Asobi vs Idem
Asobi
asobi.devIdem
idem.ggSide by side
| Figure | Asobi | Idem |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | — | Free |
| Free plan | — | Yes |
| Free trial | Yes | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | Yes | — |
| macOS | Yes | — |
| Linux | Yes | — |
| iOS | Yes | — |
| Android | Yes | — |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 1 |
| Spec score · Game Matchmaking Software | 8.8 (#7) | 7.9 (#20) |
| Game modes | It supports ephemeral matches and persistent worlds with lazy-loaded zones. | The matchmaker supports PvPvP game modes with any number of players per team and any number of teams. |
| Headquarters | Uppsala, Sweden | Berlin, Germany |
| Integrations | Official client SDKs are listed for Unreal, Unity, Godot, Defold, TypeScript/JavaScript, Dart/Flutter, and Lua. | Idem offers hosting and game backend integrations, plus authentication options including Google, Facebook, GitHub, Discord, Steam, and username/password. |
| Product | Asobi is an open-source multiplayer game backend built on Erlang/OTP. | Idem provides matchmaking for multiplayer games, with skill-based matching for elite and casual players. |
| Support | The maker invites users to ask questions and share projects in its Discord community. | General questions can be sent to [email protected]; urgent technical outages should be reported using the phone number in the customer's terms and conditions. |
Plans
In their own words
Asobi
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.
Idem
Idem is a matchmaking service for multiplayer games, available through a managed cloud service or self-hosted deployment. It matches players using skill or rating, game mode, team size, parties, roles or factions, latency, geography, and custom criteria. PvPvP formats can use any number of players per team and teams per match. Pre-arranged parties are supported, and players who leave can be replaced. The system considers ping, suggests a suitable server location, and supports server allocation. Its rating engine applies Bayesian updates similar to TrueSkill or Glicko II. Queue-liquidity analytics forecast how larger modes or ping limits may affect queue availability. Integrations cover hosting, game backends, REST, WebSocket, Unity, Unreal, Beamable, and Pragma/Kotlin. The free self-hosted Community Edition is Open Match compatible and offers basic algorithm selection. Advanced commercial matchmaking is available for more complex needs. Self-hosted deployment runs as a stateless container in customer infrastructure.