brainCloud vs Colyseus
brainCloud
getbraincloud.com
Colyseus
colyseus.ioSide by side
| Figure | brainCloud | Colyseus |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $5/mo | $15/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | Yes | — |
| Open source | — | Yes |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| iOS | Yes | Yes |
| Android | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 15 | 2 |
| Spec score · Game Leaderboard Software | 9.4 (#2) | 9.3 (#3) |
| Spec score · Game Matchmaking Software | 9.3 (#2) | 9.3 (#3) |
| Spec score · Game Backend Services | 9.4 (#2) | 9.3 (#3) |
| Praise: ease of use | G2 reviewers repeatedly describe the interface as easy or intuitive and say it speeds game and application development. | An independent Hysen Labs review says Node.js teams can quickly understand room code and avoid writing their own delta encoder. |
| Support | The maker lists free best-effort developer support through chat and forums, with paid support options that add response commitments and guidance. | The Open Source plan includes community support, while Colyseus Cloud includes support by email. |
| What it does | brainCloud is a hosted backend service for games, applications and other connected products, combining APIs, SDKs and a browser design and debugging portal. | Colyseus is an open-source Node.js framework for authoritative multiplayer game servers with real-time synchronization and matchmaking. |
Plans
brainCloud
- Developer supportFree
- DevelopmentFree
- DevelopmentFree
- Development Plus$5 a month
- Lite$15 a month
- Lite$15 a month
- Lite Plus$25 a month
- Standard$30 a month
- Standard$30 a month
- Standard Plus$50 a month
In their own words
brainCloud
brainCloud is a cloud-based backend-as-a-service platform for games, apps, and other digital services. It provides cloud data, multiplayer, leaderboards, tournaments, push notifications, chat, in-app purchases, inventory management, analytics, and Cloud Code. Client libraries are listed for Android, iOS, Linux, macOS, Windows, and web JavaScript, with Unity and Unreal support. Named multiplayer technologies include AWS GameLift, Unity Netcode, and Unreal Engine Networking; developers can also use Edgegap game-server orchestration from the developer portal. The free Development plan costs nothing and is limited to 100 daily active users and 1,000 accounts; it includes one million free API calls, 100 MB of storage, and 1 GB of transfers, but no live in-app purchases. Lite costs $15 a month and Standard costs $30 a month. Paid subscriptions include a base API-call allotment, with additional use charged by consumption. Private licenses provide managed instances in a customer's cloud environment.
Colyseus
Colyseus is an open-source Node.js framework for building real-time multiplayer games, with built-in matchmaking and state synchronization. Its authoritative server design has clients send inputs while the server decides game outcomes. Developers define game state on the server, and Colyseus synchronizes it to clients without manual serialization. The framework creates rooms and matches players automatically; rooms can be distributed across processes or machines. The site says this can scale from 10 to 10,000+ concurrent users. SDKs or integrations are listed for JavaScript, Unity, Godot, GameMaker, Defold, Haxe, C, and Construct 3. The MIT-licensed framework is free for commercial games and can be self-hosted as a standard Node.js application on cloud services or bare metal. Colyseus Cloud provides deployment, scaling, and monitoring across 32 global locations. Its Cloud plan starts at $15/mo and includes email support, while the free Open Source plan includes community support. Cloud has no free tier or automatic scaling; heavier workloads require upgrading deployment resources through the dashboard.