Changes

|Adobe Flash Player|align! colspan=left"6"|{{Icon|Windows|Linux|macOS|Web}}Desktop / Plugin <ref group=N name=plugin />|[https:/Plugin versions of these players require a browser that supports NPAPI/wwwPPAPI.adobe.com</support/flashplayer/debug_downloads.html 32.0.0.465]|Reference ||{{✗}} ||{{✗}} ||{{✓}}ref>

|[https://github.com/vidkidz/waflash WAFlash]Flash Player|align=left|{{Icon|Windows|Linux|macOS|Web}}|[https://clubpenguinadvancedweb.githubarchive.ioorg/waflash-demoweb/ Web20220331041116/https://www.adobe.com/support/flashplayer/debug_downloads.html 32.0.0.465]|High ||{{✗}} ||{{✓~}} <ref group=N>Adobe versions discontinued. Harman versions currently maintained for enterprise customers only.</ref> ||{{✓}}

|align=left|{{Icon|Windows|Linux|macOS|Web}}|[https://githubruffle.com/ruffle-rs/ruffle/releases #downloads Nightly builds]|Mid ||{{✓}} ||{{✓}} ||{{✓~}}<small> (WIP)</small>

|align=left|{{Icon|Windows|Linux|Web}}|[https://github.com/lightspark/lightspark/releases 0.8.6.1]|{{✓}} ||{{✓}} ||{{~}}<ref group=N name=pluginsmall>Web version is only available as an NPAPI(WIP)</PPAPI plugin, and is therefore not OSsmall>|-agnostic|[https://gnu.<org/software/ref>gnash GNU Gnash]|align=left|{{Icon|Windows|Linux}}|[https://githubwww.gnu.comorg/lightsparksoftware/lightsparkgnash/releases download.html 0.8.510]|{{✓}} ||{{✗}} ||{{✗}}|-|[http://tulrich.com/textweb.pl?path=geekstuff/gameswf.txt GameSWF]|Mid align=left|{{Icon|Windows|macOS|Linux}}|[https://sourceforge.net/projects/tu-testbed/files/demos/gameswf-2009-08-08/ 2009-08-08]|{{✓}} ||{{✗}} ||{{✗}}|-|[https://web.archive.org/web/20090116113151/http://swfdec.freedesktop.org/wiki swfdec]|align=left|{{Icon|Linux|Web}}|[https://web.archive.org/web/20090116113151/http://swfdec.freedesktop.org/download/swfdec/0.8/swfdec-0.8.4.tar.gz 0.8.4]|{{✓}} ||{{~✗}} ||{{✗}}

|[https://swf2js.com/en/ swf2js]|align! colspan=left|{{Icon|Web}}"6"|[https://github.comHTML5 /swf2js/swf2js JavaScript file download]|{{?}} ||{{✓}} ||{{✗}} ||{{~}}WebAssembly

|[https://leaningtech.com/cheerpx-for-flash/ CheerpX for Flash]Ruffle|alignrowspan=left|"7" {{Icon|Webna}}|[https://docs.leaningtechgithub.com/cheerpx-forruffle-flashrs/Changelog Version 31ruffle git]|? ||{{✗✓}} ||{{✓}} ||{{✗~}}<small> (WIP)</small>

|{{?}} ||{{✓}} ||{{✓}} ||{{✗~}}<small> (WIP)</small>

|[https://gnugithub.orgcom/softwarevidkidz/gnash GNU Gnashwaflash WAFlash]|align=left{{na}}|{{Icon✗}} |Windows|Linux{{✗}}||{{~}}|-|[https://wwwswf2js.gnu.orgcom/en/softwareswf2js]|[https:/gnash/downloadgithub.html com/swf2js/swf2js 0.7.8.10]|Low {{~}} ||{{✓✗}} ||{{~}} |-|[https://leaningtech.com/cheerpx-for-flash/ CheerpX for Flash]|[https://docs.leaningtech.com/cheerpx-for-flash/Changelog Version 34]|{{✗}} ||{{✓}} ||{{✗}}

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|Low ||{{✓}} ||{{✗}} ||{{✗}}

====Hybrid====;Adobe Flash PlayerRuffle<small> ([https://ruffle.rs/demo/ web demo])</small>:The official closedA Rust-source implementation based player that targets both HTML5 and desktop. Notably used by Adobea bunch of veteran Flash content sites including [https://www.newgrounds.com Newgrounds], who discontinued it in 2020[https://homestarrunner. The web version relies on com Homestar Runner] and [https://www.coolmathgames.com CoolMathGames], and also by the Internet Archive's [wikipediahttps:NPAPI|NPAPI/PPAPI]/archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_flash Flash library]. By 2021, an obsolete in-browser plugin system that for it had progressed to the point where it can run many years only stuck around specifically because of this early Flash plugin; when the plugin was officially dropped by Adobegames, so too was including the plugin system dropped by all the major browser vendorsoriginal Flash version of [https://www.newgrounds. The desktop player version com/portal/view/59593/format/flash?emulate=flash Alien Hominid]; support for newer AVM2-based files is now underway, although still available for download far from complete. Unlike the other HTML5 options, Ruffle can actually be installed as a browser addon, with the Adobe caveat that a website's debug downloads sectionhosted copy will usually override the addon even if the site is running an older build.

