gdext VS gdnative

Compare gdext vs gdnative and see what are their differences.

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gdext gdnative
12 93
2,427 3,560
7.1% 0.4%
9.6 6.4
5 days ago 18 days ago
Rust Rust
Mozilla Public License 2.0 MIT License
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.

gdext

Posts with mentions or reviews of gdext. We have used some of these posts to build our list of alternatives and similar projects. The last one was on 2024-04-26.
  • Voronoi, Manhattan, random
    6 projects | dev.to | 26 Apr 2024
    As an alternative, you can code in C++ or C#. If desired, Godot has bindings for other languages, such as Rust. Going ahead—in the end, C++ came in handy and useful for the project.
  • Modern Java/JVM Build Practices
    9 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 4 Jan 2024
    The world has moved on though to opinionated tools, and Rust isn't even the furthest in that direction (That would be Go). The equivalent of those two lines in Cargo.toml would be this example of a basic configuration from the jacoco-maven-plugin: https://www.jacoco.org/jacoco/trunk/doc/examples/build/pom.x... - That's 40 lines in the section to do the "defaults".

    Yes, you could add a load of config for files to include/exclude from coverage and so on, but the idea that that's a norm is way more common in Java projects than other languages. Like here's some example Cargo.toml files from complicated Rust projects:

    Servo: https://github.com/servo/servo/blob/main/Cargo.toml

    rust-gdext: https://github.com/godot-rust/gdext/blob/master/godot-core/C...

    ripgrep: https://github.com/BurntSushi/ripgrep/blob/master/Cargo.toml

    socketio: https://github.com/1c3t3a/rust-socketio/blob/main/socketio/C...

  • GDext: Rust Bindings for Godot 4
    1 project | news.ycombinator.com | 2 Jan 2024
  • Unity’s pricing is a symptom, not the cause of tougher times for the industry
    2 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 14 Sep 2023
  • Godot 4.1 Is Released
    14 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 6 Jul 2023
    Starting with Godot 4.0, they now support GDExtension which allows you to basically write your own game code in C++ (and other languages), then have the engine import your code: https://docs.godotengine.org/en/stable/tutorials/scripting/g.... There is also a set of Rust bindings that utilize GDExtension too: https://github.com/godot-rust/gdext.

    They might be worth looking into.

  • Bevy, Fyrox or Godot, which has better 3D graphics performance and Wayland support?
    1 project | /r/rust_gamedev | 22 Jun 2023
    Godot currently has 2 versions, the 3.X LTS version has a different api for which rust support ist fully there, that version is I think like 6months old and quite mature. The timeline for GDExtention Rust is difficult to predict but this is the status: https://github.com/godot-rust/gdext/issues/24
  • What is Rust's potential in game development?
    12 projects | /r/rust | 15 Jun 2023
    Adding onto this, I successfully written a game in Godot using gdnative / gdext. I started with a split approach using gdscript and rust for CPU intensive but found that the API layer was slow at transferring large amounts of data (serialization?). I ended up rewriting it in all rust and it worked like a charm. I was able to target native and web assembly, the web assembly was much slower but worked on the browser.
  • Thinking of migrating from Roblox, have some questions
    1 project | /r/godot | 8 Jun 2023
    You can always port performance-sensitive parts of your code later to C#, or even Rust using GDExtension modules: https://github.com/godot-rust/gdext
  • Adding scripts written in Rust to nodes with GDExtension
    1 project | /r/godot | 22 May 2023
    I’ve recently switched from my own custom game engine written in Rust to Godot and want to use my knowledge in Rust to create game logic. I’ve looked at the book for godot-rust and can’t figure out how to use it properly. My goal is to write Rust code and implement it as a script in Godot 4.
  • Really frustrated. [Warning: Bit of a negative rant]
    6 projects | /r/rust_gamedev | 26 Apr 2023
    To add to your point, here’s also godot-rust if you want something semi-native in godot

