| A | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | GBaaS Discord | Share This Sheet | AccelByte "Starter" Gaming Services | ⭐AcceleratXR (AXR) by Xsolla | Amazon GameTech (AWS) | Azure PlayFab (PF) by Microsoft | Beamable | ⭐BrainCloud (BC) by bitHeads Inc. | Epic Online Services (EOS) by Epic Games | Google Firebase | LootLocker | Mod.io (User-Generated Content) | Pragma | Unisave | |
2 | (Sheet created/sponsored by Imperium42) GENERAL, PRICING | GENERAL, PRICING | GENERAL, PRICING | GENERAL, PRICING | GENERAL, PRICING | GENERAL, PRICING | GENERAL, PRICING | GENERAL, PRICING | GENERAL, PRICING | GENERAL, PRICING | GENERAL, PRICING | GENERAL, PRICING | GENERAL, PRICING | |
3 | ⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️ ⚠️ IMPORTANT NOTES ⚠️ ⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️ | Very new - so new that you may have trouble Googling or finding other devs that have coded this. | Acquired by Xsolla, pending new commercial offering (sept 2023) | 💡 Identical to Core AWS ⚠️ No native Steam Auth | ⚠️ Cloud scripts are raw Azure infra (make it yourself from scratch) and excluded from PF support. Very high learning curve, much like creating AWS infra yourself. Priced separately. PF won't help you with setup/issues here. Azure has 0 integration with PF except accepting a link to the Function. ⚠️Unreal user? Lobby/Matchmaking is unstable, unusable and incomplete ⚠️Renders entire modules unusable without even updating the docs years later to let you know. No inline comment hints, either. ⚠️ ️ Read More ⚠️ | Allegedly the most expensive to scale among the competition, but this claim needs to be verified | If you plan to use a large number of API calls, this service scales expensively. (Other than that, this is Xblade's personal favorite GBaaS) | ⚠️Client-Side Semi-Vulnerable | - | - | - | ? | - | |
4 | Launch Date (or 'Early Access') | 2023 | 2018 | ? | 2015(?) | ? | 2014 | 2021 | ? | 2020 | 2018 | ? | 2020 | |
5 | Websites (omit https://www for brevity) | https://accelbyte.io/pricing | acceleratxr.com | aws.amazon.com/gametech | playfab.com | beamable.com | getbraincloud.com | Feature List | dev.epicgames.com | firebase.google.com | lootlocker.com | https://mod.io | ? | unisave.cloud | |
6 | Type(s) Authoritative? BaaS? DGS? Hybrid? | Authoritative BaaS | Authoritative BaaS + Realtime DGS (Hybrid) | Authoritative IaaS + Realtime DGS (IaaS Modules) | Authoritative BaaS + Realtime DGS (Hybrid) | Authoritative BaaS | Authoritative BaaS + Realtime DGS (Hybrid) | Realtime Client-Hosted Servers + Limited BaaS | Authoritative BaaS | Authoritative BaaS | GBaaS for User-Generated Content (UGC) | ? | Authoritative BaaS | |
7 | Notable Client/Game List * Disclaimer: Names are only posted if publicly discoverable, generally with a src link. These are best-guess (probable) associations. | None, so far (too new) | RedpillVR Superbitmachine (Armajet) Hexarchia (Overdroid) | New World | ⚠️ There's a fair chance the following used v1, not v2: Full Service: Roblox Minecraft Forza Flight Simulator ONLY Party/Chat Service: Halo Gears of War Doom Eternal Sea of Thieves Outriders | ? | Atari | Fortnite Hades Dauntless Rocket League Paragon | ? | Hokko Life SNOW Block'Em We Who Are About to Die Rust Racers Robot Lord Rising | Dying Light 2 Stay Human Anno 1800 Snowrunner Deeprock Galactic Two Point Campus Ready or Not Park Beyond House Flipper 2 Blade & Sorcery | ? | Engine Evolution Back Streets Hunters of Demaal | |
8 | Target Audience | Indie~AA | Experienced devs that want advanced features at a low cost. | Experienced devs that want reliability and flexibility, that may have integrations with other services (such as BrainCloud). | * Devs that want an Azure db (with C# beta support) * Nice web dashboard/portal and scaling prices based on usage. * For cloud code: targeting very advanced Azure infra devs. * For platorms, targeting Unity -- most definitely not Unreal. | C# Unity devs that want to upload their Unity project to the cloud to act as a server to match their client architecture; low price | Devs of all levels that want an Intuitive dashboard/portal with numerous prebuilt feats where it's free to start, but grows as you grow; the more efficiently coded, the more $$ you save. | To those looking for a 100% free product with oAuth2 (login), stats, and P2P servers/lobbies for desktop games. | Mobile app devs looking for a cheap, barebones solution with nothing prebuilt except for oAuth2 ("Login With..."). | ? | Studios and publishers of all sizes, from indie to AAA, that are looking for the simplest solution for in-game integration of UGC for Unreal, Unity, or custom engines using our SDK. | ? | Unity Indie Developers Someone hoping to pay very low fees | |
9 | High-Level Summary[0] No marketing fluff | Free indie variant of AccelByte that looks quite promising, although very new | Offers tons of AAA features for simple to complex online and MMO projects including real-time and asynchronous multi-player capability. Open technology platform built on NodeJS (TypeScript) and Kubernetes using proven industry standards. | Amazon GameTech is the umbrella of Amazon web services dedicated to games currently has 175 microservices that can be stiched together to make back-end systems along with other functionality. | PlayFab is a full-featured BaaS built to handle all of your LiveOps needs, whether you’re a small indie studio or building a AAA game or MMO. | Beamable enables game makers to easily add social, commerce and content management features to their games with drag-and-drop prefabs inside Unity3D without the need of a game server. A Unity package features ready-to-ship user interfaces distilled from best-practices with every feature, and a visual skinning designer so they seamlessly integrate with the developer's game. | Ready-made platform to dev feature-rich games. Core feats: Cloud saves, leaderboards, tournaments, divisions, friends, achievements, milestones, quests, groups Advanced real-time (RTT) feats include RTT events, chat, messaging. | Brand new, 100% free service (often called EOS). Holds huge potential, but is still so new that no one knows what to think, yet. | Targeted towards small-scoped games on mobile/web. One of the cheapest BaaS in price. | LootLocker is a game backend-as-a-service with plug and play tools to upgrade your game and give your players the best experience possible. Designed for teams of all shapes and sizes, on mobile, PC and console. From solo developers, indie teams, AAA studios, and publishers. Built with cross-platform in mind. Manage your game Save time and upgrade your game with leaderboards, progression, and more. Completely off-the-shelf features, built to work with any game and platform. | mod.io is the leading user-generated content (UGC) solution for game studios and publishers, available on 11 game systems and stores. Since launching in 2018, mod.io has delivered over one billion downloads of over 2.4 million pieces of user-generated content. | ? | Unisave lets you easily build a backend server for your Unity game. Database, cloud code, real-time messaging, deployment, and one Unity asset to rule them all. | |
10 | High-Level Summary[1] No marketing fluff | - | Flexibile pricing structures ranging from do-it-yourself royalty based, premium support contracts to fully managed hosted solutions with simple per MAU pricing.