;Ruffle====Desktop / NPAPI====[[wikipedia:A pure Rust implementation mainly targeting HTML5NPAPI|NPAPI]], but also available as a desktop player. The devs are planning to focus on ActionScript 1 and 2 support firstin case you don't remember, with AS3 support coming later. Development of Ruffle is sponsored an obsolete browser plugin system that was used by multiple veteran Flash game archives, most notably Newgrounds. It's progressed a bunch of different in-browser software platforms that tried to co-exist in the earlier days of the point where it can run many early Flash gamesInternet, including before basically only existing for the original sake of Flash version Player once the SWF format became properly dominant and pushed everything else out of [https://wwwthe HTTP ecosystem.newgrounds.com/portal/view/59593/format/flash?emulate=flash Alien Hominid]By the mid-2010s, the plugin system was increasingly being seen as well as playing an ancient relic that modern browsers would be better off without; and so, while Adobe was phasing out Flash Player in late 2020, NPAPI was gradually being dropped by all the vast majority major browser vendors. It hasn't entirely disappeared (some smaller browser devs still maintain NPAPI in their own forks of [https://old.homestarrunner.com Homestar Runner] toonsstuff like Firefox and Chromium), but it is ''mostly'' dead nowadays.

;Lightspark & Gnash:Two C++ implementations You may also notice that somewhat complement each othera lot of older Flash player projects specifically fizzled out around 2009-2010. One likely reason for that is because, before then, many multimedia hosting sites actually needed some type of SWF element to be able play audio and are both designed specifically to provide /or video in a FLOSS alternative to Adobe's official playersbrowser. Lightspark says it has 78% The development of open-source alternatives was motivated by people not wanting an increasingly large part of the APIs coveredInternet to hinge on a single proprietary software platform, while Gnash has focused on older versions of Flash that Lightspark is less likely to along with Macromedia/Adobe not necessarily seeing Linux support properly, hence why Lightspark can use Gnash as an automatic fallback if both are installed simultaneouslya top priority. LightsparkIt wasn's external dependencies would make it cumbersome to port it to t until the start of 2010 that YouTube in particular started pushing really hard for HTML5media elements, so it's only available which have since become a standard feature in modern browsers as an NPAPI/PPAPI plugin, similar to the official one from Adobeand single-handedly made Flash Player completely redundant for multimedia playback.

;swf2jsFlash Player:An openThe proprietary reference player, which Adobe stopped directly supporting in at the end of 2020 and has since fully delisted from their website. The plugin version has a built-in kill-core HTML5 implementation switch that was flipped in January 2021, so it's probably not much use even in browsers that uses a dynamic recompilerstill support NPAPI, but the desktop player version is still usable if you download it from an archived version of the Adobe website. Harman International is also [https://airsdk.harman.com/flashplayer maintaining an extended support version specifically for enterprise users]. The open ;Lightspark:A C++ player that's designed specifically to provide drop-source "Free Version" supports limited featuresin FLOSS replacements for both the desktop and NPAPI versions of Flash Player. It claims to have 83% of the overall SWF spec covered, such as AS1of August 2022, AS2 but development has been fairly slow since 2015 when it became a mostly one-person effort. Lightspark historically focused on more recent versions of the SWF spec that weren't supported by Gnash, hence why Lightspark could (and ZLIB compressionstill can) use Gnash as an automatic fallback if both are installed simultaneously. ;GNU Gnash:A desktop-only C++ player 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 for compatibility. ;GameSWF:An ''extremely'' old C++ player, definitely one of the first serious efforts to reverse-engineer Flash Player into an open-source package. Inactive since 2009, whereas though it did lay the payware "Production Version" supports further featuresfoundations for Gnash. ;swfdec:Another very early effort to create an non-proprietary replacement for Flash Player. Actually pretty advanced for 2008-09, such but it hasn't been active since. ====HTML5====Pretty much all of the players listed here are specifically designed to be used as AS3 [[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 largely not intended for personal use, although it's usually not impossible and LZMA compressionsome of them even have official demo pages that you can use to load whatever SWF file you want.

:A payware HTML5 emulation proprietary software package which seems designed to work make the Harman version of Flash Player usable in modern browsers by running it inside CheerpX, a binary Flash plugin inside an payware x86 emulatorin WebAssembly. No-one on this wiki has had the chance to properly evaluate it, but we'd expect reference-level accuracy at the cost of woeful performance. That being said, CheerpX is marketed exclusively towards website operators apparently has an alternate mode of operation that offloads most of the emulation and processing work to a server app, at which point the in-browser part is clearly not intended for personal useeffectively just a streaming client. ;AwayFL<small> ([https://exponenta. As of December 2021games/games/AFL/ web demo])</small>:Developed by the Away Foundation, this is arguably the only emulator being endorsed most direct alternative to Ruffle, which it's roughly even with in terms of compatibility although there are still a bunch of SWFs that'll work fine in any way by Adobe or its partners one but not the other. ;WAFlash<small> (specifically[https://clubpenguinadvanced.github.io/waflash-demo/ web demo])</small>:An inactive, by Harman International closed-source C++-to-WebAssembly player that technically hasn't been made available to outside users, although there are a few sites where you can use it. It was considered the most accurate of the unofficial Flash players as of late 2021, although other still-active projects have caught up significantly. ;swf2js<small> (web demos: [https://airsdkswf2js.harmancom/free/index.html free], [https://swf2js.com/ on their Flash & AIR developers siteprod/index.html production])</small>:An open-core player 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.

:A very relatively early HTML5 implementation. Developed player, developed rather actively for a few years, under Mozilla sponsorship, between 2012 and 2016 but ultimately abandoned in 2016before it could reach a usable beta state.