gdnative

Posts with mentions or reviews of gdnative. We have used some of these posts to build our list of alternatives and similar projects. The last one was on 2023-06-27.
  • Can someone explain how exactly are multiple languages supported in a single game engine
    1 project | /r/godot | 12 Nov 2023
  • Will rust ever become a first class citizen in Godot?
    1 project | /r/godot | 6 Aug 2023
  • Non web-based crossplatform GUI frameworks focused on security
    2 projects | /r/rust | 27 Jun 2023
    It's a little less standard use, but Godot has been used to build application guis, which could be paired with rust bindings to implement app logic. I can't speak to reproducibility/scalability, but Godot's ui is extremely solid, and I'd probably choose that over Bevy until Bevy's ui progress matures.
  • What is Rust's potential in game development?
    12 projects | /r/rust | 15 Jun 2023
    Adding onto this, I successfully written a game in Godot using gdnative / gdext. I started with a split approach using gdscript and rust for CPU intensive but found that the API layer was slow at transferring large amounts of data (serialization?). I ended up rewriting it in all rust and it worked like a charm. I was able to target native and web assembly, the web assembly was much slower but worked on the browser.
  • Why is it so difficult to learn to use Bevy?
    3 projects | /r/bevy | 31 May 2023
    Check this: https://github.com/tomuxmon/bevy_roguelike if you are still into bevy. Scheduling is a bit bork and I have not found time to port it to latest bevy. But most of the systems should work fine(if used on latest bevy). But again. If you want faster result go with something like Godot. In fact, just go with Godot. It is mature, easy to start, no lock in(free and MIT license), a lot of learning material. Also with Godot you can also use Rust https://godot-rust.github.io/. Ditch Unity (do not have time to explain 😅). Have fun!
  • GDScript is fine
    4 projects | /r/godot | 7 Apr 2023
    Bevy Godot-Rust
  • Rust – Are We Game Yet?
    15 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 16 Mar 2023
    > Same for Godot.

    While likely true that it's "Unlikely to ever be as supported" as the 4 officially supported languages[0] ("GDScript, C#, and, via its GDExtension technology, C and C++."), Godot's GDExtension technology is specifically intended for use in adding support for other languages.

    The most relevant tracking issue for Rust is presumably:

    * <https://github.com/godot-rust/gdnative/issues/824>

    Which links to:

    * <https://github.com/godot-rust/gdextension>

    [0] https://docs.godotengine.org/en/4.0/getting_started/step_by_...

  • OK so whose gonna tell them
    5 projects | /r/rustjerk | 12 Mar 2023
    ...Godot v3.x has Rust support via godot-rust and Godot v4.0 is released as of this month?
  • Godot 4.0 is out
    3 projects | /r/linux | 1 Mar 2023
    I was curious, and looked it up. Nothing built in, but there's an interesting project that works with godot: https://godot-rust.github.io/
  • There's the Rust Player still going wrong subreddit?
    1 project | /r/ProgrammerHumor | 27 Feb 2023
    There's people working on it: https://godot-rust.github.io/

What are some alternatives?

When comparing gdext and gdnative you can also consider the following projects:

awesome-godot - A curated list of free/libre plugins, scripts and add-ons for Godot

bevy - A refreshingly simple data-driven game engine built in Rust

dipa - dipa makes it easy to efficiently delta encode large Rust data structures.

Godot - Godot Engine – Multi-platform 2D and 3D game engine

xml-mut - xml mutation language resembling sql

RG3D - 3D and 2D game engine written in Rust [Moved to: https://github.com/FyroxEngine/Fyrox]

gdsdecomp - Godot reverse engineering tools

macroquad - Cross-platform game engine in Rust.

piston - A modular game engine written in Rust

wgpu - Cross-platform, safe, pure-rust graphics api.

Arrow - Game Narrative Design Tool

veloren - An open world, open source voxel RPG inspired by Dwarf Fortress and Cube World. This repository is a mirror. Please submit all PRs and issues on our GitLab page.