Defold Overview

Defold is a turn-key game engine with the editor, runtime, scripting, build pipeline, tools, and deployment flow working together out of the box.

Build 2D and 3D games

Defold shines especially bright for 2D game development, yet not limiting you to two dimensions. Built from the ground up as a 3D game engine, it provides a capable foundation for teams building fast, lightweight, cross-platform games. Its component-based architecture helps you create modular, high-performance games with a streamlined workflow. Mix 2D and 3D as you like.

3D components

All the visual components are actually in 3D, but with models and meshes, you can build truly immersive experiences. Keep the same Defold workflow when you move into 3D and mix runtime geometry, lighting, shaders, and particles in the project structure.

Models and animations
Meshes for runtime geometry
GLTF support
Custom rendering pipeline
Custom materials
GLSL shaders

2D components

Use the editor as a fast 2D production toolchain with built-in support for the most common content types and animation workflows.

Sprites with flip-book animations
Atlases
Tile Maps
Tile Sources
Particle Effects
Text Labels
GUI
Spine and Rive extensions

Graphical User Interfaces

Create astonishing user interfaces, popups, menus, and more using Defold's built-in artists friendly visual editor with all the core components and powerful features.

Box Nodes
Text Nodes
Pie Nodes
Layers
GUI scripting
9-slice texturing
Clipping and stencils masks
Reusable Templates
Bitmap and Distance Field Fonts
Particles and Spine animations
Automatic layouts with support for dynamic orientation changes

Particle Effects

Juice up your visuals with Defold's particle effects, created in the built-in editor with live preview of emitter and modifier behavior.

2D and 3D particle effects
Over 40 customizable properties
Curve editor for controling properties over particles lifespan
Support for billboarding
Multiple emitters and modifiers
Runtime manipulation of particle properties

Make it vivid

Assemble and layout your game in the artist friendly scene editor. Build levels, player characters, bosses, screens and user interface components all from within the editor. Animate sprites, models, UI, and script values easily,

Edit conveniently

Tweak your game levels, characters, items, bosses, screens, and game objects in convenient visual editors suited for each type.

3D visual scene editor
Tilemap editor
Particle FX editor
GUI editor
Code editor for scripts, modules, or shaders
Previews for models or sprites
Atlas and Tile Source editors

Animate everything

Defold has a powerful animation system for visual components and scripts. Animate sprites, models, UI, and script values without leaving the engine or building parallel tooling around it.

Flipbook animations for sprites, particle effects and GUI
3D animations for models
Runtime control over the animation cursor
Switch textures in runtime
All sprite and GUI properties can be animated
Custom script property animations
Predefined or custom easing functions for all property animations

Skeletal animations and more

Use bone animations for models and property animations for movement, rotation, tweens and other values.

Spine extension with bone and model animations with full support for blending, keyframes, and inverse kinematics
Rive extension with support for state machines, interactive input, events, text, and runtime manipulation

Advanced physics simulations

Attach collision shapes and physics properties to your objects and have them interact in real time. React to collisions using code to create complex interactions.

2D and 3D physics (Box 2D and Bullet) integrated
Static, dynamic and kinematic (scriptable) physics objects
Joints and motors support
Robust triggers
Precise, automatic collision detection for tilemaps
Shape based and ray-cast collision detection

Write once, ship to all platforms

Defold is designed for small turnaround times: write scripts, test quickly, keep workflow tight, and move from development to shipping without splitting into separate pipelines.

Write in Lua

Write all of your game logic using the Lua scripting language. Lua is a commonly used scripting language for games with an easy to learn syntax and great performance.

Scripts written in Lua language
Integrated code editor
Integrated debugger
Syntax highlighting
Code completion and linting
Script structure - functions and data list in the sidebar
Reactive code style
Built-in messagging system between game objects
Fully scriptable rendering pipeline with low level access
Customisable editor workflow via scripts written in Lua
Asset Portal with reusable components
Optional typed Lua using Teal

Cross-platform deployment

The Defold APIs work across supported platforms, so you do not need to manage platform-specific paths, render pipelines, input methods, or purchasing systems for common cases.

One-click deployment to all target platforms from the same code and content
Deploy to desktop, mobile, web, or consoles
Additional platforms such as Steam and Facebook Instant Games supported via extensions
Editor and tools running on Mac OS X, Windows and Linux
Turn-key software with no dependencies on other programs - No need for Xcode or Android Studio for mobile deployment!
WebGL, WebGPU, OpenGL, Vulkan and Metal
Only used assets are included in builds

Fast in development, fast in action

Defold is a modern game engine optimized for rapid development workflow and focused on performance, even on low-end devices. Long turnaround time kills productivity and hampers creativity. Developers should be able to rapidly test new ideas, iterate on game mechanics or tweak levels. We take care of the details, so you can quickly create something running fast on any device.

Rapid workflow

We belive speed is key to productivity. And to obtain it, nothing can stand on your way. Defold build usually takes only a couple of seconds. You're even able to push new or updated content and game logic to an already running game on your desktop, phone or console.

Hot reloading of updated assets and logic - change anything and instantly see the change in game
Wireless hot reloading, profiling, and debugging on device
Hot reload with custom Lua hooks for setup and inspection
Fast build times. All build targets, even HTML5, are completed in seconds
Asynchronous or synchronous loading of asset data
Automatic refactoring of assets
All data is in text files - easy for version control systems, perfect for AI-assisted and agentic workflows

Profiling and debugging

We give you all the needed tools to help you find and fix bottlenecks and problems with your games easily.

