Defold

Source-available Lua game engine; forever free, not OSI Open Source

Graphics & 3D / Game Engines · Open-Core · 6.4k

Reviewed 2026-09-04 · last push 2026-10-20 · repo checked 2026-10-21

What's Good

Defold License v1.0. Forever free, no royalty. Lua scripting, HTML5 and native targets. Source available to read and build games. Small runtime, editor included.

The Catch

Source-available NOT OSI Open Source — §4a may not commercialize as a Game Engine Product. Forever free for making games; license is not MIT/Apache. Vs Phaser/melonJS/KAPLAY JS engines. Distinct from Phaser, melonJS, and KAPLAY.

Verdict

Forever-free Lua engine. Source-available — not OSI OSS; do not ship it as your own engine product.

Embed

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Markdown

[![Reviewed on Stack Gems](https://stackgems.com/badge/defold.svg)](https://stackgems.com/gems/defold)

HTML

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