GLFW VS MonoGame

Compare GLFW vs MonoGame and see what are their differences.

GLFW

A multi-platform library for OpenGL, OpenGL ES, Vulkan, window and input (by glfw)
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GLFW MonoGame
78 95
12,091 10,718
3.2% 1.9%
9.3 9.0
2 days ago 7 days ago
C C#
zlib License GNU General Public License v3.0 or later
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.

GLFW

Posts with mentions or reviews of GLFW. We have used some of these posts to build our list of alternatives and similar projects. The last one was on 2024-03-16.
  • macOS 14.4 causes JVM crashes
    2 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 16 Mar 2024
    Minecraft runs on various Javas.

    And there's a known issue with an interaction between minecraft, Java, and the video drivers that crashes out and it can be traced back all the way to here: https://github.com/glfw/glfw/issues/1997

    It's not fixed.

  • Technical Considerations for GUI Toolkits [Discussion]
    2 projects | /r/learnprogramming | 11 Dec 2023
    Types of tools for creating a gui (and how those tools approximately work): 1. Utilize the native _graphical interface API_, and depending on the platform, they have specific layers to interface: * Wayland, X11, for Linux * [GDI](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/gdi/windows-gdi) for windows * [Quartz](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quartz\_(graphics\_layer)) for macOS Example - GTK uses [wayland](https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gtk/-/blob/main/docs/reference/gdk/wayland.md) ([source code](https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gtk/-/tree/main/gdk/win32)) [X11](https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gtk/-/blob/main/docs/reference/gdk/x11.md) ([source code](https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gtk/-/tree/main/gdk/x11)) GDI ([source code](https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gtk/-/tree/main/gdk/win32)) Quartz ([source code](https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gtk/-/tree/main/gdk/macos)) [How to use wayland display server](https://bugaevc.gitbooks.io/writing-wayland-clients/content/black-square/the-wayland-client-library.html) (TODO missing "animation" section) 2. Utilize opengl _or other low level graphics api's_ with window context, use GPU to render widgets * Window context manager - [glfw](https://github.com/glfw/glfw), [sdl](https://www.libsdl.org/) * contexts and surfaces, reading input, handling events Example: ImGui, NanoVG, Nuklear, raylib Why? Mainly used for game development, but also good for gui's. _(i haven't seen any examples that uses this method that are used for developing general-use graphical user interfaces.)_
  • Exploring Computer Graphics: Weekly Chronicle #1
    5 projects | dev.to | 16 Oct 2023
    GLFW: A library for window creation and managing user input.
  • New Vulkan Documentation Website
    10 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 11 Oct 2023
    Not SDL2, but GLFW has something like that under the tests/ directory:

    https://github.com/glfw/glfw/blob/master/tests/triangle-vulk...

  • LWJGL = SFML vs Allegro vs SDL vs Ogre vs ???
    2 projects | /r/opengl | 5 Jul 2023
    I'm not familiar with LWJGL, my 5 seconds on their website makes me think you might be looking for something like GLFW https://www.glfw.org/ to handle I/O and window creation/management.
  • I have spent two whole work days trying to install GLEW
    6 projects | /r/GraphicsProgramming | 3 Jul 2023
    Consider GLFW3 for windowing and GLAD for function loading. I've used this combination myself successfully. Granted, that is "two things" you need, but OTOH it'll work well.
  • OpenGL (GLFW and GLAD) not linking with cmake
    2 projects | /r/cmake | 30 May 2023
    There is a pattern to it which is usable with every GitHub repository. For example, GLFW v3.3.8 can be fetched from: https://github.com/glfw/glfw/archive/refs/tags/3.3.8.tar.gz
    2 projects | /r/cmake | 30 May 2023
    What exactly would I fetch with this method? He's fetching a raylib url, but I don't really see a pattern in it I can follow when fetching glfw. I assume I can use this repository? https://github.com/glfw/glfw
  • Curseforge Minecraft running on M2?
    2 projects | /r/macgaming | 1 Apr 2023
    I'm not sure how to fix it, sorry. I searched for some of the messages and found this bug: . I think overriding the LWJGL library might fix the issue, but I don't see any way to do that with the CurseForge launcher.
  • GLFW has merged proper support for client-side window decorations on Wayland!
    4 projects | /r/linux | 28 Mar 2023

MonoGame

Posts with mentions or reviews of MonoGame. We have used some of these posts to build our list of alternatives and similar projects. The last one was on 2023-11-11.
  • Not only Unity...
    53 projects | /r/opensourcegames | 11 Nov 2023
    https://github.com/MonoGame/MonoGame /
  • MonoGame VS kni - a user suggested alternative
    2 projects | 10 Oct 2023
  • OSS Game Engines are increasing their stars on GitHub due to Unity's missteps
    2 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 19 Sep 2023
    Yes, it is possible, but you need to use a game framework not a game engine.

