Flax Engine vs Stencyl

Flax Engine is a 3D game engine written in C++ and C#, with visual scripting and full Editor source code available. It supports C++, C#, and visual scripting, with hot-reloading for both programming languages in the Editor. Rendering features include real-time global illumination, reflections using custom software ray tracing, and GPU lightmap baking. World-building tools cover terrain, foliage, fog, nested prefabs, level streaming, and large-world 64-bit coordinates. Multiplayer projects can use low- and high-level networking APIs. Its Online system supports services such as Steam, Xbox Live, and PlayStation Network for profiles, friends, achievements, presence, and cloud saves. Supported targets include Windows, Linux, Android, iOS, macOS, web, PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox One and Series, and Nintendo Switch. Web support is experimental and lacks C# scripting, video playback, and some other engine features. NDA-protected platform support is excluded from the public repository. The engine is free for non-commercial or educational use; commercial releases pay a 4% royalty on earnings exceeding $250,000 per calendar quarter.

Stencyl is game creation software for making mobile, web, and desktop games with visual logic or custom code. Its drag-and-drop designer uses snapping blocks and includes hundreds of ready-to-use blocks. Creators can also make and share blocks, import libraries, extend the engine with code, and write Haxe classes that work with block-based Behaviors. The Scene Designer provides selection, zooming, grid-snapping, and flood fill; the Actor Editor adjusts appearance, behaviors, and physical properties. Stencyl targets iOS, Android, Windows, Mac, Linux, and HTML5. The free Starter edition publishes HTML5 games and lets users test games on paid target platforms, but cannot publish desktop, iOS, or Android games and displays Stencyl branding. Indie costs $99 a year and adds web and desktop publishing without watermarks. Studio costs $199 a year and includes publishing to iOS and Android, ads, leaderboards, in-app purchases, and third-party plugins. Publishing iOS games to the App Store requires an active Apple developer license and a Mac. Stencyl says it collects no royalties on games.