Godot vs Unity – Which to Choose in 2025? – GameFromScratch.com
Choosing a game engine is never an easy task, especially when you are just starting out and don’t even know what questions to ask! Today we look at two of the most popular game engines, the open-source Godot game engine and the juggernaut Unity game engine and hopefully help to decide which engine is right for you. We do this by breaking down 6 pros and 3 cons for each game engine. This is of course a TL;DR version and we go into much more depth in the video below.
Choosing Godot – Pro 1
FREE
Free in cost and free as in open source. No matter how you define “freedom”, Godot is free.
Choosing Unity – Pro 1
Battle Tested
Unity is battle tested and proven. It’s the most used game engine in the world (in all of history in fact) so you know what the game engine is capable of in the right hands. If you choose to use Unity, if you can find another game that has implemented what you are envisioning, you can be confident that Unity is capable of that feat, as it’s already accomplished it!
Choosing Godot – Con 1
The Godot team is not as large, nor as “professional” as Unity or Unreal Engine. Sometimes this can certainly be viewed as a positive, but it can also result in PR disasters. The layers of bureaucracy that would ask the question “is this a dumb thing to do” don’t necessarily exist in Godot land. On top of this, questions exist due to the creation of a commercial company on top of Godot, W4Games. For example, other open source game engines have managed to add console support, while in Godot it’s up to the developer or 3rd parties, one of which is W4Games.
Choosing Unity – Con 1
Unity is the only publicly traded game engine company and this makes Unity beholden to the stock market when making decisions, more than any one else, including developers/customers. This lead to them doing the astronomically stupid Runtime fee, to purchase companies that made almost no sense as well as to mergers out of seeming desperation. They also have a shaky track record when it comes to EULA agreement updates. In a nutshell, being public has certainly lead to some very justified trust issues.
Choosing Godot – Pro 2
Developing Incredibly Quickly
Godot is getting constant updates, at a pace much faster than Unity. The number and frequency of Godot updates vs Unity updates is very similar to Blender vs Autodesk at this point. Put simply, Godot is improving more and faster than Godot. Part of this of course comes down to being younger and having more runway for improvement, but certainly that isn’t the only reason. The open source nature, large community and having developers adding features because they need them is certainly a big factor in this growth.
Choosing Unity – Pro 2
Asset Store
Unity has the biggest asset store of all game engines, if you can’t or don’t want to create something, you can almost guarantee that someone else already has and it’s available on the Store. This giant asset store can be a massive time saver, as well as another component of peace of mind, knowing that if you can’t do it, probably someone else already has.
Choosing Godot – Con 2
Godot has a lack of hardware support. Unlike Unity and Unreal, large platform and hardware companies aren’t working directly with Godot to get their platforms supported (at least many aren’t). This is especially obvious when it comes to gaming consoles, where access to consoles can require the use of 3rd parties, while other engines have day 1 or earlier support for new consoles.
Choosing Unity – Con 2
Unity is closed. Even Unreal Engine is source available, while Godot is fully open source. With those two solutions (and many more), if you want to fix a bug with the engine or editor, you can. The entire community can contribute to the development. Additionally it gives you massive peace of mind, as even if the company goes away, you have source code to keep going. This isn’t the case with standard licenses for Unity. You can get access to the source code, but its negotiated with Unity and likely very expensive.
Choosing Godot – Pro 3
Programming Options
GDScript has evolved into a full blown and much more robust scripting language over time. C# support is nearly on par with GDScript now. Where Godot really impresses though is with C++ support and GDExtensions making bindings for a huge number of languages a possibility. More or less, pick a programming language and you can probably use it with Godot in some way, shape or form.
Choosing Unity – Pro 3
Large Community
When it comes to hiring people, getting documentation, training, books, etc. you really cannot beat Unity. There are more Unity users than any other game engine. There are also professional services where you can hire experts directly from Unity or partners.
Choosing Godot – Con 3
MUCH less proven than Unity. There aren’t as many titles people can point to and say “ahhh, this game engine is capable of making this”. At the same time the ecosystem simply isn’t as robust as Unity or Unreal Engine. An Asset Store is just being developed now, the current Asset Library is for free stuff only. For now though, Godot is much weaker in this regard.
Choosing Unity – Con 3
Unity is commercial software. I have no issue with charging for software, and the Unity free tier has become much better (except the fact it now requiring an online login on occasion). Many developers, especially indy developers will never have to pay a single cent. That said, at the end of the day compared to Unreal Engine the pricing is questionable… When compared to Godot, it is literally infinitely more expensive.
Choosing Godot – Pro 4
Zealous Community
While the Godot community does not as many users as Unity, the community base is incredibly zealous. (Sometimes perhaps a bit too zealous ;)). Getting help for Godot is pretty simple as a result.
Choosing Unity – Pro 4
Platform Support
Unity has day one support for every platform imaginable. Console markers, VR headset makers, etc, all work with Unity while their products are under development. You can choose Unity and be confident that regardless to what platform you are developing for, Unity will support it.
Choosing Godot – Pro 5
Robust Set of Tools
While not as robust as Unity, in some areas (IMHO) the tooling options are superior, especially when it comes to creating Uis as well as 2D games. In 3D functionality Godot is definitely lagging behind and less capable than Unity, but the offerings are quite robust and “good enough” for most projects.
Choosing Unity – Pro 5
Robust set of tools
While a few of them are a bit half baked or seemingly ignored or outright abandoned, Unity has a huge toolset, first class C# support and now with DOTS implemented, rock solid performance. This robust toolset extends to server side solutions, ad tech, analytics and more. I do feel Godot has superior 2D tooling however.
Choosing Godot – Pro 6
Small Footprint
Godot is small enough to live on a USB stick, which compared to the multiple GB of Unity (and the obscene size of Unreal) is pretty insane. Godot starts in literally a fraction of the time that Unity is even considering getting started. Creating a new project is an order of magnitude fast. This also means for the most part you can run Godot on a potato.
Choosing Unity – Pro 6
Proven 3D Performance
Especially with DOTS and Jobs system, Unity has proven itself capable of creating 3D scenes of a level of detail at a level of performance that Godot hasn’t yet demonstrated.
We go into more depth on each of these strengths and weakness of the Godot game engine and the Unity game engine in the video below. If you disagree or have different pros and cons, please let me know in the video comments or on the GFS discord discussion! Please remember, at the end of the day, both are great game engines and excellent choices.