Comparison of frontends

From Emulation General Wiki
Jump to navigation Jump to search

Below is a basic comparison table for all the known multi-system emulator frontends. Intentionally excluded from this page are single-system frontends—such as EmuCon, MAME Classic, Negatron, pfeMame, QMC2 and others like them—and other software dedicated to other purposes that also offer some level of integration with standalone emulators, such as Kodi.

Basic details

[edit | edit source]
Name Developer Distribution Release production era Platform support and installation package types
Source code available Free/Libre license Initial public Latest stable Windows macOS GNU/Linux Other
All Stars Launcher 'el Comandante' On request "Freeware" 2020-09-30
(v2020.274) 		2024-01-30
(v2024.030) 		ZIP[1] ❌ ❌ ❌
Atomic FE 'Youki' ❌ ❌ 2005-02-08
(v0.11) 		2010-01-23
(v0.20) 		EXE[2] ❌ ❌ ❌
Attract-Mode Andrew Mickelson GitHub[3] GPL-3.0-or-later[4] 2013-11-17
(v1.0) 		2023-06-10
(v2.7.0) 		ZIP[5] DMG[6] .tar.gz,[7] AUR,[8] DEB[9] ❌
Attract-Mode Plus Radek Dutkiewicz GitHub[10] GPL-3.0-or-later[4] 2022-01-29
(v2.6.1) 		2025-05-31
(v3.1.2) 		7z[11] 7z[12] DEB[13] ❌
Aurora Game Hub Sammy Guergachi Sourceforge,[14] GitHub[15] CC-BY-NC-ND-3.0[16] 2010-08-27
(r09) 		2014-08-30
(Alpha 10) 		ZIP[17] ZIP[18] ❌ ❌
BizHawk[19] 'YoshiRulz' GitHub[20] MIT[21] 2012-03-03
(v1.0.0) 		2025-01-07
(v2.10) 		ZIP[22] ❌ .tar.gz[23] ❌
Cabrio FE Steve Maddison GitHub[24] GPL-2.0-or-later[25] 2009-11-29
(v0.8.1 beta) 		2011-06-24
(v0.8.2 beta) 		ZIP[26] ❌ .tar.gz,[27] DEB[28] ❌
EmuCenter2 'XotoB' ❌ ❌ 2010-03-20
(v0.6) 		2016-09-01
(v7.1.0.1) 		EXE[29] ❌ ❌ ❌
EmuCon Ciro Alfredo Consentino ✅[30] ❌ 2008-04-23[31]
(v2.0) 		2017-11-21[31]
(v2.7.7) 		RAR[32] ❌ ❌ ❌
EmulationStation Alec Lofquist GitHub[33] MIT[34] 2013-10-26
(v1.0.0) 		2015-03-08
(v2.0.1a) 		EXE,[35] ZIP[36] ❌ DEB[37] ❌
EmulationStation:
RetroPie fork 		Tomas Jakobsson & Jools Wills GitHub[38] MIT[34] 2017-03-07
(v2.0.2) 		2023-04-13
(v2.11.2) 		ZIP[39] ❌ .tar.gz[40] Raspberry Pi Zero/Zero 2 W/1/2/3/4/400[41] (IMG)[42]
EmulationStation
Desktop Edition (ES-DE) 		Leon Styhre GitLab[43][44] MIT[34]
(except Android) 		2021-04-20
(v1.0.0) 		2025-07-15
(v3.3.0-48) 		EXE,[45] ZIP[46] DMG,[47][48] Homebrew[49] AppImage,[50] RPM,[51][52] AUR,[53] Nixpkg[54] Android, FreeBSD, Haiku, OpenBSD, Steam Deck
