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Work · alternatives · 2026

FO

24 alternatives to FreeBoardGames.org – FOSS platform for publishing boardgame.io games

Hello HN, I have started FBG some years ago when I moved to the Bay Area and could not find a simple, cross-platform, no-registration way to play board games with my friends back in my home country. I also wanted to make it simple to create multiplayer board games online for developers in their free time. Shortly after, I found out about boardgame.io with similar goals and decided to join forces with them. It became the engine of our board games, and we focused on publishing/serving them. To be fair with everyone and inspired by Wikipedia, we made the project a non-profit with GPLv3…

FreeBoardGames.org is a free, open-source platform for playing and publishing board games online without registration. Built on the boardgame.io engine, it lets players enjoy multiplayer games cross-platform with… Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. Prices are shown for the 1 we have checked on their own sites, 1 of them free or with a free tier. FreeBoardGames.org – FOSS platform for publishing boardgame.io games launched in 2021; newer entries below may have overtaken it.

  1. 1

    I'm making a platform for simple open source games you can play anywhere. Games are all just JavaScript classes and you can read the source of every game on the platform. I started working on initial "games" (mostly rendering tests) in 2018 and eventually built all of the platform stuff around it to make it easy to share games. There's also an in-browser editor available for you to make and publish games all from the browser. Would love some feedback on the games and studio features as well as the platform overall. All of the code is available at https://github.com/homegamesio

    Jul 2026 · homegames.io · its alternatives →

  2. 2

    Show HN: Boardzilla, a framework for making web-based board games Tldr: We’ve made a framework for web-based board games. You can try out some games over at https://boardzilla.io, or you can take a look at https://docs.boardzilla.io to learn more about how to develop your own game. Source is available at https://github.com/boardzilla Hey y’all. My brother and I have made a framework for board games. During the pandemic we started to look at BGA but got discouraged by how old-fashioned the tools were and how cumbersome the development process was. We set out…

    2024 · boardzilla.io · its alternatives →

  3. 3IM
  4. 4

    Community-curated board game rules

    2017 · its alternatives →

  5. 5OF
  6. 6

    With all the turmoil in the game engine world recently, I thought I'd quickly post to show progress on our game platform dotbigbang.com. It's a fully integrated game platform where the multiplayer game editor and games all run on the web. You can make multiplayer games and share them with just a link with no setup at all. Breakdown of major features here: https://twitter.com/bobbydigitales/status/152647067103481856... We have comprehensive docs at http://docs.dotbigbang.com and a cosy Discord server at https://dotbigbang.com/discord All…

    2023 · dotbigbang.com · its alternatives →

  7. 7IM

    itch.io is a simple way to find, download and distribute indie games online. Whether you're a developer looking to upload your game or just someone looking for something new to play itch.io has you covered.

    2013 · itch.io · its alternatives →

  8. 8

    Thought I would post in celebration of 1 year of my website being online. I've been working on it on and off and currently the website allows users to play Hex, Tumbleweed, Amazons, and Connect 6 against friends or against practice bots. I've been a long time player of some of these games and I felt for a long time that the world could use a few more popular abstract strategy games compared to Chess or Go. If you try it, let me know what you think. I'm always looking for new games or new features to add :)

    2025 · abstractboardgames.com · its alternatives →

  9. 9
    Huddle▲115

    A platform for digital board games

    2019 · cynergreen.com · its alternatives →

  10. 10

    I love getting cool swag from hackathons and I also love designing PCB's, so when my friend asked me if I would design hackathon badges for a large game jam in singapore, I was absolutely down! The theme of overglade was a "The game jam within a game", pretty cool concept right! High schoolers from around the world were flown out to the event by hackclub after they spent about 70 hours designing their own game. These badges needed to be really cheap and simple, because we were going to manufacture about a hundred in a pretty limited amount of time. I went with a zero-power approach, which…

    Apr 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →

  11. 11

    I'm the original author of DD Poker, a Java-based computer game that ran on Mac, Linux and Windows and originally sold in stores in physical boxes. I shut down the backend servers in 2017 but the game is still functional and people can still play each other online even though the central lobby and find-a-game functionality no longer work. I've been asked over the years to release the source code, especially during the pandemic, and again this year. I finally got motivated to clean up the code and put it out there. The code is 20 years old and uses some ancient Spring, log4j, Wicket and other…

    2024 · github.com · its alternatives →

  12. 12MP

    I have been working on this game somewhat sparsely for the past three years or so. However, it is still in a very early stage, and there is a lot of work to do. One of my friends encouraged me to post about it here, since he felt people might find interesting how I don’t use any libraries for it. The game can be played on a browser by virtue of WebAssembly. There are native ports using either MiniFB or SDL2, but you have to build those yourself. I decided to write the game in C because I feel like it is a simple language that a lot of people can understand well enough, and I didn’t think I…

    2023 · zamfofex.neocities.org · its alternatives →

  13. 13AO
  14. 14
    Fweb3▲174

    Free play-to-earn game to learn web3

    2022 · fweb3.xyz · its alternatives →

  15. 15

    Scorecard.gg offers free scorecards for your favorite board games.

    2023 · scorecard.gg · its alternatives →

  16. 16IJ
  17. 17SG

    Screentop is the best place to play tabletop games online for free. Play with friends directly in your browser - no setup required!

    2020 · screentop.gg · its alternatives →

  18. 18

    Find & track the best free-to-play multiplayer games

    2021 · freetogame.com · its alternatives →

  19. 19

    The Geek way to buy & sell board games

    2022 · its alternatives →

  20. 20

    Play chess online for free on Chess.com with over 250 million members from around the world. Have fun playing with friends or challenging the computer!

    2011 · multiplayerchess.com · its alternatives →

  21. 21

    robotgame.org is for sale on Spaceship. Secure checkout and quick transfer. See all purchase options. No hidden fees.

    2013 · robotgame.org · its alternatives →

  22. 22OC

    My personal project: https://github.com/leonidasdeim/chasse Goal was to build session based chessboard game without any rules - to play just like oldschool over the board. Just create new board and share link with a friend. I would appreciate any feedback and github star. Thanks!

    2023 · chasse.fun · its alternatives →

  23. 23

    BreakBase.com. Play your favorite games, with anyone you

    2012 · breakbase.com · its alternatives →

  24. 24

    Open data board game

    2016 · thegamecrafter.com · its alternatives →

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Ranked by how close each launch is in meaning, then by votes. Prices were read from each product’s own site when checked and can change. Refine with your own description →