Proton VS flatpak

Compare Proton vs flatpak and see what are their differences.

Proton

Compatibility tool for Steam Play based on Wine and additional components (by ValveSoftware)

flatpak

Linux application sandboxing and distribution framework (by flatpak)
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Proton flatpak
1447 431
22,475 4,013
2.1% 1.3%
9.6 9.0
3 days ago 4 days ago
C++ C
GNU General Public License v3.0 or later GNU Lesser General Public License v3.0 only
The number of mentions indicates the total number of mentions that we've tracked plus the number of user suggested alternatives.
Stars - the number of stars that a project has on GitHub. Growth - month over month growth in stars.
Activity is a relative number indicating how actively a project is being developed. Recent commits have higher weight than older ones.
For example, an activity of 9.0 indicates that a project is amongst the top 10% of the most actively developed projects that we are tracking.

Proton

Posts with mentions or reviews of Proton. We have used some of these posts to build our list of alternatives and similar projects. The last one was on 2024-01-30.
  • Proton, a fast and lightweight alternative to Apache Flink
    7 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 30 Jan 2024
    Or Valve's Proton[0], a tool for playing Windows games on Linux.

    https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton

  • How do I use multiple hard drives on Kubuntu for steam?
    2 projects | /r/Kubuntu | 10 Dec 2023
    there is a hack to try and use your existing windows game install from an NTFS drive, but i don't recommend it as steam will try to save file names that are not allowed on NTFS...plus ext4 is faster.
  • Game crashes within 10 seconds of launching unless I reinstall from scratch
    2 projects | /r/satisfactory | 9 Dec 2023
    From a quick search, here's what I found. It looks like you're encountering some common issues that can occur with games running on Linux through Proton, especially with the recent updates to games like Satisfactory that might affect compatibility. The log entries you're seeing related to D3DCompile2 failing to compile shader and the issues with Ternary operator and LinearToSrgbBranching not being defined, suggest that there's a problem with shader compilation. This can often be related to the version of Proton or the graphics drivers you are using. Some users have reported that the game does launch with the -vulkan option but with graphical glitches and lower performance, which indicates that the Vulkan renderer is working but possibly not optimally on your setup. From the discussions in the community, users have suggested ensuring that the latest drivers for your graphics card are installed and, if using an Intel GPU, that the Mesa drivers are up to date since Intel XeSS references were found in the logs. If you're using NVIDIA graphics, make sure you have the latest drivers and possibly set the PROTON_ENABLE_NVAPI=1 %command% to enable DLSS if you're under Vulkan. If you're using an Optimus laptop with both Intel and NVIDIA GPUs, make sure your Optimus setup is correctly configured. Some users have found success by specifying DXVK_FILTER_DEVICE_NAMES=GeForce to force the game to use the NVIDIA GPU. It's also worth noting that if you're encountering issues with DirectX 11, you might want to try forcing the game to use DirectX 10 if possible or look into DXVK configurations that could resolve compatibility issues. Lastly, if none of these solutions work, you could try running a trace with apitrace to gather more detailed logs that might point to the specific issue. If you're still stuck, it would be a good idea to report the issue to the Proton GitHub page or seek further assistance in the game's community forums where others might have encountered and solved similar issues. For more information and to find others who might have resolved similar issues, check out the community discussions on GitHub​​, Steam Community​​, and the DXVK GitHub page​​.
  • Been thinking of switching to linux but I am a noob
    8 projects | /r/linux_gaming | 6 Dec 2023
    There's an official mini-guide on using your NTFS game drive on Linux, though I would strongly suggest trying to use it as-is without following the guide first! https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/wiki/Using-a-NTFS-disk-with-Linux-and-Windows
  • Proton 8.0-4 – Wine Valve Software Steam Linux
    2 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 6 Oct 2023
    2 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 6 Oct 2023
  • Space Engineers crashing when I try to join an online game
    2 projects | /r/linux_gaming | 5 Sep 2023
    What steps have you taken to try and fix the issue?. for example, have you looked through the protondb page for SpaceEngineers or tried different proton versions (or protonGE), you could also read through the proton issue tracker for SpaceEngineers to see if there are any other users with multiplayer issues
  • FYI: Today's update broke compatibility on Linux and MacOS, game won't start
    3 projects | /r/aoe2 | 28 Jun 2023
    Workaround in https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/3189 worked for me
    3 projects | /r/aoe2 | 28 Jun 2023
  • CAN'T PLAY ON LINUX. Latest update broke game - Steam
    2 projects | /r/aoe2 | 27 Jun 2023
    Here's the proton issue about it. Doesn't look that unsolvable. I'm optimistic that we can play again with an experimental proton within a few days.

flatpak

Posts with mentions or reviews of flatpak. We have used some of these posts to build our list of alternatives and similar projects. The last one was on 2024-03-27.

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Proton and flatpak you can also consider the following projects:

lutris - Lutris desktop client

proton-ge-custom - Compatibility tool for Steam Play based on Wine and additional components

steam-runtime - A runtime environment for Steam applications

firejail - Linux namespaces and seccomp-bpf sandbox

dxvk-async

Autodesk-Fusion-360-for-Linux - This is a project, where I give you a way to use Autodesk Fusion 360 on Linux!

mf-install - Media Foundation workaround for Wine

yuzu - Nintendo Switch emulator

distrobox - Use any linux distribution inside your terminal. Enable both backward and forward compatibility with software and freedom to use whatever distribution you’re more comfortable with. Mirror available at: https://gitlab.com/89luca89/distrobox

gamescope - SteamOS session compositing window manager [Moved to: https://github.com/ValveSoftware/gamescope]

wine - Wine with a bit of extra spice

Magpie - An all-purpose window upscaler for Windows 10/11.