EmuLoader N/A ✓[55] ✗ 2007-08-27 (v5.1.6) 2021-10-27 (v8.9.4) ✓ ✗ ✗ ✗
FEEL 'Sincro' ✓[56] ✓ (LGPLv3) 2015-09-12 (v1.8.1) 2020-04-21 (v1.9.8.6) ✓ ✗ ✗ ✗
GameEx Tom Speirs ✗ ✗ 2016-04-14 (v14.44) 2024-03-13 (v18.61) ✓ ✗ ✗ ✗
GameRoom Max 'n0xew' ?? ✗ ✗ 2016-12-13 (v0.0.0.9) 2018-03-12 (v1.1.2.0) ✓ ✗ ✗ ✗
Games (Gnome) Various contributors ✓[57] ✓ (GPLv3) 2015-10-20 (v3.18.0) 2019-05-24 (v3.33.2) ✗ N/A ✓ N/A
HyperSpin Jonathan Habers ✗ ✗ N/A 2018-05-07 (v1.5.1) ✓ ✗ ✗ Android[58]
Ice Scott Rice ✓[59] ✓ (MIT) 2016-01-29 (v1.0.0) 2016-01-29 (v1.0.0) ✓ ✓ ✓ N/A
LaunchBox Jason Carr ✗ ✗ N/A N/A ✓ ✗ ✗ ✗
LusSpace 'Space1' ✗ ✗ N/A 2016-11-08 (v1.23) ✓ ✗ ✗ ✗
Lutris Mathieu Comandon and others ✓[60] ✓ (GPLv3) 2013-12-15 (v0.3.2) 2019-04-09 (v0.5.2) ✗ ✗ ✓ ✗
MaLa Stefan 'swindus' Windus, Simon 'loadman' Loader ✗ ✗ 2005-07-26 (v0.9.7b) 2011-03-27 (v1.74) ✓ ✗ ✗ ✗
Maximus Arcade N/A ✗ ✗ N/A N/A ✓ ✗ ✗ ✗
Metropolis Launcher Jörg 'MK2k' Sonntag ✓[61] ✓ (GPLv3) 2017-04-27 (v1.0.0) 2018-09-07 (v1.2.0) ✓ ✗ ✗ ✗
mGalaxy N/A ✗ ✗ 2007-02-05 (v1.0) 2024-05-01 (v10.1) ✓ ✓ ✗ ✗
Nostlan Quinton Ashley ✓[62] ✗ 2019-03-04 (v1.0.12) 2025-08-12 (v3.0) ✓ ✓ ✓ N/A
Pegasus Mátyás Mustoha ✓[63] ✓ (GPLv3) 2017-08-07 (Alpha 3) 2025-10-04 (alpha 16) ✓ ✓ ✓ Android, Raspberry Pi
Photon Game Manager Thomas Preece ✗ ✗ N/A N/A ✓ ✗ Experimental ✗
Playnite Josef Nemec ✓[64] ✓ (MIT) 2017-03-28 (v0.70 Alpha) 2025-01-28 (v10.35) ✓ ✗ ✗ ✗
Project Ascension Jake Schadewe and others ✓[65] ✓ (MIT) 2016-01-30 (v1.0.34) 2016-01-30 (v1.0.34) ✓ ✗ ✗ ✗
QuickPlay John Scott ✓[66] ✓ (BSD-3) 2014-04-14 (v3.9.0) 2022-03-26 (v4.7.6) ✓ N/A N/A N/A
RetroArch 'Twinaphex' and others ✓[67] ✓ (GPLv3) 2011-01-25 (v0.2) 2024-05-30 (v1.22.2) ✓ ✓ ✓ DOS, BSD, Haiku, Solaris, PS2, PS3, PSP, PSVita, Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox One, GameCube, Wii, Wii U, 3DS, Switch, NES/SNES Classic Edition, Raspberry Pi, Android, iOS, Blackberry, Web Browser
RetroFe Don Honerbrink ✓[68] ✓ (GPLv3) 2016-07-26 (v0.7.2-beta-1) 2019-05-26 (v0.9.0) ✓ To be compiled ✓ N/A
RoM-Jacket 'Jinx' ✓ (.bat files) ✗ N/A N/A ✓ ✗ ✗ ✗
skeletonKey 'romjacket' ✗[69] ✗ 2018-05-22 (v0.99.34.34) 2019-05-30 (v0.99.69.81) ✓ ✗ ✗ ✗
Snowflake Ronny Chan ✓[70] ✓ (MPLv2.0) 2015-01-15 (v0.1.0) 2017-07-10 (v0.2.1158) To be compiled To be compiled To be compiled N/A
Steam Rom Manager Lukas Senionis ✓[71] ✓ (GPLv3) 2017-04-30 (v1.0.0) 2019-03-10 (v2.2.19) ✓ ✓ ✓ N/A