    Example of a game framework: http://www.monogame.net.

  • Unity's Trap
    3 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 17 Sep 2023
    Monogame, though it doesn't do much hand-holding: https://github.com/MonoGame/MonoGame

    Webassembly support is spotty, though in progress AFAICT.

    Used by a few 2D games like Stsrdew Valley and Celeste.

  • Which tools should I use to create my game ?
    6 projects | /r/gamedev | 6 May 2023
    Some that I am aware of and that support at least Windows and Android are (Monogame)[https://www.monogame.net/], (Cocos2D)[https://www.cocos.com/en/cocos2d-x], (LÖVE)[https://love2d.org/]. But there are likely many more. Even more basic ones which are just another abstraction layer on top of SDL (like (Oxygine)[https://oxygine.org/]).
  • What mobile game engine to choose for a simple multiplateforme gacha game?
    4 projects | /r/GameDevelopment | 4 May 2023
    - https://www.monogame.net/
  • Celeste's Software
    3 projects | /r/celestegame | 27 Mar 2023
  • Miasma Devlog 0: The first 40 days
    2 projects | /r/devblogs | 13 Mar 2023
    Almost everywhere I've worked over the last few years is using Unity, Unreal, or React to develop titles, but I have always enjoyed the lower level no batteries included development style of the XNA framework which was popularized during the Xbox360 era. More recently the framework has been reborn and modernized as MonoGame, while maintaining the same feel and development style.
  • Senior software engineer - what game engine should I start with ?
    5 projects | /r/gamedev | 6 Mar 2023
    I have a similar profile, and I have tried many different engines/frameworks/libraries. Some thoughts: - ebiten, written in Go, is a very light game dev lib. I like Go, so writing "my own engine" with it was pretty fun (I have some libs for ebiten here). Mostly 2d. - Love2d is sort of the same thing, but written in C++, and scriptable in Lua. I absolutely love this level of abstraction, and this is probably the one I have been the most productive with (example here). Mostly 2d, but people have done 3d with it too. - Godot has a bright future, at least from my point of view. The 2D workflow is very very fast, much faster than Unity in my experience (you don't spend time waiting for stuff to recompile every time you edit a script, for starters), and they just released v4, which comes with insane improvements in 3D rendering. I have never delved into 3D, but from what I can see, it's on par with what Unity can produce these days. Plus, the founders have created a separate commercial entity to provide support for consoles (called W4games), because the open source licensing attached to Godot is not compatible with the NDAs involved in publishing for consoles - raylib and monogame might be interesting for you if you want to go old-school. They're both inspired by the same framework (XNA) and they work similarly. Also very close to the way Love2d does things, and a comparable level of abstraction. - Unity is slow. I honestly dislike it a lot, just for this reason. There's also a lot of "we've refactored this, and there's no docs yet, but you can also use this other system, and also the legacy one, and that one, or build your own based on these primitives" and it's hard when you're a beginner. If you know what you're doing I guess it's fine, or if you don't care, but as a software engineer, you will probably be like me and try to find the "best" solution to your problem, which is tiring and hard to do with Unity.
  • About game engines
    3 projects | /r/gamedev | 18 Jan 2023
    If you prefer a framework instead of an engine and editor they do exist, MonoGame is a popular one. I wouldn't recommend it unless you're doing it more as a hobby (in which case it's totally valid to do whatever suits you best), using engines with their editors and scripting languages is the industry standard.

What are some alternatives?

When comparing GLFW and MonoGame you can also consider the following projects:

SDL - Simple Directmedia Layer

bgfx - Cross-platform, graphics API agnostic, "Bring Your Own Engine/Framework" style rendering library.

glad - Multi-Language Vulkan/GL/GLES/EGL/GLX/WGL Loader-Generator based on the official specs.

Raylib-cs - C# bindings for raylib, a simple and easy-to-use library to learn videogames programming

FNA - FNA - Accuracy-focused XNA4 reimplementation for open platforms

Skia - Skia is a complete 2D graphic library for drawing Text, Geometries, and Images.

Stride Game Engine - Stride Game Engine (formerly Xenko)

OpenSceneGraph - OpenSceneGraph git repository

Ogre 3D - scene-oriented, flexible 3D engine (C++, Python, C#, Java)

raylib - A simple and easy-to-use library to enjoy videogames programming

Nez - Nez is a free 2D focused framework that works with MonoGame and FNA

SkiaSharp - SkiaSharp is a cross-platform 2D graphics API for .NET platforms based on Google's Skia Graphics Library. It provides a comprehensive 2D API that can be used across mobile, server and desktop models to render images.