Asobi vs Epic Online Services

Asobi is an open-source multiplayer game backend built on Erlang/OTP for solo developers and small teams making indie 2D games. It provides authentication, matchmaking, real-time sync, leaderboards, a virtual economy, social features, cloud saves, and an admin dashboard. Developers can build ephemeral matches or persistent worlds with lazily loaded zones. Lua match logic can be changed while a match runs, with updates taking effect on the next tick. Official client SDKs are listed for Unreal, Unity, Godot, Defold, TypeScript/JavaScript, Dart/Flutter, Lua, and LÖVE. Monitoring includes OpenTelemetry integration, structured logging, and telemetry events for matches, queues, and connections. The Apache 2.0 core can run locally with Docker Compose or be self-hosted as a Docker container. Asobi Cloud is hosted on Hetzner in Germany and uses EU-only infrastructure subprocessors, but is invite-only while studios are onboarded. The project is single-node by design and pre-1.0, so minor breaking API changes may occur before 1.0.

Epic Online Services is a suite of modular online services for game developers. Its service areas cover accounts and social features, multiplayer, player and game data, and trust and safety. Social capabilities include crossplay, friends, presence, overlay, and the Epic Games account ecosystem. Multiplayer tools include peer-to-peer features, sessions, lobbies, and voice chat. Developers can use leaderboards, stats, achievements, and storage for player and title data. Trust and safety services include Easy Anti-Cheat, sanctions, player reports, and Kids Web Services. The services can be used with Unreal Engine, Unity, or a developer's chosen engine. SDKs are available for PC in C or C#, Android, and iOS; console SDKs require a request through the Developer Portal. Epic describes the service as free to use, with no royalty or hosting fees, though usage restrictions may apply. Epic says it processes game-service data to operate the services and does not share partner data without explicit authorization. Use may be throttled or suspended for violations of service restrictions.