Hibira vs Photon
Photon runs action games over UDP from many regions; Hibira covers turn-based, casual and party games with rooms and a matchmaking queue shared by Unity, Godot and browser players, from $19 a month.
Photon is a game networking platform: Realtime and PUN relay rooms, while Fusion and Quantum add tick-based state sync for action games. Hibira is a hosted Pusher-protocol service with game rooms and a matchmaking queue for Unity, Godot, Cocos Creator and the browser. They overlap on lobbies, matchmaking and turn-based play, and Photon goes much further for fast action games.
At a glance
| Photon Realtime / PUN | Hibira | |
|---|---|---|
| Best for | Any multiplayer game, including action games (with Fusion or Quantum) | Turn-based, casual, party and card games, and lobbies in front of your own game server |
| Transport | UDP, with reliable and unreliable messages | WebSocket (TCP), reliable only |
| Matchmaking | Join a random room by room properties, SQL lobby filters, skill ranges you widen yourself | A queue that groups waiting players by signed rating and criteria, widens the range over time and opens a new room for the match |
| Who decides a match | Photon's servers, by room properties | The player who has waited longest, by the rules you set; ratings are signed by your backend |
| Engines | Unity, Unreal, native SDKs, JavaScript | Unity (including WebGL), Godot, Cocos Creator and the browser, all in the same rooms and queues |
| Free plan | 20 CCU, for development | 100 connections, usable in production |
| Entry paid plan | $95 one-time for 100 CCU for 12 months; then $95/month for 500 CCU | $19/month for 1,000 connections and 1 million messages a day |
| Regions | Several regions; clients connect to the nearest | Hong Kong today; Tokyo and Singapore planned |
Photon figures are from photonengine.com/pricing and its matchmaking guide, checked on 2026-11-12. Photon's CCU and Hibira's connections both count players online at the same time; Photon also caps traffic per month and Hibira caps messages per day.
Hibira
Matchmaking side by side
Photon matches by room: a player asks for any open room whose properties fit, or filters rooms with SQL-like conditions, and for skill matching the client retries with a wider range until it gives up and creates a room. Hibira matches by player: everyone waits in one queue, your auth endpoint signs each player's rating and criteria so nobody can change their own, and the allowed rating gap widens the longer someone waits. When enough players fit, they move into a new room together, and after a timeout the queue tells the player there is no match.
The trade-off is trust. On Hibira the player who has waited longest runs the matching rules. It cannot change anyone's rating, but it could bias which players it groups. For ranked play with rewards, run the same rules on your own server and send each player their room. A queue holds up to 100 waiting players; use one queue per mode or region.
When Photon is the better fit
- Shooters, racing, fighting and physics games that need many updates a second, unreliable messages or tick sync.
- Players all over the world who need a nearby region.
- You want the matchmaking decision on the networking provider's servers.
When Hibira is the better fit
- Card, board, quiz, party and turn-based games, and casual co-op.
- WebGL, Godot or browser players who should share rooms and queues with Unity players.
- Players in East and Southeast Asia.
- A free plan you can launch on, and one bill that also covers push notifications and realtime features for the rest of your product.
See multiplayer game rooms and lobbies and Unity lobbies, matchmaking and leaderboards for the code.
Common questions
Does Hibira have matchmaking?
Yes. The queue in @hibira-io/lobby, and HibiraQueue in the Unity and Godot packages, match players by rating and criteria and move each match into a new room, with no matchmaking server to run.
Can I move a PUN 2 game to Hibira?
If it is turn-based or casual, yes: rooms, a host, room settings, ready flags, events and a matchmaking queue map across. Games that rely on PhotonView state sync or fast physics should stay on Photon Fusion or Quantum, or a dedicated game server.
How do the prices compare?
Photon's free plan is 20 CCU for development, then $95 once for 100 CCU for a year or $95 a month for 500 CCU. Hibira's free plan is 100 connections, then $19 a month for 1,000 connections. Check your own traffic against the pricing page.
Photon is a trademark of its owner.