Technical facts

[edit | edit source]
Name Download size Current status Language used Libraries used
All Stars Launcher 100 KiB - 135 MiB Possibly discontinued MASM - Machine Language
Atomic 35.2 MiB Discontinued Visual Basic N/A
Attract-Mode 34.5 - 35.9 MiB Actively maintained C++ SFML, OpenAL, Zlib, FreeType 2, FFmpeg (avformat, avcodec, swscale, avutil, swresample/avresample), OpenGL+GLU, JPEG. Optionally: Fontconfig, Xinerama, libarchive, Libcurl.
Aurora Game Hub 12.2 MiB Discontinued Java h2 database Engine
BizHawk 48.1 MiB (+43 MiB on Windows) Actively maintained C++ & C# DirectX 9, libblip_buf
Bottlenose 56.4 - 87.2 MiB Actively maintained HTML/JS/CSS await-spawn, bootstrap, chrome-finder, circletype, contro, contro-ui, copy-paste, deep-extend, delay, diacritics, electron-pug, fs-extra, fuse.js, gca-js, gooder, jquery, klaw, markdown-it, material-design-icons-iconfont, moment, mousetrap, node-7z, opn, popper.js, probe-image-size, pug, puppeteer-core, requisition, tether, three, yauzl-promise
CabrioFE 1.5 MiB Discontinued C SDL, SDL_image, SDL_gfx, SDL_mixer, SDL_ttf, glut, libxml2, ffmpeg
CoinOPS ? Discontinued ? ?
EmuCenter 2 176 MiB Possibly discontinued C++ and/or C# N/A
EmuCon 5.54 MiB Discontinued Pascal
EmulationStation 13.1 MiB Actively maintained C++ SDL2, Boost (System, Filesystem, DateTime, Locale), FreeImage, FreeType, Eigen3, and cURL
EmuLoader 16.50 MiB Actively maintained Pascal
ES-DE 189 MiB Actively maintained C++
FEEL 26.4 MiB Possibly discontinued C# XNA, SharpDx, SmartASD, "other smaller libs" (sic)
GameEx 81.8 MiB Actively maintained C#
GameRoom 67.7 MiB Discontinued Java
Games (Gnome) 8.9 MiB Actively maintained Vala retro-gtk, libmanette, libhandy
HyperSpin 479.12 MiB Possibly discontinued ActionScript
Ice 11.3 MiB Possibly discontinued Python appdirs, pastebin, psutil, pysteam
LaunchBox 218 MiB Actively maintained C#
LusSpace 2.9 MiB Possibly discontinued Visual Basic 6
Lutris 1.7 MiB Actively maintained Python PyYAML, PyGObject, evdev, requests, optional pypresence for discord
MaLa
Maximus Arcade
Metropolis Launcher 261.16 MiB Actively maintained VB.Net 4.0 DevExpress WinForms v15.2, DiscUtils, HtmlAgilityPack, Newtonsoft.Json, Ookii.Dialogs, SgmlReaderDll, SharpCompress
mGalaxy 194 MiB Actively maintained
Pegasus
Photon Game Manager
Playnite Actively maintained
Project Ascension
QuickPlay 32.8 MiB Actively maintained Delphi
RetroArch 4.8 - 165 - 806 MiB (Android - Win10 64bit - PS3 DEX) Actively maintained C libretro, an audio library (ALSA, OSS, etc.), optional dependencies
RetroFe
RoM-Jacket
skeletonKey
Snowflake
Steam Rom Manager

