop for all the games available at the GOG store. You just have to go to the launcher and type the game title in the search bar. Boom! There is your game, download, install and enjoy.
The best Steam alternatives for PC gamers
GOG Galaxy is GOG’s desktop client, first released a couple of years ago. It essentially gives the scrappy DRM-free experience a platform, with all the bells and whistles like friends lists, cloud saves and automatic updates for your games. It’s convenient for library management and shopping, and even stores your owned games on virtual wooden bookshelves.

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Playnite seems to be a lot more popular than GOG Galaxy. While we know about 286 links to Playnite, we've tracked only 4 mentions of GOG Galaxy. 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.

Playnite mentions (286)

  • I wrote an app for myself to filter my library by HLTB
    I've done something similar before with Playnite (an open-source PC game library manager), which has an HLTB plugin. Source: 5 months ago
  • Tags no longer register and i've finally had it with galaxy 2.0. Any recommended alternatives?
    Playnite: The one with the most features and libraries available via addons and has a lot of options for customization. In my opinion the best one available for this purpose. Source: 5 months ago
  • What tools do I install?
    As for my LGO, the only other app I've installed outside of the standard launcher was Playnite to consolidate all games into one place as Legion Space doesn't detect everything I have installed and I don't want to manage manually adding games to their launcher. Source: 5 months ago
  • Login in to various stores when launching games
    Use playnite instead of the individual launchers. Source: 5 months ago
  • Steam Deck OLED
    Here is where I come in and recommend everyone check out Playnite: https://playnite.link/ When I care about supporting a developer or publisher and they offer their product on their own storefront DRM-free, I will often go there to buy. Or I buy from GoG which takes a smaller cut. Playnite lets me launch my Steam and non-Steam games in a seamless fashion. Steam still does a great job as a game installer/patch... - Source: Hacker News / 6 months ago
View more

GOG Galaxy mentions (4)

  • Can I still get the witcher 1 for free
    On a fresh GOG GALAXY installation, in the main view "recent" you should see a giveaway banner on the top, you can claim it there. If you have GOG GALAXY installed already and don't see the banner, you can uninstall, and then install it again from https://gog.com/galaxy Please note that uninstallation will cause you to have to reconnect your integrations, add installed games again ("add games & friends" -> scan... Source: over 2 years ago
  • Gog Galaxy 2.0 Update
    Update: 2.0.40 has a fix for missing games. Can be force-updated via gog.com/galaxy installer. Source: almost 3 years ago
  • Gog Galaxy 2.0 Update
    Update – all below problems are solved in 2.0.40 which can be force-updated by using the installer from gog.com/galaxy. Source: almost 3 years ago
  • VC Redistributables 2015 - 2019 installation and gog galaxy update?
    Try using GOG GALAXY installer from https://gog.com/galaxy , it should update your currently installed client to newest version. You can try reinstalling in case you already have the newest one. :). Source: about 3 years ago

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Playnite and GOG Galaxy, you can also consider the following products

LaunchBox - LaunchBox is a portable, box-art-based games database and launcher for DOSBox, emulators, arcade cabinets, and PC Games. Download it free!

RetroArch - RetroArch is a frontend for emulators, game engines and media players.

Lutris - Lutris is an open source gaming platform for GNU/Linux.

Epic Games - Computer game storefront that gives 88% of revenue to developers

Batocera.linux - Batocera.linux is an open-source and completely free retro-gaming distribution that can be copied to a USB stick or an SD card with the aim of turning any computer/nano computer into a gaming console during a game or permanently.

itch.io - An online game marketplace and community.