The team's former experience (not AXR, itself) has experience working with AAA titles such as Hawken and XCOM 2. | GameTech incorporates everything from back end tech, RT + Matchmaking, Twitch, DB + Storage, Analytics and AI + ML | Featuring authentication and cross-network identity, leaderboards, inventory and economy management, analytics, hosted multiplayer servers, matchmaking, groups, CMS, CDN, robust engagement features, cloud server functions*, voice chat, RT P2P networking, push notifications, and more.
*Cloud script accepts a link to a raw Azure Function, completely detached from PF. *Unity is immensely priroitized over Unreal. | A fully managed SaaS backend powers Beamable with features including Accounts, Social Login, Groups/Guilds/Teams, Chat, Friends, Leaderboards, Live Events, Tournaments, In-Game Mail, Push Notifications, News/Announcements, Analytics, Segmentation, Stats/User Properties, Commerce/Storefront, Payments (Steam, Windows Store, iOS, Google Play, Amazon, Facebook/Gameroom, Flexion), Inventory, and a Relay Server for deterministic real-time multiplayer and turn-based multiplayer.
Still in development (but already has live titles): Has bright and promising future. | MP feats include online + offline MP modes, hosting, relay and room servers, lobbies and online matchmaking.
Live pricing plans begin at $15/mo. Private instance licenses also available. For more information on pricing, check the BC Calc Tab | The service is quite similar to Steam's mplayer service, but platform/engine-independent: P2P, key/val storage (no direct DB access), stats, achievements, lobby, matchmaking, oAuth2 and analytics. Mobile support coming soon. | - | Manage your content
Take charge of your game's content on all platforms, in one place. Sort, edit and manage everything, from cosmetics to currencies, UGC to DLC. Without breaking a sweat. Manage your players Store your players' data together in one place. Access their profile and friends list cross-platform. Manage reports, messages, refunds and gifts to keep them hooked. | Live in more than 190 games, official UGC support is enabled across PC, PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo Switch, mobile, and VR. | ? | Start by using pre-built modules (steam auth, mtx validation, leaderboards) or build the next revolutionary system on top of this easy to learn platform. Unisave is extensible with modules, just like Unity is extensible with assets. There are no limits to what can be built. | |
11 | High-Level Pros[0] What features stand out? | * Free with very generous caps * Easily transitions into "AB Premium" if you explode with traffic * Tons of premade features with arbitrary data for custom modules * Created to have more focus on your game, less on devops | ⭐ "Mods Choice" award (Top 3) in 2020+ * The most active team on Discord (2021). * Huge MMO feature set. * Live Scripting System for editing any code without requiring redeployment: Easily extend REST API with new endpoints, storage data types, event handling. * Access to full source code, forkable, customizeable. Great code quality, in-line docs. | * #1 in uptime reliability. * Greater control + unlimited flexibility. * Scales with unlimited potential. * If you have the time and budget, GameTech is probably the best choice above all when it comes to making your game "future-proof". * Immune to DDoS (one would assume?). * All vulnerabilities will be fixed as soon as its identified, ultimately saving your future self money from outages. | * Easy to use and get started * Cloud scripts link to [raw] Azure or AWS using any language. * Backed by Microsoft - it's not going away * Great [Unity; not UE4] docs and active staff in Discord/forums * Ticket system or [unofficial] Discord contacts with quick replies | * C# server-side code * Created and supported by a company that build and shipped a number of successful mobile titles. * Many features highly tailored to best practices of building, operating, and scaling item based economies. * Includes shippable UI via Unity Prefabs * Many large games running on the platform today (Star Trek Timelines, Archer: Danger Phone). | ⭐ "Mods Choice" award (top 3) in 2020+ * Cheap (or even free) to start. * The most-similar spiritual successor to GameSparks. * Semi-open Mongodbl + NoSQL access (but watered down for the cheaper tier). * The most user-friendly and intuitive dashboard/API to-date. | * 100% Free * Has native anti-cheat service to compensate for client-side hack vulnerabilities. * Unspoken likilihood of increasing your chances to get on Epic Store. | * Seems extremely affordable. * Supports realtime sockets. * Supports native NoSQL DB. | * Easy to use and get started * Plug and play features, requiring no additional coding * Extremely responsive developers & communit on Discord * Free to launch with (up to 10k MAU) | * Free to use (with optional premium white label features available) * Works with any game engine * Certified for use on PC, PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo Switch, VR, and mobile * Easy to integrate with our REST API | ? | * Arguably the least-expensive? To be confirmed --Xb * Primarily an extensible platform with which you can build anything * Backend code written in C#, stored inside you Unity project | |
12 | High-Level Pros[1] What features stand out? | - | * Easy-to-use dashboard UI. * Remote debugging (with step-thru). * Offers realtime and asynchronous capability. * Easy integration to other third-party or proprietary backends/services. * Simple and flexible pricing with perpetual licensing options. | - | * Friendly dashboard UI
* "Playstream" feature with realtime API event viewing/triggers. * Large, helpful community * Forum is filled with tips and solutions * The actual devs are active on Discord * Realtime pub/sub sockets [Canceled?] | - | * Extremely responsive in-browser chat tool with what appears to be native English speakers. * Under active development with clear+updated roadmap. * Amazing cloud script version control: Every time you save, a new version is copied with easy-access reverts. | * Support for standalone Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, iOS. | - | * Built by game developers
* Inuitive interface / dashboard * MMO feature set * Self-hosted option |
* Fully customisable modular in-game UI * Customisable embedded UGC hubs for use on your website * Easy-to-use dashboards * In-depth metrics and analytics built-in | ? | * Seamless Unity integration,
just click the [ ▶ ] button. * Expanding library of modules that extend the core with specific features (auth, microtransactions, leaderboards, ...) * Provides direct access to a NoSQL database (ArangoDB) | |
13 | High-Level Pros[2] What features stand out? | * BaaS offers dedicated service resources, no hard limits, gauranteed data privacy, direct database access and dedicated hardware options. * Game server hosting and CDN available. * Self-Hosted can be deployed on any cloud provider, public or private datacenter using Kubernetes. * Capable of supporting multiple titles. Fully customizeable and whitebox capable. Built on the open-source framework ComposerJS. * Unity plug-in, UE4 plug-in with OnlineSubsystem implementation, Custom C++/C#/JavaScript SDKs | * Supports no-hassle cloud script renaming/moving, script directory organization, import and export.
