EmulatorJS vs Lakka

EmulatorJS is a free, open-source frontend for RetroArch that lets a site owner embed an emulator in a web page. The project provides a code generator, and says the resulting embed can be added with a few lines of code. EmulatorJS uses RetroArch’s libretro cores to run games. Its supported systems documentation includes NES, Nintendo 64, PlayStation, PSP, Sega systems, and Commodore systems, though the project warns that this list may be out of date. Built-in options allow customization, and multiple languages are supported. The project describes EmulatorJS as a library or plugin rather than a standalone website, and it does not provide a Docker container. A public CDN offers paths labeled stable, latest, and nightly. The listed platforms are web, Android, iOS, and self-hosted. Pages must be served through a web server; opening an HTML file directly is unsupported. Threaded cores may improve performance, but need SharedArrayBuffer enabled through COOP and COEP response headers. The 4.3.0-pre release is marked as a prerelease and is discouraged for production use where stability is needed.

Lakka is a lightweight Linux distribution that turns a small computer into a retrogaming console. It is built on LibreELEC and RetroArch, with RetroArch serving as its graphical interface and providing unified emulator configuration and joypad autoconfiguration. Listed features include automatic controller recognition, rewinding, netplay, and shaders. Official builds target Raspberry Pi, Allwinner, iMX6, Amlogic, and 32-bit and 64-bit PC systems. Installation uses USB images specific to the target hardware, and installation instructions cover GNU/Linux, Windows, and MacOS. The PC version is intended for dedicated hardware and does not support virtualization, dual boot, or CD and DVD installation. Users must supply their own ROMs; documentation also covers BIOS files. Netplay requires both players to use the same ROM, and cores without savestate support cannot use it. Lakka is community-driven and open source, and the listed price is free; required hardware is not included. The project says it remains under heavy development, so bugs, missing features, or unsupported hardware may occur.