Software Alternatives & Reviews

Playnite VS melonDS

Compare Playnite VS melonDS and see what are their differences

Playnite logo Playnite

Source code generated using layoutit.com

melonDS logo melonDS

A Nintendo DS emulator with support for commercial games.
  • Playnite Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-08-05
  • melonDS Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-10

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

melonDS videos

Quickly Setup melonDS Emulator For Windows & Linux!

More videos:

  • Tutorial - MelonDS DS Emulator for Nintendo Switch - How to Setup & Overview - Homebrew CFW App
  • Review - MelonDS Version 0.8.2 for For Nintendo Switch CFW

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Playnite and melonDS)
Gaming
72 72%
28% 28
Games
100 100%
0% 0
Emulators
57 57%
43% 43
Gaming Tools
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 Playnite and melonDS

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

melonDS Reviews

Best DS Emulator: Are These Emulators Safe And Legal To Use?
MelonDS also offers high-performance graphics and sound emulation, making it a great choice for gamers who want an authentic DS experience.
Source: appletoo.us
5 Best Nintendo DS Emulators for PC
When we talk about best DS emulator for PC, we can’t avoid MelonDS. MelonDS is also one of the best Nintendo DS emulator. It has the following advantages:
Best emulators for Android in 2023
The Nintendo DS has such a wide back catalog of games to play, many of which are both incredible and not very computationally taxing. melonDS is the best way to enjoy those games on the go, and that's thanks to its ease of use. It's a free emulator that you can download from the Google Play Store, though it's not an official port (as melonDS is made for PC originally), and...

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Playnite should be more popular than melonDS. It has been mentiond 286 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.

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

melonDS mentions (32)

  • help with bw roms
    Use MelonDS instead, it's the most recommended DS emulator. Source: 10 months ago
  • Pokémon emulators
    You mean emulators running on PC? It took some doing, but I finally got DS Download Play to work on MelonDS. First you need to get DS firmware files. I found one on Retrostic that did not work for me. Melon told me it was an old hacked dump, and trying to boot it just got me a white screen. I found another on the Internet Archive that works. Source: 11 months ago
  • I feel like people put down MelonDS too much here
    MelonDS is actually doing a lot of really cool stuff. I can't speak too much on the Android build, but on PC they have actually gotten multiplayer too work flawlessly and they are currently working on implementing netplay. You can keep up with their progress here. Source: 11 months ago
  • Hi, new to emulators. I had a question, can I run gba and nds games on this?
    No, you can use mGBA for GBA games, and MelonDS for NDS games. Source: 12 months ago
  • Completely new to emulation
    AFAIK randomizers are usually romhacks, and so they should work on most DS emulators, I personally use melonDS, however you can find a list of DS emulators here. Source: about 1 year ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Playnite and melonDS, 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!

DeSmuME - DeSmuME is a freeware emulator for the NDS roms & Nintendo DS Lite games created by YopYop156.

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

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

Drastic - Drastic is a Android DS Emulator

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.