* Free (and hassle-free) support that always responds in <24h: Competitors charge a huge premium for this. | ? | ||||||||||
14 | High-Level Cons[0] What is missing/weak? | * Too new to trust 100%, but AB is known for reliability so perhaps we can bypass this * You can "do anything with it", but there seems to be some database restrictions that I don't fully understand yet (to edit later. | * Dashboard is very minimal / does not feel modern. * Small # of staff. | * Has no native support for Steam auth. * Misleadingly identical to barebones AWS: GameTech is essentially just a collection of docs specific to gaming. * No collective dashboard. | * Lobby/Matchmaking is essentially broken on Unreal without coding your own standalone PubSub system (or use OSS, as a workaround for events, but at the cost of crippled features like the inability to matchmake with friends - solo only - or throwing out Mac/Linux support, among low-effort OSS code/docs). * You need to code/manage your own Azure barebone infrastructure to get any Cloud Scripts working. Massive learning curve and can be frustrating. 0 PF support for this - they'll send you to the horrible support of Azure unless you have a high-paying support tier. The new Azure cloud scripts have potential, but until they have deep integration, it's essentially raw Azure/AWS - deeply confusing and difficult to setup; billed separately. They even charge a "proxy" fee from PF to Azure (doubling the estimates of cloud scripts). Care - the tutorial guides you through to get the highest possible prices. | * Still a new company with many features left to fully document and productize. * Unity/C# only (no js or Unreal support). * 10 seconds timout for server calls * Anonymous authentication cannot be disabled | * Expensive to scale: API structure requires more API calls than other services, easily resulting in much more than 150 calls/day ($$) using minimum features. * Server-to-server calls consume 0.5 API call (most competitors consume 0). Due to this, one must pack out-of-scope API calls into 1 call to save API calls. * Minimal stacktrace support: Errors become overwhelmingly-difficult to pinpoint without your own err-handling system. ^ Mar2022 Update: There are now stacktraces, but so minimal and bloated that it's still better to make your own. | * Client-side: Vulnerable to hacks. * Too new (risky for production). * No official dev support/ticket/chat (community forum only). * SDK + documentation favors Unreal/C++. | * Very barebones (eg, need to setup even your own db rules). * Lack of robustness. * Rumors that medium+ amounts of data may cause issues. | * Young company, still growing development team * No Cloud Code (yet) * No consumption / API pricing (yet) | - | ? | * Young comany, one-man team * Number of available modules is currently limited, the backend logic needs to be built on the platform | |
15 | High-Level Cons[1] What is missing/weak? | - | - | * Costs money while developing.
* Overbearingly difficult to calculate/predict fees. * Learning curve is significantly higher, causing greater development times. | * PF Support does not actually support all things PF: Due to carefully worded use, PF will not help you with Azure, cloud scripts, or PF SDKs beyond the "Core" SDK (Unreal splits numerous off). They will not help you with SignalR. They will send you to low-effort "free tier" support for third parties. * Confusing and always-changing price schema (with no grandfathered prices upon changing). * Charges per-minute rather than per-MAU (a con to most, a pro to some). * Breaking bugs have been known to take years to fix with instructions to make an entirely new title to get unstuck (stats, leaderboard...). | * Expect numerous vague errors (that ignore try/catch) that will send you on a wild goose chase for actually simple fixes. This includes even callbacks from 3rd-parties, such as Steam, where BC excludes essential debug info sent by Steam. * Severely limited monetization features: Not possible to sell "bundles"; Offers/promos feat only for RLM purchases (not virtual currency); no "quantity limitations" like competitors have. * Questionable roadmap priorities, prioritizing fluff over "must-have" features. * No server-side handling for when a player d/c's (correct? --Xb) | * No official Unity SDK (so not QA'd). * Many services are in beta or unreleased. * Getting started is confusing. * No global data persistence, yet. * 49% owned by Tencent (mainland China): Is data safe? * (2023) Roadmap has been severely delayed: Is EOS marked as low-priority? | ? | ||||||
16 | High-Level Cons[2] What is missing/weak? | - | - | - | * Hyped pubsub feature vanished. Instead of something native, they low-effort said "Just implement SignalR, instead" without actually telling clients in the API docs that SignalR is required. The docs make it look like it's a native callback to the SDK (in Unreal, at least) - it is not. SignalR is a complex beast you must implement on your own without any help from PF. * There's essentially 0 Unreal support: no inline/external docs (that are not focused on v1 - where v2 docs don't exist, conflict or are obsolete), no examples, difficult to find Q+A, and even PF staff seem to have no clue (Unreal modules outsourced?). * Friends list featured are limited to add, remove, list. No online indicator. No rich presence. No invite/accept system. No block/unblock system. Pretty low-effort, considering all modern games and competitor servicess seem to at least suport invite requests and block systems. * More | - | - | - | - | ? | - | |||
17 | Is under active development (NOT sunsetting/abandoned) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ? | ✓ | |
18 | Indie program || Free/cheap tier (if any) | ⭐✓ Free up to 1 million players | ✓ Hosted: $19/mo Indie tier Pending pricing changes after Xsolla acquisition Self-Hosted: Free until $100K gross revenue | Free tier across all AWS services for new accounts | ✓ | ✓ Free under 500 MAU | ✓ $15 month lowest tier (currently) and free during Development | ⭐✓ 100% FREE! | ✓ "Spark" tier is free for ~100CCU (and other factors) https://firebase.google.com/pricing | ✓ (free under 10,000 MAU) | ✓ | ? | ✓ Free during development (max 10 DAU) | |
