Feature Comparison
This page outlines the difference in features between EOS Online Subsystem and other options for using EOS in your Unreal Engine game.
If you have additional questions about differences in functionality or platform support, you can ask these questions on our Discord server.
| EOS Online Subsystem: Marketplace Edition | EOS Online Subsystem: Free Edition | OSS in Unreal Engine Repository | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Availability | Now, $119 USD on the Marketplace | Now, available in the License Manager | Install 5.3 |
| Stability | Stable | Stable | Beta |
| Developed By | Redpoint Games | Redpoint Games | Epic Games |
| Support | Yes, included. Premium support available with SLAs. | - | - |
| Source Code | Yes | - | Yes |
| Engine Versions | 5.3, 5.2, 5.1 | 5.3 | 5.3 |
| Development Experience | |||
| Packaging | The plugin automatically wraps your packaged project with the EOS Bootstrapper and signs for Anti-Cheat where necessary. | - | |
| Platform Support | |||
| Desktop | Windows, macOS and Linux | Windows, macOS and Linux | Windows and macOS |
| Mobile | iOS and Android | iOS and Android | - |
| Consoles | Yes; get console access | - | Yes; via Epic Games console access |
| VR/AR/XR | Oculus Quest and PC-based headsets | Oculus Quest and PC-based headsets | - |
| Authentication Features | |||
| User Experience | Automatic. The plugin shows any necessary login prompts and implements UI for you (though you can customize it). | Manual. You need to build the UI and login flows. | |
| Authentication Flow | Sensible defaults for most games. Fully customize the authentication experience by implementing custom authentication graphs and cross-platform account providers. | Relatively fixed. Requires patching the engine to do anything non-standard. | |
| Cross-Platform Account Linking | Yes | Yes | - |
| Login with Developer Auth Tool | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Epic Games on Mobile Platforms | Signing in with an Epic Games account on iOS and Android is supported. | - | |
| Authentication Platforms | |||
| Epic Games Store | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Steam | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| itch.io | Yes | Yes | - |
| Oculus | Yes | Yes | - |
| Discord | Yes | - | - |
| GOG Galaxy | Yes | - | - |
| PlayStation™Network | Yes | - | Yes |
| Nintendo Switch™ | Yes | - | Yes |
| Xbox | Yes | - | Yes |
| Google (Android) | Yes | - | - |
| Apple (iOS) | Yes | - | - |
| Anonymous (Device ID) | Yes, but only on Windows, Linux, iOS and Android | - | |
| Cross-Platform Account Systems | |||
| Epic Games | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Bring your own first-party account system | Yes | Yes | - |
| Cross-Platform Friends | |||
| Cross-Platform Friends List (Can you invite any EOS user to your friends list?) | Yes, you can send, accept and reject friend invites to any EOS user, as well as delete friends from the friends list. | - | |
| Friend Caching (Will friends from previous platforms show up on new platforms?) | Yes, friends from the local platform are cached and displayed on any other platforms the user also plays the game on. | - | |
| Friend Aggregation (What platforms will friends be displayed from?) | Epic Games and multiple local platforms. | Epic Games and a single local platform. | |
| Friend Unification (Will a friend only appear once?) | Yes, if a friend is present on multiple platforms they will only appear in the friends list once. | No, duplicates can be present. | |
| Friend Invites (Can I invite friends?) | Yes, to sessions and parties. | Yes, to sessions. | |
| Recent Players | Yes, and other players seen on multiplayer servers are automatically tracked. | - | |
| Blocked Players | Yes | - | |
| Friend Aliases (Can you locally override the display name of a friend?) | Yes | - | |
| Networking | |||
| Dedicated Servers | Players can directly connect to dedicated servers over the Internet. | ||
| Peer-to-Peer | Players can connect to listen servers hosted by other players, without forwarding ports on their router. | ||
| Beacons | You can communicate with game servers using beacons without performing a full connection to the game server (joining the map). | - | |
| Anti-Cheat | Anti-Cheat support is fully integrated and handled for you. | - | |
| Automatic Encryption | Connections to both dedicated and listen servers are automatically encrypted for you. | Only for listen servers where the connection is over Peer-to-Peer. | |
| Network Authentication | Connecting players are authenticated to ensure that they are who they say they are. | No, anyone can connect to game servers. | |
| Sanctions | When players connect to a game server, the server will check the EOS Sanctions list to see if the player has any BAN sanctions against them. If they do, they won't be permitted to connect to the server. | - | |
| Functionality | |||
| Identity | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Avatars | Yes | Yes | - |
| Friends | Yes, but refer to "Cross-Platform Friends" section above for differences between Redpoint and Epic EOS plugins. | ||
| Cross-Platform Invites | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| User Info | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Presence | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Sessions | Yes | Yes | Limited; does not register players with backend. |
| Parties | Yes | Yes | - |
| Lobbies | Yes, via lobbies interface. | Yes, via sessions interface. | |
| User Cloud (Player Data Storage) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Title File (Title Storage) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Metrics | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| External UI | Yes | Yes | - |
| Achievements | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Leaderboards | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Stats | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Anti-Cheat | Yes | Yes | - |
| Voice Chat | Yes | Yes | Limited; does not conform to standard online APIs. |
| E-commerce (Store, Purchase, Entitlements) | Yes, Epic Games Store, Steam and Google Play | Yes, Epic Games Store only | |
| Mods | - | - | - |
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