Emulator support

[edit | edit source]
Name RetroArch MAME NEStopia FCEUX Snes9x ZSnes Mupen64Plus Dolphin Cemu VisualBoyAdvance(-M) Citra NeoCD EPSXe PCSX2 RPCS3 PPSSPP
Atomic
Attract-Mode
Aurora Game Hub
BizHawk
Bottlenose
CabrioFE
CoinOPS
EmuCenter 2
EmuCon
EmulationStation
EmuLoader
ES-DE ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
FEEL
GameEx
GameRoom
Games (Gnome)
HyperSpin
Ice
LaunchBox ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
LusSpace
Lutris
MaLa
Maximus Arcade
Metropolis Launcher ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
mGalaxy ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
Pegasus
Photon Game Manager
Playnite
Project Ascension
QuickPlay ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
RetroArch
RetroFe
RoM-Jacket
skeletonKey
Snowflake
Steam Rom Manager

Features

[edit | edit source]
Name Has console categories Theme support Display descriptions Display box arts Display video previews Scrape descriptions Scrape box arts Scrape video previews
Atomic ✓ ✓ ✓
Attract-Mode ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
Aurora Game Hub ✓ ✓
BizHawk ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗
Bottlenose
CabrioFE ✓ ✓
CoinOPS
EmuCenter 2 ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
EmuCon
Emulation Station ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✗
EmuLoader ✓ ✓ ✓
FEEL ✓ ✓
GameEx ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
GameRoom
Games (Gnome) ✓ ✓
HyperSpin ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
Ice ✓ ✗ ✗ ✓ ✗ ✗ ✓ ✗
LaunchBox ✓ ✓ (Paid) ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
LusSpace
Lutris
MaLa
Maximus Arcade
Metropolis Launcher ✓ ✓ (built-in only) ✓ ✓ ✓ (offline db) ✓
mGalaxy ✓ ✓ (Paid) ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
Pegasus ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
Photon Game Manager
Playnite ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ Via plugin ✓ ✓ Via plugin
Project Ascension
QuickPlay
RetroArch ✓ ✓ (Limited) ✗ ✓ ✗ ✗ ✓ ✗
RetroFe
RoM-Jacket
skeletonKey
Snowflake
Steam Rom Manager ✓ ✗ ✗ ✓ ✗ ✗ ✓ ✗