19 | Priced by +Actual numbers, if available +Actual meters, if available | Free for up to 1 million players Include up to 50K total player hours using any AGS solution | Hosted: Minimum fee/mo + Per 1 CCU/hour Self-Hosted: 4% Profit Share | Usage per service varies | (2022) 17x micro calculations (See "PF Calc" tab) + Separate Azure fees + Hidden "Proxy Fees" | $10 per 1 mln API calls Subscription tiers with Developer Seats and Microservices limits (333% price increase in 2022) | Base monthly fee + Per million API calls. | ⭐ n/a Free | Base ("Spark") is free while under development or low activity, but after that: AWS-like micropricing (confusing) meters x25: Pay-as-you-go pricing varies based on product. Too many meters to list; go here: https://firebase.google.com/pricing | Monthly Active Users (MAU) | Core Tech Free (all features required to launch an integrated, cross-platform creator community) 10% fee to use our UGC monetization marketplace feature Optional paid premium features including custom SSO and whitelabel mod hub, for studios who want a branded version of mod.io, starting at $0.004/cents a UGC download | ? | Consumed resources (CPU time, DB requests, disk space) https://unisave.cloud/pricing | |
20 | Pricing schema clear/easy? Number of price calculations? Some BaaS can be impossible to predict how much you'll actually pay due to numerous amounts of "meters" running | ✓ 1~2 | ✓ 1~2 | ? | ✗ Meters x17 + Azure Fees: See above or "PF Calc" tab | ✓ 1~2 | ✓ 1~2 | ⭐✓ 0 Free | ✗ 25 | ✓ 1 | ✓ 1 | ? | ✓ 1~2 | |
21 | Lowest price | ⭐✓ Free up to 1 million players | Hosted: $19/mo (Minimum) Self-Hosted: 4% Profit Share | ? | [2020] Free tier: $0 +17 other metered calculations (AWS-like microfees) Standard Tier: $99/mo + 16 other calculations, including time clients are connected (similar to a LAN center) [2019] Indie Tier: $99/mo, up to 100K MAU. Pro tier: $0.008 per MAU, $299 monthly minimum, lower prices at high (500K+) MAU | Free under 500 MAU Then $10 per 1 mln API calls | $15 base/mo for intro plan (incl 1M API calls)* Real-Time Tech Lowest price plan starts at 25$/month *Note that you're likely going to pay more than this if you include realtime services and extras like database calls/stats/leaderboards/etc For detailed pricing, navigate to BC Calculator Tab of this sheet | ⭐Perpetually Free, even for production | Free while under limitations (likely not for production, though) | Free under 10,000 MAU | Free | ? | Free below 10 DAU | |
22 | Free prototyping/pre-release | ✓ Free | ✓* Hosted ✓ Self-Hosted | ? | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ Free for 100 DAU, 1000 total users, up to 1M API Calls | ✓ Free | ✓ Free (including App Distribution, a free product to distribute test versions of your mobile apps). | ✓ Free | ✓ Free | ? | ✓ Free | |
23 | CDN (+Binary Storage) Pricing Realistic-use examples in memo | ? | ✓ 10+GB free (per plan level), then $0.06 per GB | Amazon Cloudfront charges are based on actual usage of the service in five areas: (1) Origin/Inet Data Transfer Out (2) HTTP(S) Reqs (3) Invalidation Reqs (4) Field-Lvl Encryption Reqs (5) Dedicated IP Custom SSL Certs (Cloudfront Distribution) | "$0.05/GB Americas (except Brazil) and Europe $0.08/GB All other except Brazil $0.20/GB Brazil" --PF TODO: Who knows CDN rates? Is this good? | ✗ | ✓ 1+ GB free (per plan level) and 10 GB free transfers, then $0.05 per GB and $0.15 per GB transfer | ✓ Free, but capped @ 400MB/Player | ⭐✓ Free CDN for Firebase Hosting. https://firebase.google.com/docs/hosting | ✓ Free, but capped (~15MB / file) | ✓ Free | ? | Feature not provided | |
24 | Free server2server (in-house) API calls (Metered per-server-call, not per-script?) Client >> Server >> Server == 1 API call For example: Client calls backend "Foo1" >> Script 'Foo1" calls "Foo2" >> Since server2server, "Foo2" call is free | ? | ✓ | ? | n/a Server-to-server calls do not count as an API call, but other billable meters are still running as this is called (CPU time, bandwidth, etc). | ✓ | First 2 API Calls (client >> server >> server) count as only 1 call. Then >> additional API calls count as 1/2 per | n/a
(No authoritative) | ? | n/a | ✓ Free | ? | ✓ Free | |
25 | LIMITATIONS, FAIR-USE | LIMITATIONS, FAIR-USE | LIMITATIONS, FAIR-USE | LIMITATIONS, FAIR-USE | LIMITATIONS, FAIR-USE | LIMITATIONS, FAIR-USE | LIMITATIONS, FAIR-USE | LIMITATIONS, FAIR-USE | LIMITATIONS, FAIR-USE | LIMITATIONS, FAIR-USE | LIMITATIONS, FAIR-USE | LIMITATIONS, FAIR-USE | LIMITATIONS, FAIR-USE | |
26 | Multi-title support One account, multiple games | ? | ✓ | ? | ✓ [2022] I believe this was added within the past year or two, but needs confirmation. I saw some param opts in the Unreal SDK to indicate yes, but unsure if this is experimental/stable. --Dylan | ✓ | ✓ | ? | ? | ✓ | ✓ | ? | ✓ | |
27 | Links to fair-use policy limitations and/or EULA/Terms of Service | ? | https://www.acceleratxr.com/eula/ ⭐ Almost no Fair-Use: "Use as Intended" | ? | https://playfab.com/limits/ Any Tier: Hard-capped (API calls will auto-fail). Lifting restrictions costs +money/mo. | https://www.beamable.com/tos | https://getbraincloud.com/terms-of-service/ | https://dev.epicgames.com/en-US/services/terms ⭐TL;DR: "Use as Intended" (You'll get an email rather than hard-capped if being blatantly abusive) | https://firebase.google.com/terms | https://lootlocker.com/terms-of-service | Terms of use: https://mod.io/terms Acceptable Use: https://mod.io/aup | ? | https://unisave.cloud/legal/terms-of-service-agreement | |
28 | Fair-use policy fairness, 1~10 By comparison to competitors | ? | ⭐10 No Fair-Use (Limitless) | ? | 3 | ⭐10 No Fair-Use (Limitless) | 9 | ⭐10 Almost no fair-use (Near-limitless) | ? | ⭐10 Almost no fair-use (Near-limitless) | ⭐10 Almost no fair-use (Near-limitless) | ? | ⭐10 Almost no fair-use (Near-limitless) | |
29 | API Throttle Timeout Info Rejected if called too many times? Hard throttle (err returned)? Soft throttle (they email you)? | ? | ⭐No throttle timeout (Soft-capped via hardware resources) | ? | [2023] Matchmaking docs recommend once/6s [2022] "Max 10 times per minute" [<2022] This thread says soft throttle is >2m polling. TODO: Is there also a hard throttle? | 10 seconds timout | ⭐No throttle timeout | Seems Limitless? | ? | Hard throttle per client per game for irregular usage (~500 requests per minute) | Cloudflare level rate limiting - dynamic depending on use Hard throttle, with timeout given | ? | ⭐No throttle timeout (Soft-capped via hardware resources) | |
