Refolk
GuidesStart a free search

Top C++ Game engines repositories on GitHub

2D and 3D game engines, runtimes, and authoring tools. Filtered to projects whose primary language is C++.

Ranked by stars across 453 C++ repositories tagged game-engine. Refreshed daily.

  1. 1
    godotengine/godot★ 117,518 · ⑂ 26,810

    Godot Engine – Multi-platform 2D and 3D game engine

    • game-engine
    • godot
    • godotengine
    • open-source
    • multi-platform
    • gamedev
  2. 2
    ocornut/imgui★ 76,291 · ⑂ 12,047

    Dear ImGui: Bloat-free Graphical User interface for C++ with minimal dependencies

    • gui
    • gamedev
    • tools
    • ui
    • toolkit
    • native
  3. 3
    cocos2d/cocos2d-x★ 19,188 · ⑂ 7,044

    Cocos2d-x is a suite of open-source, cross-platform, game-development tools utilized by millions of developers across the globe. Its core has evolved to serve as the foundation for Cocos Creator 1.x & 2.x.

    • cocos2d
    • cocos2d-x
    • game-engine
    • c-plus-plus
    • lua
    • metal
  4. 4
    luanti-org/luanti★ 13,621 · ⑂ 2,459

    Luanti (formerly Minetest) is an open source voxel game-creation platform with easy modding and game creation

    • c-plus-plus
    • voxel
    • voxel-engine
    • game-engine
    • lua
    • minetest
  5. Live search

    Find the people behind these repos

    Stars rank the projects. I can rank the engineers - maintainers, top contributors, and the people they work with. Fire one of these to see how it works.

    500 free credits on sign-up, no card needed.

  6. 5
    skypjack/entt★ 13,126 · ⑂ 1,117

    Gaming meets modern C++ - a fast and reliable entity component system (ECS) and much more

    • header-only
    • modern-cpp
    • cpp
    • entity-component-system
    • game-development
    • game-programming
  7. 6
    jrouwe/JoltPhysics★ 11,566 · ⑂ 971

    A multi core friendly rigid body physics and collision detection library. Written in C++. Suitable for games and VR applications. Used by Horizon Forbidden West and Death Stranding 2.

    • physics
    • vr
    • game-development
    • cpp
    • c-plus-plus
    • game-engine
  8. 7
    cocos/cocos-engine★ 9,819 · ⑂ 2,140

    Cocos simplifies game creation and distribution with Cocos Creator, a free, open-source, cross-platform game engine. Empowering millions of developers to create high-performance, engaging 2D/3D games and instant web entertainment.

    • cocos
    • cocoscreator
    • game-engine
    • game-development
    • open-source
    • gamedev
  9. 8
    o3de/o3de★ 9,696 · ⑂ 2,537

    Open 3D Engine (O3DE) is an Apache 2.0-licensed multi-platform 3D engine that enables developers and content creators to build AAA games, cinema-quality 3D worlds, and high-fidelity simulations without any fees or commercial obligations.

    • 3d-graphics-engine
    • 3d-graphics
    • animation
    • game-development
    • game-engine
    • gamedev
  10. 9
    turanszkij/WickedEngine★ 7,240 · ⑂ 776

    3D engine with modern graphics

    • directx12
    • vulkan
    • lua
    • gltf
    • raytracing
    • entity-component-system
  11. 10
    FlaxEngine/FlaxEngine★ 7,015 · ⑂ 714

    Flax Engine – multi-platform 3D game engine

    • flax
    • flaxengine
    • engine
    • game-engine
    • gamedev
    • multi-platform
  12. Live search

    Who is hiring in this space?

    I read hiring signals across LinkedIn, GitHub, and the open web - so a topic list becomes a warm outreach list. Try one live.

    500 free credits on sign-up, no card needed.

  13. 11
    BoomingTech/Piccolo★ 6,714 · ⑂ 1,976

    Piccolo (formerly Pilot) – mini game engine for games104

    • cpp
    • game-engine
    • vulkan
    • imgui
    • physics
    • rendering
  14. 12
    defold/defold★ 6,308 · ⑂ 455

    Defold is a completely free to use game engine for development of desktop, console, mobile and web games.

