Epic Online Services vs Metaplay
Epic Online Services
onlineservices.epicgames.com
Metaplay
metaplay.ioSide by side
| Figure | Epic Online Services | Metaplay |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | €195/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | Yes |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| iOS | Yes | Yes |
| Android | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | — | Yes |
| Plans published | 3 | 17 |
| Spec score · Game Leaderboard Software | 8.9 (#5) | 9.0 (#4) |
| Spec score · Game Backend Services | 8.9 (#6) | 9.0 (#5) |
| Spec score · Game Matchmaking Software | 8.8 (#8) | 9.0 (#6) |
| Founded | 1991 | LinkedIn lists Metaplay as founded in 2019. |
| Headquarters | Cary, North Carolina, USA | Helsinki, Finland |
| Intended users | Epic describes the services as for game developers ranging from the smallest developer to the largest publisher. | Metaplay describes its audience as ambitious game studios building server-authoritative games, from prototype through global launch, including teams operating multiple titles. |
| Product | Epic Online Services is a suite of open, modular online services for game developers. | Metaplay is a backend platform for building and operating live service games. |
| Support | Epic directs developers with unanswered FAQ questions to its EOS support contact. | The pricing page offers community Discord support, weekday engineer support tiers, and a critical incident add-on with 24/7 availability and a one-hour response SLA. |
| What it does | Epic Online Services is a hosted set of modular online services for building and operating cross-platform games. | Metaplay is a backend platform for building, operating and scaling live-service games. |
Plans
Epic Online Services
- Epic Online ServicesFree
- Free licenseFree
- Enterprise Anti-Cheat agreementPriced on request
Metaplay
- Community supportFree
- Community SupportFree
- FreeFree
- FreeFree
- Starter€195 a month
- Starter€195 a month
- Pre-launch€995 a month
- Pre-Launch€995 a month
- Standard support€1,500 a month
- Standard Support€1,500 a month
In their own words
Epic Online Services
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.
Metaplay
Metaplay is a backend platform for building and operating live-service games. It uses a server-authoritative C# game server with a Unity client library and shared client-server logic. Its LiveOps dashboard includes player segmentation, A/B testing, over-the-air configuration updates, events, economy management, and player support tools. The SDK also includes guilds, social features, leaderboards, leagues, and asynchronous matchmaking; synchronous matchmaking is in active development. Hosting choices include managed Metaplay Cloud, customer AWS infrastructure, another Kubernetes cluster, or on-premises deployment. The platform supports Unity games on iOS, Android, Windows, Mac, Linux, and WebGL, with Unity 2020.3 LTS and later. The free plan provides the full SDK and a local server for local development. Starter costs €195 a month. Managed Metaplay Cloud supports single-region deployments; multi-region deployments are supported on self-hosted infrastructure.