30 | Max API call limitations Per tier, if any. Any and all forms of limitations, hard caps, soft caps, throttling. | ? | No limit | ? | * Confusing and always-changing price schema (with no grandfathered prices upon changing). * Charges per-minute rather than per-MAU (a con to most, a pro to some). * Breaking bugs have been known to take years to fix with instructions to make an entirely new title to get unstuck. * Hyped features (pub/sub) removed, leaving lackluster messaging support. * No realtime messaging, no socket connections; yet, can only poll max a few times per minute before being throttled. * Hyped pubsub feature vanished. * For Azure cloud scripts, the first call after a while will take ~10 seconds to "spin up". | No limit | No limit | Limitations specified at the bottom of every page for each service in their docs. Eg: https://dev.epicgames.com/docs/services/en-US/GameServices/Lobbies/index.html#usagelimitations From the example link above, the avg appears to be 30~100 requests/min. | ? | No limit | No limit | ? | Limited by resource usage for the given pricing tier, not the number of API calls | |
31 | Bandwidth/Data Processing limitations Per tier, if any | ? | No limit | ? | No limit (Except for CDN) | No limit | No limit | Seems Limitless? | ? | No limit | No limit | ? | Per tier (but compute tme will likely run out first) | |
32 | Connections/CCU/MAU Limitations Per tier, if any | ? | ⭐Unlimited CCU: Only soft-capped by hardware resources $19/mo tier tested: ~10K CCU $99/mo tier tested: ~100K CCU | ? | Free tier: Max 100k accounts $99/mo (Standard) tier: No max: Includes $400 meter credit, then charged via meter rates (similar to AWS). $1,999/mo (Premium) tier: No max:Includes $8k meter credit, then charged via meter rates (similar to AWS). | No limit | ⭐Development Tier is Free but limited to 100 DAU / 1000 max accounts (No limits on other tiers) | Seems Limitless? | ? | No limit | No limit | ? | No limit | |
33 | Polling limitations/cooldowns n/a == Websockets == persistent | ? | n/a: Realtime Sockets | ? | [2023] One call per 6s (from Multiplayer::Matchmaking doc) [2022] iMax 2 calls per 2s (Hard-capped, if !enteprise tier) "Few calls per minute on average" soft cap | No limit | RTT uses Realtime Sockets (No limits?) | n/a: Realtime Sockets | ? | No limit | No limit | ? | No need to poll (the broadcasting system can ping the client) | |
34 | Supports bursts Allow temp limit exceeds without hard-errors? Eg, a famous streamer plays your game once | ? | ✓ Limitless | ? | ✓ Limitless | No limit | ✓ Limitless | ✓ Limitless | ? | No limit | No limit | ? | feature not provided | |
35 | Binary Storage Limitations Honestly, you may want to look into saving binary storage WITHIN a db unless using your own patcher: It's generally cheaper/more-scalable. | ? | Unlimited CDN Storage Soft Cap DB Storage* | ? | ⭐ Free Plan: 2GB Global? Standard Plan: 10GB (+$1.40 per +1GB) | No limit | 2+ GB free in paid plans, No hard cap, +0.05 per GB, 50GB per file soft cap (adjustable) | ⭐ 400mb/Player | ? | No limit | No limit | ? | feature deliberately not provided (integrate with an Object Storage instead) | |
36 | TECHNICAL, SCOPES | TECHNICAL, SCOPES | TECHNICAL, SCOPES | TECHNICAL, SCOPES | TECHNICAL, SCOPES | TECHNICAL, SCOPES | TECHNICAL, SCOPES | TECHNICAL, SCOPES | TECHNICAL, SCOPES | TECHNICAL, SCOPES | TECHNICAL, SCOPES | TECHNICAL, SCOPES | TECHNICAL, SCOPES | |
37 | Native Game Integration Engine Integrations Eg, Unity SDK rather than a generic C# SDK or web-based API? | ? | ✓ Unity SDK Unreal SDK Generic C++ SDK Generic C# SDK JavaScript SDK | ? | ✓ | ✓ Unity SDK ✗ Unreal | ✓ | ✗* | ✓ Unity SDK | Unity SDK UE4 SDK UE5 SDK Godot SDK (WIP) GameMaker SDK (WIP) Javascript SDK (WIP) | Unity SDK UE4 SDK UE5 SDK GameMaker SDK | ? | Unity Only (for the best user experience) (see the Asset Store page) | |
38 | Backend Host | ? | Managed: Private Cloud running on bare metal servers Self-Hosted: Supports AWS, Azure, GCP, DO, private cloud. Can run anywhere Kubernetes runs | AWS | [2022] This is becoming more-and-more Azure, now that they are owned by Microsoft. AWS (us-west-2) / Azure (USW2) | AWS (us-west-2) | ? | ? | ? | AWS | AWS / Cloudflare | ? | Digital Ocean | |
39 | Backend Engine | ? | NodeJS micro-services on Kubernetes | ? | Vanilla JS + Azure/AWS | Scala microservice architecture running on AWS | Rhino JS + Some ES6 Javascript Support [Extremely watered down] | ? | ? | PHP + Go | ? | ? | C#, Mono, Kubernetes | |
40 | Direct NoSQL access Proprietary (closed/limited) access? Direct/open access? | ? | ⭐✓ | ? | ✗ | ✓ MongoDB | ✗ (proprietary, rich api, full json support) | ✗ (proprietary/closed) | ? | ✗ (proprietary/closed) | ? | ? | ✓ ArangoDB | |
41 | Supports REST API 3rd-party access API access points w/separate scopes? Eg, stats/profiles for fan sites to use | ? | ✓ | ? | ✗ (supported, but no separate scopes) | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ | ? | ✓ | ✓ | ? | not yet, but planned | |
42 | Webhook Support | ? | ✓ | ? | ✓ [2022] TODO: Is this still true? | ✓ Custom microservice apis | ✓ | ? | ? | ✗ | ✓ | ? | not yet, but planned | |
43 | Open source ✓ Module? ✓ License? | ? | ✓* Source Available, not FOSS | ? | ✓ Open Source SDKs | ✗ | ✓ Open Source SDKs | ✗ | ✓ https://firebaseopensource.com | ✓ Open Source SDKs | ✓ Open Source SDKs | ? | ✓ Open Source SDKs | |
44 | Intellisense / Typings / Autofill For cloud script online IDE | ? | ? | ? | ✗ No online IDE | ✗ No online IDE | Q3 2023 Patch 1 of 2 to revamp the online IDE is here! <= 2023 ✗ Essentially Notepad | n/a (No authoritative scripts) | ? | ✗ | ? | ? | Cloud code is just C# code in your Unity project | |
45 | Dashboard/SDK updates, 1~10 | ?/10 | ?/10 | ?/10 | [2023] (Unity + Backend?) 10/10 Ships updates 2x/wk; major updates 1x/mo (Unreal) 10/10 for update schedules 4/10 for updates we want: ----------------- Updates for new features, but 0 refinement to much-needed upgrades to low-effort modules. Eg: * There are still no updates to the "lazy Blueprint models" that contain only 1 prop of json (no explicit typings) for tons of models. * There are no parsing utils between CPP + BP models, wasting time to reinvent the wheel when using both CPP+BP models. [2017] 3 | ?/10 | 9/10 ^September 2023 Update: Massive DashBoard overhaul | ?/10 | ?/10 | ?/10 | 10/10 - Constantly updated and in development | ? | ?/10 | |
