Ten criteria, each with a source and a check date, including the ones where PlayFab 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 | PlayFab |
|---|---|---|
| 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 2026-10-12PlayFab
Development mode: up to 1,000 player accounts per title over its lifetime, up to 10 titles.
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 2026-10-12PlayFab
From the 1,001st player the title goes live and every meter counts, for example $7.15 per million profile writes. Standard $99 and Premium $1,999 per month.
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 2026-10-12PlayFab
No region choice for player data, it may be stored in the US and any country Microsoft operates in. Dedicated game servers run in many Azure regions.
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 2026-10-12PlayFab
Xbox, PlayStation 4 and 5 and Nintendo Switch, access after approval.
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 2026-10-12PlayFab
CloudScript in JavaScript and Azure Functions, the latter with your own Azure subscription.
Source, checked 2026-10-12horizOn
None. No real-time multiplayer, matchmaking or lobbies.
PlayFab
Lobbies, matchmaking, parties with voice and text chat, and dedicated multiplayer servers.
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 2026-10-12horizOn
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)PlayFab
No public SLA, the service is provided as is. GDPR terms are part of the terms of use. Contract with Microsoft Corporation.
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 | developer.microsoft.com | 2026-10-12 |
| Pricing model and price jumps | developer.microsoft.com | 2026-10-12 |
| Regions | developer.microsoft.com | 2026-10-12 |
| Engines and SDKs | devdocs.xbox.com | 2026-10-12 |
| Consoles | devdocs.xbox.com | 2026-10-12 |
| Ready-made player features | devdocs.xbox.com | 2026-10-12 |
| Own server logic and cheat protection | devdocs.xbox.com | 2026-10-12 |
| Real-time multiplayer | devdocs.xbox.com | 2026-10-12 |
| Leaving and self-hosting | developer.microsoft.com | 2026-10-12 |
| Availability, contract and data protection | developer.microsoft.com | 2026-10-12 |
| Feature table | devdocs.xbox.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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