Speedrun.com vs Steam Community
Speedrun.com
speedrun.comSteam Community
steamcommunity.comSide by side
| Figure | Speedrun.com | Steam Community |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | — | Yes |
| macOS | — | Yes |
| Linux | — | Yes |
| iOS | — | Yes |
| Android | — | Yes |
| API | Yes | — |
| Plans published | 2 | 1 |
| Spec score · Gaming Community Platforms | 8.0 (#8) | 8.4 (#3) |
| Audience | The site describes itself as a platform for game communities, runners tracking progress, and fans following along. | Steam is not intended for children under 13, and users under 13 may not become subscribers. |
| Integrations | The privacy policy says users may link third-party accounts including Steam, Battle.net, Twitch, Discord, and Twitter. | Valve says Steam accounts can be linked to third-party accounts with user consent, and Steamworks API makes some account information available to games and partners. |
| Purpose | Speedrun.com hosts communities for thousands of games, each with leaderboards, rules, moderators, and participants. | Steam Community provides community and official content for games and software on Steam. |
| Security | The privacy policy says the company uses commercially reasonable security measures, but does not guarantee information will be absolutely safe from intrusion. | Valve lists pseudonymization, industry-standard encryption, data minimization, and need-to-know access among its data protection measures. |
| Support | The Support Hub lets users find help articles, learn about running or moderating, and open a support ticket; it says staff will answer as soon as they can. | Steam Support guides users through self-service steps or lets them send a help request to the support team. |
Plans
In their own words
Speedrun.com
Speedrun.com hosts communities for thousands of games, bringing together leaderboards, rules, moderators, and participants. Runners can use rankings to track progress, while fans can follow communities. Listed tools include game customization, news, forums, guides, resources, videos, streaming, moderation features, profiles, messages, and notifications. The site also provides a public API and supports account creation with Discord, Twitch, or Google. Speedrun.com lists 20 million yearly visitors, 6.4 million speedruns, 3 million registered users, and 54.6 thousand game communities. Core community features are available on the free plan. Supporter benefits include ad-free browsing, beta features, a supporters-only forum, username animation, an extra badge, and Boosts. A Boost gives three members of a game community 30 days of ad-free access; monthly subscribers receive one every 30 days and annual subscribers receive two. Supporter does not provide speedrunning or game-community management advantages. The API may be revised or discontinued without notice.
Steam Community
Steam Community is a social space for players to share content, follow games and connect with friends. Game hubs gather discussions, uploaded material and game updates; users can browse screenshots, artwork, broadcasts, videos, Workshop items, news, guides and reviews. Steam Chat supports text and voice conversations with friends or groups, including videos, Tweets and GIFs. Steam Broadcast lets users stream gameplay to friends or the wider community. Workshop offers player-created mods and cosmetics for nearly 1,000 supported games. Steam also lists achievements and custom recommendations. Its mobile app for iOS and Android provides access to Community, Discussions, Market, Workshop, broadcasts, friends, groups, screenshots and inventory. Steam Community is free, though access to more Hubs requires a Steam account. The client supports 28 languages and counting. Steam accounts are personal and generally cannot be sold or transferred. Users under 13 may not subscribe, and local law may set a higher minimum age for account creation.