46 | Overall server/SDK expected feats/stability, 1~10 | ? | 10/10 | ?/10 | 6/10 | ?/10 | 9/10 | 5/10 | ?/10 | 10/10 | 10/10 | ? | 9/10 | |
47 | Well-suited for MMO dev? Deeply authoritative with realtime scripting. Name example(s), if publicly known. | ? | ✓ | ? | ✓ PF staff claims "multiple MMO's rely on PF as a backend" (awaiting src). Architecture is "replicable authoritative game logic server that caches & utilizes PF as a backend for inventory, Catalog & Networking. | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ | ? | ? | ✓ THE BEST due to the extensibility of the platform Needs to be combined with a realtime service, such as Photon. Example: Engine Evolution (1M registered players) | |
48 | CORE FEATURES | CORE FEATURES | CORE FEATURES | CORE FEATURES | CORE FEATURES | CORE FEATURES | CORE FEATURES | CORE FEATURES | CORE FEATURES | CORE FEATURES | CORE FEATURES | CORE FEATURES | ||
49 | Stats/Leaderboards w/dashboard | ? | ✓ Leaderboards ✓ Dashboard | ? | ✓ Stats* ✓ Dashboard* ✓ Can delete leaderboard (as of 2023) | ✓ | ✓ Leaderboards ✓ Dashboard | ✓ | ✓ Open-source leaderboard | ✓ Leaderboards ✓ Dashboard | ✓ Leaderboards ✓ Dashboard | ? | in development | |
50 | Virtual Items/Goods w/dashboard | ? | ✓ Virtual Items/Goods ✓ Dashboard | ? | ✓* | ✓ | ✓ Virtual Items/Goods ✓ Dashboard | ? | ? | ✓ Virtual Items/Goods ✓ Dashboard | ✓ Virtual Items/Goods ✓ Dashboard | ? | not yet | |
51 | Native Backups/Snapshots If !native, at least has a wrapper | ? | ✓ | ? | ✗ No native feature ✓ Unreal Marketplace has a plugin | ? | ? | ? | ? | ✓ | ? | ? | ? | |
52 | Envionments eg, dev >> staging >> production | ? | ✓* | ? | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ? | ✓ | ✓ | ? | ✓ | |
53 | Friends System Add/remove? Request/accept system? Socket notifications on requests? | ? | ? | ? | ✓ Add/remove ✗ No request/accept ✗ No socket notifications ✗ No online/status indicator ✗ No rich presence ✗ No block/unblock ✗ No Discord integration | ✓ Add/remove ✗ Request/accept ^^Can be implemented using RTT events ✓ socket notifications ✓ online/status indicator ✓ rich presence ✗ No block/unblock ✗ No Discord integration | ? | ? | ? | Follow Creator feature | ? | not yet | ||
54 | Realtime Services w/Dedicated Servers RPCs, deployment, containerization, etc | ? | ? | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ? | ? | ? | ? | N/A | ? | ? | |
55 | QOL, DOCS, SUPPORT | QOL, DOCS, SUPPORT | QOL, DOCS, SUPPORT | QOL, DOCS, SUPPORT | QOL, DOCS, SUPPORT | QOL, DOCS, SUPPORT | QOL, DOCS, SUPPORT | QOL, DOCS, SUPPORT | QOL, DOCS, SUPPORT | QOL, DOCS, SUPPORT | QOL, DOCS, SUPPORT | QOL, DOCS, SUPPORT | QOL, DOCS, SUPPORT | |
56 | Has web interface Dashboard/Portal | ? | ✓ | ? | ⭐✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ console.firebase.google.com | ✓ my.lootlocker.io | ✓ mod.io/g/GAME-NAME/admin/settings | ? | ✓ unisave.cloud/app | |
57 | Dashboard/portal ease-of-use, 1~10 | ?/10 | 7/10 | ?/10 | ⭐10/10 | ?/10 | 9/10 | New? 3/10* Past init? 7/10 | ?/10 | ⭐10/10 | 9/10 | ? | ?/10 | |
58 | Has built-in (step-thru) portal debugger | ? | ✓ | ? | ✗ There is no cloud script available via the portal. (However, if using new Azure Functions CloudScripts, can access a step debugger via VS Code integration) | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ? | ✗ | N/A | ? | ✗ | |
59 | Online docs quality, 0~10 via their website/wiki. (0 for non-existing) | ?/10 | 5/10 | ?/10 | ⭐Unity: 8/10 ⚠️Unreal: 0/10 (Dupe modules, many completely removed, years behind) | ?/10 | 9/10 | 3/10 | ?/10 | 9/10 | 10/10 | ? | ⭐10/10 | |
60 | Inline docs quality, 0~10 via their SDK within the actual code (0 for non-existing) | ?/10 | 9 | ?/10 | 2/10 (Mostly redundant) | ?/10 | 8/10 | ? | ?/10 | ✗ | 10/10 | ? | ✗ | |
61 | Docs/Tutorials up-to-date, 0~10 (0 for non-existing) | ?/10 | 9 | ?/10 | Unity: 8/10 ⚠️0 for Unreal | ?/10 | 9/10 *New docs came with Version 5.0 https://brainclouddocs.netlify.app/learn/introduction | 3/10 | ?/10 | 9/10 | 10/10 | ? | 7/10 | |
62 | Demo/Tutorials quality, 0~10 For memo: Did the demo have a native SDK for your engine? (0 for non-existing) | ?/10 | 5 | ?/10 | Unity: 6/10 ⚠️Unreal: 0/10 | ?/10 | 10/10 Probably the first Service to offer free online courses https://bootcamp.braincloudservers.com/ | Unreal Demo: ? Unity Demo: None C# WFP (Non-Unity) Demo: 7 | ?/10 | 7/10 | 10/10 | ? | 9 | |
63 | Customer service, 0~10 Response time, accessibility, reliability, QoL (0 for non-existing) | ?/10 | 10/10 | ?/10 | [2022] * For cloud script (raw Azure) = 0. Note that any cloud script/Azure issues will not be handled by PF. Average Azure ticket reply is 5-days with initial bot auto-followups and low-level English. [2022] Has Discord support for any tier, but unofficial - some questions don't get answered (esp if it comes to Unreal/Azure questions). This is better for community Q+A, but a community of Unreal devs don't really exist here. Better for Unity/C# devs. [2017] * For non-cloud-script = 5. (Could be higher in 2022+) | ?/10 | 10/10 Direct chat support even on free tier with fast responses (Replies during Canada business hours) | 10/10 - Fast answers in Discord 1/10 - Community Forums Only | ?/10 | ⭐10/10 | ⭐10/10 | ? | ⭐10/10 | |
64 | Porting tools from other services? | ? | ✗ | ? | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ? | ✗ | ✗ | ? | ✗ | |
65 | REALTIME, SOCKET, RPC | REALTIME, SOCKET, RPC | REALTIME, SOCKET, RPC | REALTIME, SOCKET, RPC | REALTIME, SOCKET, RPC | REALTIME, SOCKET, RPC | REALTIME, SOCKET, RPC | REALTIME, SOCKET, RPC | REALTIME, SOCKET, RPC | REALTIME, SOCKET, RPC | REALTIME, SOCKET, RPC | REALTIME, SOCKET, RPC | REALTIME, SOCKET, RPC | |
66 | Realtime gameplay support Beyond just messaging systems | ? | ✓ | Multiple solutions including Amazon GameLift, Amazon Ec2, Fleet IQ. Flex Match and containers ECS and Amazon Fargate, | ✗ Most SDK modules are missing socket events ✗ OLD matchmaking modules had it, but not new (need to poll matchmaking updates every 6s) ✓ Lobby has 2 socket subs (!) Supports SignalR, but completely detached from PF and extremely complex to implement. Similar to Azure cloud scripts, expect 0 support from PF staff to help you with this. Very minimal documentation to get this setup. Underwhelming. | ✗ | ✓* Requires a Plus Plan Minimum Price 25$/month (WebSocket) | ✓ | ? | ✗ | ✓ | ? | ✗ | |
