Ten criteria, each with a source and a check date, including the ones where Nakama is stronger.
A flat monthly fee. No billing per request, per player or per GB. At a plan limit requests are refused, never billed extra.
3 server regions (EU, US, Asia) included in every plan. No extra infrastructure costs.
Every feature is available on every plan, including the free tier. You only pay for capacity.
SDKs for Unity, Godot and Unreal Engine (the Unreal SDK is in beta), plus a REST API and an MCP server.
The 13 player features of horizOn as yardstick: what you get without writing your own backend code.
| Feature | horizOn | Nakama |
|---|---|---|
| User Management | ||
| Leaderboards | ||
| Player Profile | ||
| Validated Actions (anti-cheat) | ||
| Cloud Save | ||
| Crash Reporting | ||
| User Logs | ||
| Remote Config | ||
| News / Announcements | ||
| Localization | ||
| Email Sending | ||
| Gift Codes | ||
| User Feedback |
Partial means only with your own code, through a separate paid product, or with a limit. The sources name the details per provider.
Each row names the stronger side for an indie studio and links the provider's own page as source.
horizOn
No time limit and no revenue cap: 5,000 players, 10 requests per minute (soft limit, hard limit 100), all 13 features.
Source, checked 2026-10-12Nakama
No free plan on Heroic Cloud. Free only as self-hosted open source on your own servers.
Source, checked 2026-10-12horizOn
Fixed monthly price of €11.99, €29.99 or €59.99 incl. VAT, yearly €9.99 to €49.99 per month. No metering: at a plan limit the server refuses requests (HTTP 429) instead of billing more.
Source, checked 2026-10-12Nakama
Heroic Cloud from $600 per month (one Nakama CPU and one database CPU), high availability from $1,000. Priced per CPU, no player limits.
Source, checked 2026-10-12horizOn
EU (Helsinki, Finland), US (Virginia) and Asia (Singapore) for every project at no extra cost. Players read from the nearest region, every write goes to Helsinki.
Source, checked 2026-10-12Nakama
One zone per deployment, chosen at creation in North America, Europe or Asia. Each further region is another paid deployment.
Source, checked 2026-10-12horizOn
Own SDKs for Unity, Godot and Unreal (the Unreal SDK is in beta), a REST API and an MCP server.
Source, checked 2026-10-12Nakama
Console login for PlayStation, Xbox and Nintendo Switch for verified developers.
Source, checked 2026-10-12horizOn
No custom server code. Validated Actions check each run against rules set in the dashboard before a score or currency is written.
Source, checked 2026-10-12horizOn
None. No real-time multiplayer, matchmaking or lobbies.
Nakama
Authoritative and relayed multiplayer, matchmaker, chat, groups and tournaments.
Source, checked 2026-10-12horizOn
simpleServer: open source (MIT), the same app API, works with the unchanged SDKs. No dashboard and no Validated Actions, you run and maintain it yourself.
Source, checked 2026-10-12Nakama
Open source server (Apache 2.0) with the full runtime. Clustering only in the commercial edition.
Source, checked 2026-10-12horizOn
Availability target of 99.98 % for the backend per month (Terms 2.4), without credits. Contract partner in Germany. Data processing agreement published as a template (horizon.pm/legal/dpa-template.html).
Data processing agreement (template)Nakama
Uptime commitment only with support plans: 99.5 % (Studio Standard, $6,000) or 99.9 %. Data processing agreement with standard contractual clauses published.
Source, checked 2026-10-12
Indie studios with PC or mobile games without real-time multiplayer, with players on several continents and a fixed monthly budget, who do not want to build operations features themselves.
Not a fit for console titles, real-time multiplayer games or launches that expect hundreds of thousands of concurrent players: horizOn has no console support, no matchmaking and no automatic scaling.
Every value comes from the provider's own pages, checked on the date shown. Stronger means better for an indie studio in this one criterion, there is no total score. The feature table uses horizOn's own feature list as yardstick, which favours horizOn.
Every value links to the provider's own page. The date is the day we checked it.
| Criterion | Source | Checked |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan | heroiclabs.com | 2026-10-12 |
| Pricing model and price jumps | heroiclabs.com | 2026-10-12 |
| Regions | heroiclabs.com | 2026-10-12 |
| Engines and SDKs | github.com | 2026-10-12 |
| Consoles | heroiclabs.com | 2026-10-12 |
| Ready-made player features | heroiclabs.com | 2026-10-12 |
| Own server logic and cheat protection | github.com | 2026-10-12 |
| Real-time multiplayer | heroiclabs.com | 2026-10-12 |
| Leaving and self-hosting | github.com | 2026-10-12 |
| Availability, contract and data protection | heroiclabs.com | 2026-10-12 |
| Feature table | heroiclabs.com | 2026-10-12 |
Found an outdated value? Open a support ticket and we correct it with a new check date.
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