    • defold
    • game-engine
    • c-plus-plus
    • clojure
    • game-development
    • multi-platform
  15. 13
    Redot-Engine/redot-engine★ 6,104 · ⑂ 332

    Redot Engine – Multi-platform 2D and 3D game engine

    • game-development
    • game-engine
    • gamedev
    • godot
    • godotengine
    • multi-platform
  16. 14
    panda3d/panda3d★ 5,228 · ⑂ 890

    Powerful, mature open-source cross-platform game engine for Python and C++, developed by Disney and CMU

    • game-engine
    • open-source
    • panda3d
    • cross-platform
    • python
    • panda3d-game-engine
  17. 15
    mosra/magnum★ 5,208 · ⑂ 466

    Lightweight and modular C++11 graphics middleware for games and data visualization

    • c-plus-plus-11
    • opengl
    • webgl
    • emscripten
    • ios
    • android
  18. 16
    urho3d/urho3d★ 4,766 · ⑂ 1,013

    Game engine

    • game-engine
    • urho3d
    • open-source
    • game-development
    • angelscript
    • cross-platform
  19. Live search

    Turn any brief into a list like this

    I run natural-language searches across GitHub, LinkedIn, and the open web. Describe who you want and I'll build the shortlist.

    500 free credits on sign-up, no card needed.

  20. 17
    ketoo/NoahGameFrame★ 4,150 · ⑂ 1,113

    A fast, scalable, distributed game server engine/framework for C++, include the actor library, network library, can be used as a real time multiplayer game engine ( MMO RPG/MOBA ), which support C#/Lua script/ Unity3d, Cocos2dx and plan to support Unreal.

    • server-architecture
    • unity3d
    • architecture
    • gameserver
    • game
    • unity
  21. 18
    spring/spring★ 4,002 · ⑂ 865

    A powerful free cross-platform RTS game engine. - Report issues at https://springrts.com/mantis/

    • springrts
    • c-plus-plus
    • lua
    • strategy-game-engine
    • opengl
    • game-engine
  22. 19
    nem0/LumixEngine★ 3,884 · ⑂ 446

    3D C++ Game Engine - yet another open source game engine

    • game-engine
    • game-development
    • data-oriented-design
    • editor
    • entity-component-system
    • 3d-game-engine
Start a free search·500 free credits, no card

Find C++ engineers shipping Game engines

The list above ranks the most-starred public C++ repositories tagged with the Game engines topic, drawn from the public GitHub graph. Across 453 matching repositories, the contributors are a tight cluster of engineers with both C++ chops and real Game engines experience.

That overlap is rare. Most C++ engineers haven’t shipped Game engines, and most Game engines maintainers don’t write C++. The people on this list’s contributor graph are the ones who do both.

Refolk turns this list into a search. Ask for “C++ Game engines maintainers hiring” or “C++ engineers shipping Game engines in 2025” and Refolk returns a ranked shortlist with the commits, profiles, and projects behind each name.

How this list is built

Refolk searched GitHub for public C++ repositories tagged with the Game engines topic, ranked them by stargazer count, and kept those with at least 25 stars. The list refreshes once a day.

Last refreshed: Sun, 20 Sep 2026 23:21:06 GMT

Search this list

Need a more specific search?

Refolk runs natural-language searches across GitHub, LinkedIn, and the open web. Try one of these:

500 free credits on sign-up, no card needed.

Related lists

See all repository lists.

Or zoom out

Common questions

How are these repositories ranked?

By stars, with forks and recent activity as tiebreakers, read from the public GitHub API. The methodology section above has the details.

How fresh is the data?

The ranking re-renders at least daily. Last refreshed: Sun, 20 Sep 2026 23:21:06 GMT.

Can I find the maintainers and contributors behind these repos?

Yes. Stars rank the projects; I can rank the engineers - maintainers, top contributors, and the people they work with. You start with 500 free credits, no card required.

Can I use this list for hiring?

That's the point. I read hiring signals across GitHub, LinkedIn, and the open web, so a repo list turns into a shortlist of engineers worth talking to.

Try it on the search you came here for

Stop building boolean strings. Just describe the person.

Type one sentence. I plan the search, read GitHub, public LinkedIn and Crunchbase records, and the open web as it is right now, and hand back a ranked list with the reason next to every name.

  1. 01Describe them

    One plain sentence. Role, city, stack, stage, whatever matters to you.

  2. 02I read the web live

    GitHub, public LinkedIn and Crunchbase records, the open web. Not a database that went stale last quarter.

  3. 03You read the shortlist

    Ranked, with the reasoning under every name. Open a profile, ask a follow-up, narrow it down.

  • No boolean, no filters, no seat to buy. One box.
  • Read at search time, so a profile updated yesterday counts today.
  • Every step visible as it runs, every name with its reason.

500 free credits on sign-up. No card, no demo call. See real searches.

Keep exploring