67 | Realtime messaging system (eg, Sockets - not polling) | ? | ✓ | Partial via Amazon API Gateway | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ | ? (Probably) | ? | ✗ | ✓ Yes | ? | ✓ ServerSentEvents protocol | |
68 | ANALYTICS, COLLABORATION | ? | ? | |||||||||||
69 | Collaboration Support Invite others via email | ? | ✓ | ? | [2022] ⚠️For Azure Functions (cloud scripts), collaboration is a nightmareish experience - not a single preson at PF knows how to set this up. You will likely end up giving Admin to your collaborators - be sure you trust them. [For Azure] ✗ [For Non-Azure PF] ✓ "You've always been able to invite others to join your studio by email, and we have a full Role model for controlling what you give them access to." --PF | ✓ | ✓ | ? | ? | ✓ | ✓ | ? | ✗ | |
70 | Collaboration Scopes / User Mgmt Eg, read-only, access to x or y features only, access to edit... | ? | ✓ | ? | ✓ "Yes, see above. We've had a Role system for all permissions for years." --PF | ✓ | ✓ | ? | ? | ✗ | ✓ | ? | ✗ | |
71 | CCU Analytics Hourly? Daily? Weekly? Monthly? | ? | ✓ Hourly ✓ Daily ✓ Weekly ✓ Monthly | ? Hourly ? Daily ? Weekly ? Monthly | Non-Native: "Since the core service doesn't use socket connections, we don't have a CCU measure. You can use events as a proxy to compute this." --PF | ✓ | ✗ Hourly ✓ Daily ✓ Weekly ✓ Monthly | ? Hourly ? Daily ? Weekly ? Monthly | ? Hourly ? Daily ? Weekly ? Monthly | ✗ | ✓ | ? | ✗ | |
72 | MAU Analytics | ? | ✓ | ? | ✓ "Yes, multiple reports are pre-generated for the title on a daily and monthly basis, including MAU analytics." --PF | ✓ | ✗ Provides Detailed API Usage, but no native stats for MAU | ? | ? | ✓ | ✓ | ? | ✓ | |
73 | Player Session Durations Stats between users logging in<>out | ? | ✓ | ? | Dependent on client SDK support. Works in Unity, but not all engines/languages. | ✓ | ? | ? | ? | ✗ | ✗ | ? | ✓ | |
74 | Analytics TTL How long are stats retained for? | ? | ⭐Indefinite | ? | "By default, 30 days, but you can adjust that to whatever you need." --PF | ⭐Indefinite | ? | ? | ? | ⭐Indefinite | ⭐Indefinite | ? | ⭐Indefinite | |
75 | Retention Analytics (Funnels) | ? | ✓* | ? | By default can generate a retention report tracking D1-7, D14, and D30 across a cohort, with the ability to generate additional custom reports | ✓ | ? | ? | ? | ✗ | ✓ | ? | ✗ | |
76 | Players by Country | ? | ✓ | ? | ✓ "Yes, player profile contains country for user's first login, and you can get current country from every login event." --PF | ✓ | ✗ | ? | ? | ✗ | ✓ | ? | ✗ | |
77 | Players by Device | ? | ? | ? | ✓ "Device report on by default, if using their SDKs" --PF | ✓ via IP | ? | ? | ? | ✗ | ✓ | ? | ✗ | |
78 | LEGAL, REGIONS, TRUST | LEGAL, REGIONS, TRUST | LEGAL, REGIONS, TRUST | LEGAL, REGIONS, TRUST | LEGAL, REGIONS, TRUST | LEGAL, REGIONS, TRUST | LEGAL, REGIONS, TRUST | LEGAL, REGIONS, TRUST | LEGAL, REGIONS, TRUST | LEGAL, REGIONS, TRUST | LEGAL, REGIONS, TRUST | LEGAL, REGIONS, TRUST | LEGAL, REGIONS, TRUST | |
79 | Launch Date | ? | 2019 | 2020 | ? | ? | 2014 | 2020 | ? | 2020 | 2018 | ? | 2020 | |
80 | Has self-hosted version (Add memo if hosted && !free) | ? | ✓* | ? | ✗ Indie ✓ Enterprise ($10k/mo) | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ | ? | ✓ Enterprise Licensing Option | ✗ | ? | could be for an enterprise customer | |
81 | Supports mainland China deployment and currently has live games in China (Servers are physically located in mainland China; NOT Singapore/HK, etc) | ? | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ "Full support for (and multiple titles using) our server hosting in China. The core service is more limited in features there at the moment, as they're working with a local partner on adding things like WePlay for auth and payments." --PF | ✗ | ✓ | ? (Probably not yet) | ? | ✗ | ✗ | ? | ✗ | |
82 | Hosted region locations +Support for multiple regions? | ? | ✓ | ✓ | Core service - hosted in USA, GDPR compliance via SCCs. Game server hosting - multiple regions (TODO: List regions in memo). Party (relay/chat) hosting - multiple regions. (TODO: List regions in memo). | ✗ Normally, no ✓ Can make exceptions | ✓ Choose Room Regions ✗ Choose Data Regions | ? (Probably) | ? | ✗ | ✓ | ? | ✗ | |
83 | Live Game Examples Which games use this service? (The more notable games, the more trustworthy/reliable the service may be) | ? | Hexarchia | Sea of Thieves, Rainbox Six Siege, No Man's Sky, Minecraft, DOOM Eternal, Forza Horizon 4, MS Flight Simulator, Gears 5, Roblox, Halo MCC, Outriders* | ? | ? | ? | ? | Hokko Life SNOW Block'Em We Who Are About to Die Rust Racers Robot Lord Rising | Dying Light 2 Stay Human Anno 1800 Snowrunner Deeprock Galactic Two Point Campus Ready or Not Park Beyond House Flipper 2 Blade & Sorcery | ? | Engine Evolution Back Streets Hunters of Demaal | ||
84 | Is trusted with no red flags?[0] (Don't remove old flags) | ⚠️ (2024) Their relaunched version, including Extend, excluded data migration - this may set a poor-practice precedence | ✓ No Flags | ⚠️ (2020) As a follow-up, they at least open-source GS Unity SDK -- however, I am currently the only contributor and could use assistance (there are many TODO's) --Xblade (2019) Acquired GameSparks, but then sunset it without offering a port to GameTech or even fixing the remaining bugs: Will they do the same to GameTech? | ⚠️ [2024] Issues continue - See article (2023) Entire modules get deprecated without the docs being updated even years later. You may spend a great deal of time implementing a module to discover you implemented an old version. (2022) PF + Azure are completely disconnected, uninformed and desync'd between each other. If you have any issues with cloud scripts / Azure Functions, be prepared to be on your own with a wild goose chase of support sides blaming each other. (2022) The Microsoft tutorial for creating Functions is not only vastly incomplete, but guides you to being charged a very high amount of money. | [2021] 10mln+ raised from investors (but unknown if company is profitable) [2020] Went bunkrupt as game dev company, reformed for online services | ✓ No Flags | Partially-owned by Tencent (a mainland-China gov't-backed company that allegedly has controversial privacy practices). Epic makes a claim to have full control. However, their FAQ lists Taiwan as "Chinese Taipei", a general indicator for more influence than what is stated. Probably not a big deal (Tencent invested in almost all major AAA studios you know; and even Reddit, itself), but good to be aware. | ✓ No Flags | ✓ No Flags | ✓ No Flags | ? | ✓ No Flags | |
