Panda3DS vs Play!
Panda3DS
panda3ds.comPlay!
purei.orgSide by side
| Figure | Panda3DS | Play! |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | — |
| Free plan | Yes | — |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | — | Yes |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| iOS | — | Yes |
| Android | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 0 |
| Spec score · Game Console Emulators | 8.3 (#8) | 7.4 (#28) |
| Compatibility | The emulator is a work in progress, not all games have been tested, and the compatibility list may not always be up to date. | The development log reported over 930 confirmed playable games in version 0.61. |
| Product | Panda3DS is an emulator for the Nintendo 3DS. | Play! is a portable PlayStation 2 emulator focused on making emulation easy and accessible. |
| Support | Users can ask for support or submit ideas through the Discord server, or submit an issue on GitHub. | The maker identifies Jean-Philip Desjardins as the author and provides an email contact address. |
| What it does | Panda3DS is an emulator for the Nintendo 3DS. | Play! is a portable PlayStation2 emulator focused on making PlayStation2 emulation easy and accessible. |
Plans
In their own words
Panda3DS
Panda3DS is a free, open-source emulator for Nintendo 3DS games on computers and portable devices. It supports Windows, macOS, Linux, and Android, with Lua scripting, cheats, controller input, support for some system apps, and work-in-progress amiibo support. The project offers automatically updated nightly builds and manually updated stable builds released every few weeks. Desktop builds include an SDL frontend without a GUI and an experimental Qt frontend with a user interface. Panda3DS is still in early development: many games boot, while many do not, and graphics, audio, and usability features can be incomplete. Compatibility information may not always be up to date, and not all games have been tested. Android is also early in development, so compatibility and performance may differ from desktop. Audio support is experimental; the configuration menu is still being developed, and settings must be changed by editing config.toml in a text editor. The emulator is licensed under GPLv3.
Play!
Play! is a free, open-source emulator for PlayStation 2 games, with builds for Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, and iOS, plus an experimental browser port. Its high-level emulation means a BIOS is not required, and the project says users do not need custom settings to fix specific games. Games can be played by inserting a disc; desktop builds also offer command-line options for disc images, ELF files, arcade games, save-state slots, and fullscreen mode. The Play!.js browser version supports ISO, CSO, CHD, ISZ, BIN, and ELF files, but is not intended to run every game supported by desktop and mobile builds. Play! has preliminary support for Namco System 246 and 256 arcade games; release notes described 246 support as desktop-only. A compatibility tracker lists game statuses from Nothing to Playable. On iOS, playing requires JIT code generation, with device, jailbreak, or alternative JIT requirements documented by the project. Automatic JIT activation through AltServer requires it to run on the same network as the iOS device.