Argon vs MAME
Argon
markspace.comMAME
mamedev.orgSide by side
| Figure | Argon | MAME |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | — | Free |
| Free plan | — | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | — | Yes |
| Linux | — | Yes |
| Android | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 0 | 1 |
| Spec score · Multi-System Emulators | 7.8 (#29) | 8.5 (#7) |
| Security | The developer page says Argon Premium and wrapped games are AES-XTS encrypted at rest and during transport. | MAME says it is not designed for secure sites, has not been audited for such use, and should not be run as administrator or root. |
| Support | Mark/Space provides customer service and sales contact options and a product knowledge base. | Users can report information or code through the MAME GitHub page, MAME Forums, or the project contact page. |
| What it does | Argon is a retro game emulator and library for playing games from users’ own collections and Argon’s catalog of classic and indie games. | MAME is a multi-purpose emulation framework that documents and reproduces the inner components of arcade machines, computers, consoles, calculators and other electronic amusement machines. |
Plans
In their own words
MAME
MAME is a free emulation framework intended to preserve software history by documenting and reproducing the inner components of arcade machines, computers, consoles, calculators, and other electronic amusement systems. It can emulate over 32,000 individual systems from the last five decades. Alongside emulation, it includes an interactive low-level debugger for investigating software behavior, diagnosing emulation issues, and developing software for vintage systems. Its Lua interface can inspect device state, access CPU registers, read and write memory, and draw overlays, though the API may change without notice. Plugins support uses such as external-program communication and alternate interfaces; included examples are Discord Presence and a GDB Stub. MAME can save and load states, record inputs for playback, and capture screenshots or video. It is available for Android, Linux, macOS, and Windows; official Windows binaries require Windows 10 or later. BIOS dumps and copyrighted software are generally not included. The project is distributed under GPL-2.0 overall, while more than 90% of files, including core files, are under BSD-3-Clause.