Photon
Photon — Multiplayer networking engine and cloud service for Unity with relay servers, matchmaking, and 100-player rooms.
Our Verdict
Still one of the most reliable multiplayer stacks for Unity, mind the CCU-based pricing trap.
Pros
- Mature multiplayer networking for Unity
- Proven at global scale in games
- Good documentation and samples
- 100-player room support
Cons
- Legacy PUN2 phased out, migration pain
- Pricing CCU-based can bite indies
- Unity-first, Unreal is secondary
- Custom logic requires server code
Best for: Unity studios shipping multiplayer games needing proven networking and matchmaking
Not for: Non-Unity engines, tiny indies wary of CCU pricing, or fully custom networking needs
When to Use Photon
Good fit if you need
- Relay server and matchmaking for Unity multiplayer games
- 100-player WebGL and mobile game rooms via Photon Realtime
- PUN2 integration for quick Unity networking with minimal code
- Voice chat in multiplayer games via Photon Voice SDK
- Low-latency game messaging at global Photon PoPs
Lock-in Assessment
High 2/5
Lock-in Score 2/5
Pricing
Price wrong?Photon Pricing
- Pricing Model
- freemium
- Free Tier
- Yes
- Entry Price
- —
- Enterprise Available
- No
- Transparency Score
- —
Beta — estimates may differ from actual pricing
1,000
1001K10K100K1M
Estimated Monthly Cost
$25
Estimated Annual Cost
$300
Estimates are approximate and may not reflect current pricing. Always check the official pricing page.
Used in these stacks
Curated setups that include Photon.
Community Discussion
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