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;''Common aspects'':''Pretty much all of the HTML5 implementations listed here are specifically designed to be used as [[wikipedia:Polyfill (programming)|polyfills]] by webmasters who want to keep their Flash-based sites going despite the forced obsolescence of Adobe's in-browser Flash plugin. They are therefore really not intended for personal use, although it's usually not impossible.''====Desktop====
;GNU Gnash
:A desktop-only C++ implementation that went inactive in 2017, with the most recent stable release dating back to 2012. Probably not much reason to use it over newer versions of Lightspark, which seem to have mostly (if not entirely) superseded Gnash.
;GameSWF
:An ''extremely'' old C++ implementation, definitely one of the first serious efforts to reverse-engineer Flash Player into an open-source package. Inactive since 2009, though it did lay the foundations for Gnash.
;swfdec
:Another very early effort to replicate Flash Player's NPAPI plugin in open-source. Actually pretty advanced for 2008-09, but it hasn't been active since.
→Implementations
! scope="col"|[[Recommended Emulators|Recommended]]
|-
! colspan="6"|Desktop / Plugin<ref group=N name=plugin>Plugin versions of these players require a browser that supports NPAPI/PPAPI.</ref>
|-
|Flash Player
|align=left|{{Icon|Windows|Linux|macOS|Web}}
|[https://www.adobe.com/support/flashplayer/debug_downloads.html 32.0.0.465]
|{{✗}} ||{{~}}<ref group=N>Adobe versions discontinued. Harman versions currently maintained for enterprise customers only.</ref> ||{{✓}}
|-
|[https://ruffle.rs/ Ruffle]
===Comparisons===
;Flash Player
:The proprietary reference implementation, which Adobe stopped directly supporting at the end of 2020. The web version relies on [[wikipedia:NPAPI|NPAPI/PPAPI]], an obsolete browser plugin system that for many years only stuck around specifically because of Flash Player; as Adobe was phasing out the plugin, so too was the plugin system gradually being dropped by all the major browser vendors. The discontinued desktop player version is still available for download from the debug downloads section of Adobe's website, and Harman International is also [https://airsdk.harman.com/flashplayer maintaining an extended support version specifically for enterprise users].
;Lightspark
:A C++ implementation that's designed specifically to provide drop-in FLOSS replacements for both the desktop and NPAPI versions of Flash Player. It claims to have 83% of the APIs covered, as of August 2022. Lightspark historically focused on more recent versions of the Flash spec that weren't supported by Gnash, hence why Lightspark could (and still can) use Gnash as an automatic fallback if both are installed simultaneously.
;GNU Gnash
:A desktop-only C++ implementation that went inactive in 2017, with the most recent stable release dating back to 2012. Probably not much reason to use it over newer versions of Lightspark, which seem to have mostly (if not entirely) superseded Gnash.
;GameSWF
:An ''extremely'' old C++ implementation, definitely one of the first serious efforts to reverse-engineer Flash Player into an open-source package. Inactive since 2009, though it did lay the foundations for Gnash.
;swfdec
:Another very early effort to replicate Flash Player's NPAPI plugin in open-source. Actually pretty advanced for 2008-09, but it hasn't been active since.
====HTML5====
;''Common aspects''
:''Pretty much all of the implementations listed here are specifically designed to be used as [[wikipedia:Polyfill (programming)|polyfills]] by webmasters who want to keep their Flash-based sites going despite the forced obsolescence of Adobe's in-browser Flash plugin. They are therefore really not intended for personal use, although it's usually not impossible.''
;Ruffle
;swf2js
:An open-core HTML5 implementation that uses a dynamic recompiler. The source-available "Free" version supports limited features, such as AS1, AS2 and ZLIB compression, whereas the payware "Production" version is better suited to newer Flash files using such features as AS3 and LZMA compression. Built on more traditional JavaScript code, so it pretty much always performs worse than the WebAssembly-based options, sometimes noticeably so.
;Shumway
:A relatively very early HTML5 implementation. Developed rather actively under Mozilla sponsorship between 2012 and 2016, but ultimately abandoned before it could reach a usable beta state.
==See also==
