Mirror Networking vs netcode.io
Mirror Networking
mirror-networking.comnetcode.io
github.comSide by side
| Figure | Mirror Networking | netcode.io |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | — |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| iOS | Yes | — |
| Android | Yes | — |
| Self-hosted | — | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 1 |
| Spec score · Game Networking Middleware | 8.1 (#10) | 8.4 (#5) |
| Intended users | Mirror is presented as a Unity networking library for multiplayer games across genres, including small MMORPGs. | The maker describes the protocol for real-time multiplayer games and shows a backend issuing connect tokens after matchmaking. |
| Support | The maker invites users to contact [email protected] with questions or policy review requests and says it is happy to help with projects. | The maintainer asks users with build questions to open a GitHub issue and says he will do his best to help. |
Plans
In their own words
Mirror Networking
Mirror Networking is a free system for adding multiplayer capabilities to Unity games. It uses a server-authoritative model by default and supports dedicated servers as well as client hosts. Core tools include message handlers, serialization, distributed object management, and state synchronization. Unity components such as NetworkManager, NetworkIdentity, and NetworkBehaviour connect game objects and scripts, with automatic synchronization for transforms and script variables. Built-in transport choices include KCP UDP, Telepathy TCP, WebSockets, a multiplexer, latency simulation, encryption, and Edgegap Relay. Other transport connections include Steam, Epic Online Services, LiteNetLib, and ENet. Mirror is MIT licensed, with no paywalls or CCU costs. The maker says it stores no user data and performs no tracking, analytics, or advertising. Its feature list marks lag compensation and encryption as Beta, unreliable sync mode as in development, and bitpacking and prediction as being researched. The GitHub README recommends Unity 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 LTS, or 6000.1 to get started.
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.