🌐 Web Game Engines & Libraries

WebGL, WebGL2, and WebGPU enable developers to create real-time 2D and 3D graphics in the browser. Writing raw WebGL or WebGPU code is tedious, so there are engines that abstract the complexity and do the heavy-lifting to provide more user-friendly APIs. This page presents the main JavaScript engines available.

Engines and libraries

Much like any ecosystem of developer tools, there are 2 approaches: the monolithic batteries-included framework approach (those would be the engines), or the modular assemble-independent-libraries-together approach. Some of them are installable as typical NPM dependencies, others come in the form of editors that can be downloaded or used in the browser. The main engines and libraries available as packages for JavaScript game development are:

• Stars
  NPM
  TS
  Maintained
• Three.js

  104k

  2M/w

  

  – 3D library
  104k2M/w
  
• PixiJS

  44k

  165k/w

  

  – 2D library (there is also Pixi3D)
  44k165k/w
  
• Phaser

  38k

  45k/w

  

  – 2D engine
  38k45k/w
  
• Babylon.js

  24k

  42k/w

  

  – 3D engine
  24k42k/w
  
• PlayCanvas

  9k

  2k/w

  

  – (engine only) 3D engine
  9k2k/w
  
• OGL

  4k

  30k/w

  

  – Minimal 3D library
  4k30k/w
  
• Orillusion

  4k

  150/w

  

  – 3D engine in beta
  4k150/w
  
• Two.js

  8k

  5k/w

  

  – 2D library
  8k5k/w
  
• Excalibur

  2k

  2k/w

  

  – 2D engine
  2k2k/w
  
• Kaplay

  600

  700/w

  

  – 2D engine, successor of Kaboom.js
  600700/w
  

Compare on NPMTrends and Star History (requires a GH token)

About these numbers and colors

And many more engines and libraries.

UI library wrappers

You can use any of the previous libraries and engines on their own, but some of them can also be combined with UI libraries wrappers for React, Svelte, Vue, or Angular. This might seem surprising at first, but using these makes your code more declarative and conveniently abstracts some boilerplate. The main wrapper libraries are:

• Stars
  NPM
  TS
  Maintained
• React Three Fiber

  28k

  480k/w

  

  – Three.js with React
  28k480k/w
  
• Threlte

  3k

  6k/w

  

  – Three.js with Svelte
  3k6k/w
  
• TresJS

  3k

  30k/w

  

  – Three.js with Vue
  3k30k/w
  
• react-babylonjs

  800

  2k/w

  

  – Babylon.js with React
  8002k/w
  
• Pixi React

  2k

  9k/w

  

  – PixiJS with React
  2k9k/w
  
• Svelte Pixi

  100

  150/w

  

  – PixiJS with Svelte
  100150/w
  
  3 years
• PlayCanvas React

  100

  300/w

  

  – Wrapper of the engine
  100300/w
  
• Phavuer

  100

  30/w

  

  – Phaser with Vue
  10030/w
  
• react-ogl

  140

  30/w

  

  – OGL with React
  14030/w
  
  3 years

For instance, React Three Fiber (R3F), lets you add objects to a scene and control them as React components:

import { useRef, useState } from 'react'

import { Canvas, useFrame } from '@react-three/fiber'

const Box = (props) => {
  const ref = useRef(null)
  const [hovered, setHovered] = useState(false)
  const [clicked, setClicked] = useState(false)

  useFrame((_, dt) => {
    ref.current.rotation.x += dt
  })

  return (
    <mesh
      {...props}
      ref={ref}
      scale={clicked ? 1.5 : 1}
      onClick={() => setClicked(!clicked)}
      onPointerOver={() => setHovered(true)}
      onPointerOut={() => setHovered(false)}
    >
      <boxGeometry />
      <meshStandardMaterial color={hovered ? 'hotpink' : 'orange'} />
    </mesh>
  )
}

const App = () => (
  <Canvas>
    <ambientLight />
    <pointLight position={[10, 10, 10]} />
    <Box position={[-1.2, 0, 0]} />
    <Box position={[1.2, 0, 0]} />
  </Canvas>
)

export default App

Downloadable/cloud editors

The following engines are available as downloadable or cloud-based editors and support JavaScript or TypeScript. Make sure to check their licensing and pricing models.

• Stars
  NPM
  TS
  Maintained
• PlayCanvas

  /w

  

  – 3D engine, freemium cloud editor, WebGPU-ready
  N/AN/A
  
• Cocos Creator

  8k

  /w

  

  – 2D and 3D engine, native editor and exports
  8kN/A
  
• Wonderland Engine

  /w

  

  – 3D engine, freemium, native editor
  N/AN/A
  
• Rogue Engine

  /w

  

  – 3D editor for Three.js
  N/AN/A
  
• Triplex

  /w

  

  – React Three Fiber editor that saves to source code
  N/AN/A
  
• Construct 3

  /w

  

  – Premium 2D engine with visual scripting
  N/AN/A
  
• GDevelop

  13k

  /w

  

  – Freemium 2D and 3D no-code platform
  13kN/A
  
• Needle

  900/w

  

  – Tools to export Unity and Blender scenes to Three.js
  N/A900/w
  
• Spline

  90k/w

  

  – Freemium collaborative web-based 3D modeling tool
  N/A90k/w
  

Going native with JavaScript

You also have a few options to write JavaScript code that compiles to native. Expo is a framework for React Native, and they created Expo GL and expo-three to provide a Three.js interface for native OpenGL ES. And it can be used declaratively with React Three Fiber! Babylon.js is working on a similar preview feature with Babylon Native and Babylon React Native. There is also Cocos Creator, a native editor that can compile TypeScript to native.