MonoGame
Hacker ApprovedRanked 4 of 8 game frameworks by recommenders
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.
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.
34 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 28
- criticize it
- 6
- approval share
- 82%
Recommended in 7 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 28 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 4.7 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 7 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Powers well-known indie games
“Stardew Valley, which has been sold to millions of gamers, has been created using the free MonoGame engine.”
Comment from 31 Dec 2025 in “Stardew Valley developer made a $125k donation to the FOSS C# framework MonoGame” “Unity, Unreal, Monogame are a few engines via which ambitious games are regularly shipped.”
Comment from 30 Jan 2026 in “Godot 4.6 Release: It's all about your flow” “Notable games: Terraria (when it was XNA), Stardew Valley, Celeste, Terraria and Fez.”
Comment from 2 Mar 2026 in “Making Video Games in 2025 (without an engine)” - Comment from 29 Sep 2026 in “Using any C++ library in Godot”
- Comment from 8 Mar 2026 in “MonoGame: A .NET framework for making cross-platform games”
Good and enjoyable for game dev
“it's one of the best frameworks I've ever used for gamedev”
Comment from 8 Mar 2026 in “MonoGame: A .NET framework for making cross-platform games” “Monogame is a really great way to create video games.”
Comment from 31 Dec 2025 in “Stardew Valley developer made a $125k donation to the FOSS C# framework MonoGame” “have been enjoying it so far”
Comment from 2 Mar 2026 in “Making Video Games in 2025 (without an engine)” - Comment from 19 Jun 2026 in “Is AI ruining our skills? Early results are in – and they're not good”
Few abstractions, nothing hidden
“won't hide anything from you, or bury you under tons of bloated abstractions”
Comment from 2 Mar 2026 in “Making Video Games in 2025 (without an engine)” “Same level of abstraction, but in C#.”
Comment from 5 Apr 2026 in “LÖVE: 2D Game Framework for Lua” Pure C#, familiar to .NET developers
“It certainly had me the most comfortable as someone who's career prior had been enterprise .Net crap.”
Comment from 31 Dec 2025 in “Stardew Valley developer made a $125k donation to the FOSS C# framework MonoGame” “Since its purely C#, Claude Code works great for it.”
Comment from 25 Feb 2026 in “I'm helping my dog vibe code games” “It’s really good, also it was very cool as a junior developer to see the code for the methods I used.”
Comment from 8 Mar 2026 in “MonoGame: A .NET framework for making cross-platform games”
Other game frameworks people recommend
The four most recommended other game frameworks, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
See all 8 game frameworks, rankedWhat people said
36 of the 38 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“its open source ofshoots, MonoGame and FNA power some of the greatest indie hits”
“Even with frameworks like monogame, you inherit their asset pipeline and rendering API decisions”
“games using low end frameworks like that are already plentiful on the web”
“I'm having a lot of fun learning it from scratch with no AI”
“Probably MonoGame is the best option for your case then”
“Same level of abstraction, but in C#.”
“OpenBSD ran tons of MonoGame indie games thanks to it”
“For a new project I would pick MonoGame.”
“The lack of any kind of an editor makes any kind of dev a nightmare”
“I never hit any walls personally”
“Monogame on PC used to be somewhat buggy in my hobbyist experience.”
“kind of stuck in what XNA 4.0 had as API surface”
“It was cool seeing some of the games I came up with back in the 360 days running on iPhone and Android devices.”
“it's one of the best frameworks I've ever used for gamedev”
“the content pipeline thing it has is horrendous”
“MonoGame doesn't even support animated sprites.”
“I've been happy with monogame when I used it in the past”
“It’s really good, also it was very cool as a junior developer to see the code for the methods I used.”
“works well for something heavier”
“have been enjoying it so far”
“Notable games: Terraria (when it was XNA), Stardew Valley, Celeste, Terraria and Fez.”
“If you want to make a 2D game then something like MonoGame might make more sense than Unreal.”
“offer small conveniences over SDL with big negative tradeoffs”
“won't hide anything from you, or bury you under tons of bloated abstractions”
“in hindsight MonoGame would've been the better choice”
“Since its purely C#, Claude Code works great for it.”
“Unity, Unreal, Monogame are a few engines via which ambitious games are regularly shipped.”
“the engine remains a high quality tool”
“Monogame is a really great way to create video games.”
“Stardew Valley, which has been sold to millions of gamers, has been created using the free MonoGame engine.”
“It certainly had me the most comfortable as someone who's career prior had been enterprise .Net crap.”
“Couldn't have seen this donation go to a more dedicated group of folks”
“MonoGame is not abandoned, here are two good examples of frameworks on top of MonoGame/FNA”
“it doesn't have an evolution path”
“MonoGame is stable and still receiving updates.”
“MonoGame was basically abandoned for a long time”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.