GameNetworkingSockets vs netcode.io
GameNetworkingSockets
github.comnetcode.io
github.comSide by side
| Figure | GameNetworkingSockets | netcode.io |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| iOS | Yes | — |
| API | Yes | — |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 1 |
| Spec score · Game Networking Middleware | 8.2 (#8) | 8.4 (#5) |
| Encryption | It uses AES-GCM-256 per packet and Curve25519 for key exchange and certificate signatures. | Packets are encrypted and signed using the libsodium cryptography library. |
| License | The repository identifies its license as BSD-3-Clause. | The C implementation is released under the BSD 3-Clause license. |
| Purpose | GameNetworkingSockets is a basic transport layer for games that sends reliable and unreliable messages over UDP. | netcode is a secure, connection-oriented client/server protocol for multiplayer games built on UDP. |
| Security reporting | The security policy asks researchers to report vulnerabilities privately through HackerOne rather than as public issues or pull requests. | Vulnerability reports can be submitted privately through GitHub or by email, and fixes are made on the latest release without backports to older release lines. |
Plans
In their own words
GameNetworkingSockets
GameNetworkingSockets is a free BSD-3-Clause transport library for games that sends reliable and unreliable messages over UDP. It handles messages larger than the underlying MTU through fragmentation and reassembly, with retransmission for reliable messages. Packets use AES-GCM-256, while Curve25519 supports key exchange and certificate signatures. Peer-to-peer connections can use Google WebRTC ICE for NAT traversal, with an option to plug in a signaling service. Multiple message lanes can share one connection under strict priorities or weighted bandwidth rules. Included diagnostics simulate packet latency and loss and measure detailed statistics. The library is written in C++ and also exposes a plain C interface; third-party bindings are listed for C#, Go, and Rust. Build instructions cover Linux, Windows, macOS, and iOS. Steam is not required for the open-source library, but authentication, signaling, and Steam Datagram Relay remain Steam-only services. Higher-level entity serialization, delta encoding, and compression are not included.
netcode.io
netcode.io is a free, open-source client/server protocol for real-time multiplayer games. It uses UDP to exchange unreliable, unordered packets without TCP head-of-line blocking. Game backends can issue connect tokens that authorize clients, while servers assign connecting clients to configured slots and reject connections when slots are full. The protocol supports clean disconnects and timeouts for hard disconnects. Packets are encrypted and signed with libsodium, with protections described against crafted packets, replay attacks, and amplification attacks. IPv4 and IPv6 are supported, along with packet tagging intended to reduce Wi-Fi jitter. Implementations are listed for C, C#, Go, Rust, Unity, Unreal Engine 4, and TypeScript. Builds use CMake on Windows, macOS, and Linux, with CMake 3.16 or later and a vendored libsodium subset by default. The BSD 3-Clause project documents REST-based token requests and reports a nonce-reuse issue affecting versions 1.3.5 and earlier, fixed in 1.4.0.