References

[edit | edit source]
  1. ↑ File: AllStarsLauncher.zip, version 2024.030, published on 2024-01-30 at guerilla.bplaced.net.
  2. ↑ File: AtomicFE_v020.exe, version 0.20, published on 2010-01-23 at www.atomicfe.com.
  3. ↑ mickelson/attract public Git source code repository, created on 2013-07-02 at GitHub.com.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 File: License.txt, from commit 6fe2d80: Initial commit. on 2013-07-02 to mickelson/attract at GitHub.com.
  5. ↑ File: attract-v2.7.0-win64.zip, version 2.7.0, published on 2023-06-10 at GitHub.com.
  6. ↑ File: attract-v2.6.1.dmg, version 2.6.1, published on 2020-01-18 at GitHub.com.
  7. ↑ File: v2.7.0.tar.gz, version 2.7.0, published on 2023-06-10 at GitHub.com.
  8. ↑ Package: attract (unofficial), version 2.7.0-1, published on 2023-06-12 by eclairevoyant to the Arch Linux User Repository (AUR).
  9. ↑ File: attract_2.2.0-3daveg1+yakkety_amd64.deb (unofficial), version 2.2.0, published on 2016-11-11 by David Gillies to the Attract-Mode PPA on Launchpad.net.
  10. ↑ oomek/attractplus public Git source code repository, created on 2017-03-17 at GitHub.com.
  11. ↑ File: attractplus_3.1.2_Windows.7z, version 3.1.2, published on 2025-05-31 at GitHub.com.
  12. ↑ File: attractplus_3.1.2_MacOS.7z, version 3.1.2, published on 2025-05-31 at GitHub.com.
  13. ↑ File: attractplus_3.1.2_ubuntu-24.04_X11_amd64.deb, version 3.1.2, published on 2025-05-31 at GitHub.com.
  14. ↑ auroragm public project page, created on 2010-05-01 at Sourceforge.net.
  15. ↑ sguergachi/AuroraGameHub public Git source code repository, created on 2012-09-30 at GitHub.com.
  16. ↑ File: LICENSE.txt, from commit 9080345: Completed DashboardScreen Commenting&Refactoring on 2012-10-29 to sguergachi/AuroraGameHub at GitHub.com.
  17. ↑ File: Aurora_Alpha10_Win.zip, version Alpha 10, published on 2022-04-03 at GitHub.com.
  18. ↑ File: Aurora_Alpha10_Mac.zip, version Alpha 10, published on 2022-04-03 at GitHub.com.
  19. ↑ BizHawk official website, first uploaded on 2012-03-03.
  20. ↑ TASEmulators/BizHawk public Git source code repository, created on 2011-01-11 at GitHub.com.
  21. ↑ File: LICENSE, from commit f4a6e87: add MIT license to repository, since that's what it's always been, but add a long section describing what a mishmash this repository is -- fair warning. Fixes #933 on 2017-07-24 to TASEmulators/BizHawk at GitHub.com.
  22. ↑ File: BizHawk-2.10-win-x64.zip, version 2.10, published on 2025-01-07 at GitHub.com.
  23. ↑ File: BizHawk-2.10-linux-x64.tar.gz, version 2.10, published (with compilation instructions) on 2025-01-07 at GitHub.com.
  24. ↑ SteveMaddison/cabrio public Git source code repository, created on 2009-10-19 at GitHub.com.
  25. ↑ File: COPYING, from commit a825fc8: Added license information on 2009-10-24 to SteveMaddison/cabrio at GitHub.com.
  26. ↑ File: cabrio-0.8.1.zip (32-bit), version 0.8.1 beta, published on 2009-11-29 at www.cabrio-fe.org.
  27. ↑ File: cabrio-0.8.2.tar.gz, version 0.8.2 beta, published on 2011-06-24 at www.cabrio-fe.org.
  28. ↑ File: cabrio_0.8.2-1_i386.deb (32-bit), version 0.8.2 beta, published on 2011-06-24 at www.cabrio-fe.org.
  29. ↑ File: update.7.1.0.1.exe (32/64-bit), version 7.1.0.1, published on 2016-09-01 at emucenter.2.free.fr.
  30. ↑ File: emucon277-src.rar, version 2.7.7, published on 2017-11-21 at emuloader.mameworld.info.
  31. ↑ 31.0 31.1 EmuCon Changelog at emuloader.mameworld.info/emucon/, last updated on 2017-11-21.
  32. ↑ File: emucon277-bin.rar, version 2.7.7, published on 2017-11-21 at emuloader.mameworld.info/emucon/.
  33. ↑ Aloshi/EmulationStation public Git source code repository, created on 2012-07-18 at GitHub.com.
