GameNetworkingSockets vs Riptide Networking
GameNetworkingSockets
github.comRiptide Networking
github.comSide by side
| Figure | GameNetworkingSockets | Riptide Networking |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| iOS | Yes | Yes |
| Android | — | Yes |
| API | Yes | — |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 1 |
| Spec score · Game Networking Middleware | 8.2 (#8) | 7.6 (#21) |
| Purpose | GameNetworkingSockets is a basic transport layer for games that sends reliable and unreliable messages over UDP. | Riptide is a lightweight C# networking library primarily designed for multiplayer games. |
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.
Riptide Networking
Riptide Networking has no write-up on Specifiction yet; its figures are above.