# Luanti

23 Hacker News commenters recommended Luanti and 4 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 7 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** Free, fully open-source sandbox game and engine where people build, play multiplayer games and write their own mods. Critics say it is not as good as Minecraft and its controls feel rough.

## Why people recommend it

- Free and fully open source (3 comments): "It's all open source. Download it and try some of the different games." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49478529)) "It's entirely built from scratch and a true FLOSS project." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49482344)) "The engine itself is a long-standing open-source engine" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49490504))
- Fun to play with friends (2 comments): "i love luanti, xonotic, openarena, veloren, etc, and play them frequently with some friends" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46803288)) "i've got loads of hours in games like veloren, luanti, xonotic, pokeMMO, and osu!" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46803348))
- Built for users to extend (3 comments): "Luanti let you make multiplayer games/mods too." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48904673)) "built ground-up to be expandable by users" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49634276)) "Install Luanti with Minetest (open source minecraft), and instruct your agent to write a mod" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50299592))
- Kid-friendly mining and crafting (2 comments): "it has the mining/crafting/construction bits the kids care about" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48981762)) "Just give them a raspberry pi and show them gcompris and luanti." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45865054))

## What people warn about

- Seen as a Minecraft clone (3 comments): "I love Luanti. Is it as good as minecraft? No, not really, but I appreciate it's existence" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48979154)) "There is luanti which is a minecraft alternative" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47762123)) "It's a clone, and not a subtle one either." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49478216))
- Controls and game feel lacking (2 comments): "the client controls were not very polished and they got frustrated" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47763450)) "it was completely devoid of any features to improve the game feel" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48628594))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Minecraft](https://hackerapproved.com/p/minecraft.md): 222 recommend
- [No Man's Sky Cosmos](https://hackerapproved.com/p/no-man-s-sky-cosmos.md): 22 recommend
- [Voxile](https://hackerapproved.com/p/voxile.md): 16 recommend
- [Terraria](https://hackerapproved.com/p/terraria.md): 14 recommend
- [Garry's Mod](https://hackerapproved.com/p/garry-s-mod.md): 12 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Luanti", https://hackerapproved.com/p/luanti/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).