Live on-screen visual profiler
Remote web-based profiler with visual frame sampling
Built-in video capture of game footage
Native crash log APIs
Integrated debugger - step through code and inspect variable
Conditional Breakpoints in the integreated code editor
Breakpoint Tab for managing them

Performant and stable

Defold is a modern game engine optimized for high performance, even on low-end devices, and extremely low footprint, with a well defined architecture and a stable release cycle.

Low memory footprint, CPU usage and fast startup time
Renders tens of thousands of game objects without flinching - see this Bunnymark benchmark
Runs well on old hardware and in mobile phone browsers
Supports Compute Shaders for demanding calculations
Stable monthly release cycle with two week open beta period
Breaking changes are extremely rare - we keep it long-lasting and stable
Engineered with care - engine crashes are rare and far between

Production ready

Defold is a battle tested and production ready game engine. Integrations with popular third party analytics, app economy and game services are officially supported and maintained by the Defold Foundation.

Google and Apple push notification APIs
Google, Apple, Amazon and Facebook in-app purchases APIs
Facebook SDK APIs
Google Play Game Services
Google Play Asset Delivery
Firebase Analytics
AdMob, IronSource and other ad integrations and mediation services
Web Sockets
Nakama, PlayFab, Colyseus, Photon and other game backends
More extensions in the Asset Portal

Scale up or down

You keep the control. Reduce the size by removing unused features using a single App Manifest file, or add new ones via Native Extensions, and customize the engine to your needs. Integrate third-party SDKs without building a separate engine workflow around your project. We give you Cloud Builds for frictionless, no setup builds, but you can still set up your own building pipeline easily.

Engine size comparison

PLATFORM	DEFOLD 1.10.4	UNITY 6 (6000.0.23f1)	GODOT 4.3
Android (arm64-v8a)	1.97MB	24.33MB	24.29MB
iOS (arm64)	1.47MB	18.03MB	19.59MB
HTML5 (wasm, gzip)	1.14MB	8.1MB	9.0MB
Windows	2.88MB	91.1MB	84.1MB

Test made using an empty project. Exported to target platform using default settings. Release builds. The iOS, Android and Windows numbers represent the size on disk while the HTML5 number is uncached download size when gzipped. No optimizations. Release mode.

Native extensions

The Defold SDK lets you write engine extensions in C, C++, Objective-C, Java, and JavaScript without building a separate engine workflow around your project. Typical use cases include high-performance calculations, hardware access such as mobile cameras, and integrating external SDKs for ads, analytics, and services.

Develop extensions directly in Defold
No extra compiler setup needed for the common cloud-build path
Custom engine builds are produced for you in the cloud
Reach mobile hardware, native APIs, and platform features beyond the core runtime
Integrate analytics, ads, app economy SDKs, backend services, and game service providers
Use production-ready integrations for push notifications, in-app purchases, Facebook APIs, Firebase Analytics, game backends, and more from the Asset Portal

Learn more about Native Extensions

Extendable and customizable

Easily add libraries and extend the engine with Native Extensions, Editor Scripts and custom UI. Customize the engine and editor to your needs with powerful Native Extensions, Editor Scripts and custom UI.

Library sharing between projects
Asset Portal with reusable components
Write Native Extensions in C, C++, ObjectiveC, Java or JavaScript
Suit the Editor to your workflow with Editor Scripts and UI
Stand alone build pipeline for custom workflows
Integrate with your own scripts or CI framework
Whole engine and editor code source available online

Live Updates

Defold lets you ship a smaller base package first, then fetch and mount additional content later at runtime. Use it when you want faster HTML5 startup, episodic delivery, optional level packs, or delayed downloads for very large resources such as images, videos, and other heavy content.

Exclude selected collections and resources and load them later
Make the initial game download low, then stream the rest on demand
Split content into multiple archives
Google Play Asset Delivery support
Mount multiple archives with priorities
Built-in customizable content verification
Separate Live Update settings for different evnironments

Learn more about Live Updates

Why choose Defold?

We get this question from time to time, but it is not really a question that can be answered without elaborating a bit on the design philosophy of Defold. We make no claim that Defold is the best game engine out there for any game, but we dare to say that Defold is the best game engine for some games. We have spent a lot of time and effort making sure that certain key elements of the game development process are as smooth and effortless as possible and we believe it makes Defold stand out from the crowd. Read on to learn more.

Why Defold?

Learn Defold

New here? Start with a guided route suited to you, get a project running quickly, then continue through tutorials, manuals, courses, videos, examples, and community help without dead ends.

Start Here

This is a dedicated introduction to Defold.

Tutorials

Start with practical tutorials that take you from first project to working game features.

Videos

Learn by watching walkthroughs, feature deep-dives, and creator tutorials.

Manuals

Build a solid mental model of the editor, engine systems, and APIs.

Examples

Browse focused code samples, small projects, and reusable snippets.

Courses

Follow structured learning paths from beginner concepts to complete projects.

Forum

Ask questions, get unstuck, and learn with help from the Defold team and community. ↗

API

Look up Defold Lua and native extension APIs when you need exact details.

Always free

Defold is, and will always remain, completely free to use. Defold will never change into a subscription model, request royalty payments, introduce licensing fees or in other ways charge for access to the main product. We can say this with absolute certainty as it is clearly stated in the objectives of the Foundation that Defold must be made available for free and that it may not be commercialised. The objectives are protected by Swedish foundation law and cannot be changed.

Defold Foundation