# MonoGame

28 Hacker News commenters recommended MonoGame and 6 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 7 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** Free C# framework for cross-platform games, liked for minimal abstraction and for shipping well-known indie hits. Critics cite the content pipeline and lack of an editor.

## Why people recommend it

- Powers well-known indie games (5 comments): "Stardew Valley, which has been sold to millions of gamers, has been created using the free MonoGame engine." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46446103)) "Unity, Unreal, Monogame are a few engines via which ambitious games are regularly shipped." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46826889)) "Notable games: Terraria (when it was XNA), Stardew Valley, Celeste, Terraria and Fez." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47219660))
- Good and enjoyable for game dev (4 comments): "it's one of the best frameworks I've ever used for gamedev" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47295031)) "Monogame is a really great way to create video games." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46448011)) "have been enjoying it so far" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47220413))
- Few abstractions, nothing hidden (2 comments): "won't hide anything from you, or bury you under tons of bloated abstractions" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47215116)) "Same level of abstraction, but in C#." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47655189))
- Pure C#, familiar to .NET developers (3 comments): "It certainly had me the most comfortable as someone who's career prior had been enterprise .Net crap." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46445936)) "Since its purely C#, Claude Code works great for it." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47149036)) "It’s really good, also it was very cool as a junior developer to see the code for the methods I used." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47294560))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [SDL](https://hackerapproved.com/p/sdl.md): 81 recommend
- [Raylib](https://hackerapproved.com/p/raylib.md): 41 recommend
- [LÖVE 2D](https://hackerapproved.com/p/l-ve.md): 41 recommend
- [Love2D](https://hackerapproved.com/p/love2d.md): 21 recommend
- [Phaser](https://hackerapproved.com/p/phaser.md): 9 recommend

## Cite as

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