Colyseus vs Mirror Networking

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.

Mirror Networking is a free system for adding multiplayer capabilities to Unity games. It uses a server-authoritative model by default and supports dedicated servers as well as client hosts. Core tools include message handlers, serialization, distributed object management, and state synchronization. Unity components such as NetworkManager, NetworkIdentity, and NetworkBehaviour connect game objects and scripts, with automatic synchronization for transforms and script variables. Built-in transport choices include KCP UDP, Telepathy TCP, WebSockets, a multiplexer, latency simulation, encryption, and Edgegap Relay. Other transport connections include Steam, Epic Online Services, LiteNetLib, and ENet. Mirror is MIT licensed, with no paywalls or CCU costs. The maker says it stores no user data and performs no tracking, analytics, or advertising. Its feature list marks lag compensation and encryption as Beta, unreliable sync mode as in development, and bitpacking and prediction as being researched. The GitHub README recommends Unity 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 LTS, or 6000.1 to get started.