85 | Is trusted with no red flags?[1] (Don't remove old flags) ⚠️If a service requires a 2nd page for lacking trust practices, when most have none, you may want to consider another service | (2022) There is a near-hidden "Proxy Fee" for calling Azure cloud scripts, essentially doubling estimates. (2022) Cloud scripts appear easy, but are completely detached from PF - pricing and support is also detached. PF will not help you for anything that has to do with Azure/cloud script, even regarding setup/inviting other users to collab. (2020~2022) Extremely confusing pricing model. (2019) No Flags (2017) Red Flags: Added a $300/minimum within their contract (*before* the website was updated to reflect this). Even after the person I spoke with admitted to doing this, they refused to honor the original price disclosures after multiple attempts. I was finally offered the original price after I refused to sign at a later stage (where I'd still have to upgrade to the normal tier after 100k MAU -- still not as advertised), but it was too late: After the first few refusals to honor the posted price, I had already begun moving to GS. My experience may not match yours. | ? | |||||||||||
86 | Contract term length SLA? You want long-term contract with opt-out options with heads up; No SLA? You want no contract or monthly | ? | Perpetual / Monthly / Annually / Cancel anytime | Perpetual / Monthly / Annually / Cancel anytime However, be aware of vendor-locking | Free tier: No contract. Indie (Standard) / Pro (Premium) tiers: Self-sign-up, no contract (Must delete your title to cancel - no pause!) Enterprise tier: 12 month contracts, but flexible cancellation where needed. "prices for features are not raised every contract term" | Monthly /
Annually / Cancel anytime | Monthly | ⭐ No Contract | ? | ⭐ No Contract | Monthly /
Annually / Cancel anytime | ? | ⭐ No Contract | |
87 | SLA? Tier? % Uptime guarantee? To compare, AWS offers 99.99% guaranteed uptime then pays out when outside beyond that. BE SURE TO CALCULATE. If <99%, that means they can be out 1/2 Saturday and you won't get credited. | 99.6% | ⭐✓ All Tiers @ 99.99% (Same % as AWS) | ⭐✓ All Tiers @ 99.99% This is likely the best SLA you'll find. | ✗ <$99/mo tiers ⭐✓ For non-basic tiers only ($99/mo+) @ 99.99% (Same % as AWS) | ✓ All Tiers @ 99.9% | ✗ <$99/mo tiers ✓ For Business+ Plans ($99/mo+) @ 99.9% (0.09% less than Amazon) | ✗ (No SLA) | ? | ⭐✓ All Tiers @ 99.9% | 99.9% negotiated for studios using our paid features | ? | ✗ | |
88 | SLA Payout Calculations There's no point of an SLA if you don't know how much compensation you'll get if your service goes down for the entire weekend! | ? | For any month in which an outage lasts longer than 15 minutes, a pro-rated percentage of the outage time for that month's bill is deducted from the bill. | ? | Usually though, it's a % of your total service cost for the month in question. Pretty much everyone has the same payout calculation for SLA: It's a refund based on total downtime. If that downtime gets you below 99.9%, 99.5%, etc. But the actual rate is frequently a point of negotiation, so there's no single answer to this. | For any month in which availability is less than 99.9% but higher than 99%, 7 days of fees will be waived in the affected month.. For any month in which availability is less than 99%, 30 days of fees will be waived in the affected month. | ? | ✗ (No SLA) | ? | ✗ | ✗ | ? | ✗ | |
89 | Exit Strategies/Clauses: What's offered if the business goes under, gets sold off, etc? Will the company go open src? Compensate? Offer ports to new service? | ? | ⭐2~3 years guaranteed service + Royalty-Free Self-Hosted License + If buyout, big perpetual license discounts | ? | "Bought by Microsoft in January 2018. Microsoft not only kept it going, but increased the team size considerably. This is the backend service used by our own first-party titles. There is little need for exit strategy due to Microsoft's embrace of the service." --PF | ✗ | ? | ✗ | ? | Enterprise Licensing Option | SDK is Open Source | ? | Open Source (the client code already is Apache2.0, the infrastructure code will get published) | |
90 | GDPR ready? +Is it friendly for devs to access? | ? | ✓ | ? | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ? | ? | ✓ | ✓ | ? | ✓ | |
91 | SECURITY STANDARDS | SECURITY STANDARDS | SECURITY STANDARDS | SECURITY STANDARDS | SECURITY STANDARDS | SECURITY STANDARDS | SECURITY STANDARDS | SECURITY STANDARDS | SECURITY STANDARDS | SECURITY STANDARDS | SECURITY STANDARDS | SECURITY STANDARDS | SECURITY STANDARDS | |
92 | Out-of-box hack vulnerabilities? Recently-known vulnerabilities or successful hacking that is not yet (or cannot be) patched? | ? | 🔒 No known vulnerabilities | 🔒 No known vulnerabilities | 🔒 No known vulnerabilities | 🔒 No known vulnerabilities | 🔒 No known vulnerabilities | 🔒 No known vulnerabilities | 🔒 No known vulnerabilities | 🔒 No known vulnerabilities | 🔒 No known vulnerabilities | ? | 🔒 No known vulnerabilities | |
93 | Dashboard supports standard 2FA? Standard == support for Google Authenticator/Authy (opposed to non-standard mobile/email 2fa) | ? | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ? | ✗ | |
94 | Security: Pen-tested by notable 3rd-party for vulnerabilities within the past year? | ? | ✗* | ? | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ | ? | ? | ✗ | ✓ | ? | ✗ | |
95 | Security: Do clients verify TLS certificates safely by standards? (To prevent man-at-the-endpoint attacks. Eg, would a self-signed client certificate from "Fiddler" disconnect the user?) | ? | ✓ (2020) | ? | ✓ | ✓ | ? | ? | ? | ✓ | ✓ | ? | ✓ | |
96 | Security: Are encryption key exchanges safely handled by modern standards? (Company has literally hired a pen tester & can verify such tests; eg, Diffie–Hellman key exchange practices are vulnerable) | ? | ✓* (2020) | ? | ✓ | ✓* | ? | ? | ? | ✓ | ✓ | ? | ? |