  34. ↑ 34.0 34.1 34.2 File: LICENSE.md from commit 9350ed3: Removed extremely out-of-date changelog. on 2014-06-05 to Aloshi/EmulationStation at GitHub.com.
  35. ↑ File: emulationstation_2.0.1a_win32.exe (32-bit), version 2.0.1a, published on 2015-03-08 at emulationstation.org.
  36. ↑ File: emulationstation_2.0.1a_win32.zip (32-bit), version 2.0.1a, published on 2015-03-08 at emulationstation.org.
  37. ↑ File: emulationstation_2.0.1a-1_amd64.deb (64-bit), version 2.0.1a, published on 2015-03-08 at emulationstation.org.
  38. ↑ RetroPie/EmulationStation public Git source code repository forked from Aloshi/EmulationStation on 2015-06-01 at GitHub.com.
  39. ↑ File: v2.11.2.zip, version 2.11.2, published (with compilation instructions) on 2023-04-12 at GitHub.com.
  40. ↑ File: v2.11.2.tar.gz, version 2.11.2, published (with compilation instructions) on 2023-04-13 at GitHub.com.
  41. ↑ RetroPie Documentation on the EmulationStation wiki
  42. ↑ File: retropie-buster-4.8-rpi4_400.img.gz, version 4.8, published on 2022-03-14 at GitHub.com.
  43. ↑ ES-DE/ES-DE Frontend public Git source code repository forked from Aloshi/EmulationStation on 2020-05-16 at GitLab.com.
  44. ↑ ES-DE Frontend (EmulationStation Desktop Edition) – Download (es-de.org): "The Android release is a paid app and is partially-closed source; please don't distribute it or share download links to the APK. The Windows, macOS and Linux releases are, however, fully open source and free to download, use and distribute in any way you want." Android version requires a minimum donation of US$5.50 on Patreon (no re-subscription required for future updates) or US$6.50 at select mobile app stores (currently only Samsung Galaxy Store; the app was delisted from the Huawei AppGallery).
  45. ↑ File: ES-DE_3.3.0-x64.exe (64-bit), version 3.3.0-48, published on 2025-07-15 at GitLab.com.
  46. ↑ File: ES-DE_3.3.0-x64_Portable.zip (64-bit), version 3.3.0-48, published on 2025-07-15 at GitLab.com.
  47. ↑ File: ES-DE_3.3.0-x64.dmg (Intel 64-bit), version 3.3.0-48, published on 2025-07-15 at GitLab.com.
  48. ↑ File: ES-DE_3.3.0-arm64.dmg (Apple Silicon 64-bit), version 3.3.0-48, published on 2025-07-15 at GitLab.com.
  49. ↑ Cask: es-de, version 3.3.0,210210122; published on 2025-07-18 to the Homebrew Formulae.
  50. ↑ File: ES-DE_x64.AppImage (64-bit, official), version 3.3.0-48, published on 2025-07-15 at GitLab.com.
  51. ↑ File: emulationstation-de.spec (unofficial), version 3.3.0, from commit 8ab9217: bump: emulationstation-de inputplumber on 2025-07-15 to terrapkg/packages (Fyra Labs Terra 3rd-party package repository for Fedora Linux) at GitHub.com.
  52. ↑ Package: emulationstation-de (unofficial), version 3.2.0-alt1, published on 2025-05-23 by Artyom Bystrov to the ALT Linux Sisyphus package repository.
  53. ↑ Package: emulationstation-de (official), version 3.3.0-1, published on 2025-07-15 by LeonStyhre to the Arch Linux User Repository (AUR).
  54. ↑ Package: emulationstation-de (unofficial), version 3.2.0, published on 2025-04-30 by Ivar Larsson to Nixpkgs.
  55. ↑ EmuLoader Download page with sources
  56. ↑ Github - dr-prodigy/feel-frontend
  57. ↑ Gitlab - GNOME-games
  58. ↑ HyperSpin (Android)
  59. ↑ Github - scottrice/Ice
  60. ↑ Github - lutris/lutris
  61. ↑ Github - theMK2k/MetropolisLauncher
  62. ↑ Github - quinton-ashley/Nostlan
  63. ↑ Github - mmatyas/pegasus-frontend
  64. ↑ Github - JosefNemec/Playnite
  65. ↑ Github - Project Ascension
  66. ↑ SourceForge - QuickPlay
  67. ↑ Github - libretro/RetroArch
  68. ↑ Bitbucket - phulshof/retrofe
  69. ↑ Github - romjacket/skeletonKey
  70. ↑ Github - SnowflakePowered/snowflake
  71. ↑ Github - FrogTheFrog/steam-rom-manager
[edit | edit source]
Retrieved from "https://emulation.gametechwiki.com/index.php?title=Comparison_of_frontends&oldid=130230"