Compare / PlayFab

PlayFab vs Lonca

Azure PlayFab is Microsoft's managed game backend with a very broad feature set, from player identity and economy to dedicated servers. Live events are put together from title data, segments, scheduled tasks and CloudScript. Lonca is a smaller, focused backend for casual and mobile games, where events are templates your product team configures.

Book a 20-minute early access call

Pick PlayFab when

You ship cross-platform or on Xbox and other consoles and want a fully managed Microsoft stack with dedicated servers.

Pick Lonca when

You run a casual or mobile game and want tournaments, team events and an inbox as ready templates, priced per daily player.

At a glance

How PlayFab and Lonca differ before you look at a single feature.

PlayFab

Lonca

What it is

PlayFab

Microsoft's managed backend for live games of every size.

Lonca

An open-source game backend for casual and mobile games, with live ops built in.

How live ops are built

PlayFab

Game Manager edits title data, segments, rules, scheduled tasks and experiments. An event with rooms and rewards is assembled from these plus CloudScript.

Lonca

Configured in the console from 18 event templates, with a flow builder, versions, and dev and staging environments to test in. No server code.

Engine SDKs

PlayFab

Unity, Unreal and Cocos2d-x, plus C++, C#, Java, JavaScript and Python and console SDKs.

Lonca

Unity, Godot and web, generated from one API description.

Custom server logic

PlayFab

CloudScript in JavaScript, or Azure Functions (mainly C#).

Lonca

Rarely needed. Flows cover the logic between events; webhooks reach your own server when you need more.

Hosting

PlayFab

Managed by Microsoft on Azure. No self-hosting.

Lonca

Lonca Cloud, run for you on shared infrastructure with each game's data, limits and keys kept apart. Or self-host on your own infrastructure.

Source code

PlayFab

Proprietary.

Lonca

Open-source core. Lonca Cloud is the managed edition.

Pricing

PlayFab

Free development mode up to 1,000 players per title. Then pay-as-you-go meters, or Standard ($99) and Premium ($1,999) monthly plans with allowances.

Lonca

Self-hosting has no license fee. Lonca Cloud targets $0.05 per daily active player per month; early access pricing is agreed with each studio.

Feature by feature

What each one gives a casual or mobile game out of the box. The Lonca column is what early access is designed to include; Lonca is not generally available yet.

Feature

PlayFab

Lonca

Players

Accounts and sign-in

PlayFab

Built in

Apple, Google, Facebook, Steam, Xbox, PlayStation and more

Lonca

Built in

Guest, Google, Apple, Facebook and username. Steam, Game Center and Play Games planned.

Cloud save

PlayFab

Built in

Player data and entity files

Lonca

Built in

Versioned, with conflict detection, history and restore

Live ops

Live events without code

PlayFab

Write it in code

Assembled from title data, scheduled tasks and CloudScript

Lonca

Built in

18 templates, scheduled and tested in staging

Segments and targeting

PlayFab

Built in

Lonca

Built in

Level, platform, app version, audience and country

A/B tests and remote config

PlayFab

Built in

Experiments and title data

Lonca

Planned

A/B variants planned after early access

Push notifications

PlayFab

Built in

Lonca

Planned

Planned after early access

Competition

Leaderboards with seasons

PlayFab

Built in

Versioned resets and tie-breaks

Lonca

Built in

Seasons, archives, friends, team and country views

Tournaments and leagues

PlayFab

Partly

Leaderboard versions plus your own logic

Lonca

Built in

Rooms, brackets and leagues with bots

Social

Teams and clans

PlayFab

Built in

Groups

Lonca

Built in

Roles, help requests and team events

Chat

PlayFab

Partly

Voice and text inside a Party session; no persistent channels

Lonca

Built in

Global, team, group and direct, with moderation

Friends

PlayFab

Built in

Lonca

Built in

Friend codes, suggestions and blocking

Inbox with rewards

PlayFab

Write it in code

No mailbox feature

Lonca

Built in

Scheduled broadcasts, claimed exactly once

Economy

Currencies and inventory

PlayFab

Built in

Economy v2

Lonca

Built in

A ledger that never goes negative, lives and timers

Promo codes

PlayFab

Partly

Coupons only in legacy Economy v1

Lonca

Built in

Shared, unique and personal codes

Purchase receipt validation

PlayFab

Built in

Many stores through Economy v2

Lonca

Planned

Planned after early access

Multiplayer

Real-time multiplayer

PlayFab

Built in

Dedicated servers, matchmaking, lobby and party

Lonca

Not yet

Not in early access; may come later. Lobbies hand off to your match server, and async PvP is built in.

Platform

Product analytics

PlayFab

Built in

PlayStream and telemetry

Lonca

Planned

Planned after early access

Where PlayFab is stronger

Very broad feature set
Identity, economy, multiplayer servers, matchmaking and analytics from one vendor.
Console and cross-platform
Xbox, PlayStation, Steam and mobile sign-in, with console SDKs.
Dedicated servers
Multiplayer server hosting at Azure scale.
Long track record
Used by live games of every size for many years, with Microsoft behind it.

Where Lonca is different

Events are templates, not assemblies
A tournament in Lonca is a template with rooms, bots and prize tables. On PlayFab it is title data, scheduled tasks and CloudScript wired together by an engineer.
Inbox and promo codes included
Rewards land in an inbox and are claimed exactly once, and promo codes come in shared, unique and personal kinds.
One price per daily player
Lonca Cloud targets $0.05 per daily player per month instead of several usage meters to forecast, and you can self-host the open-source core instead.
Focused on casual and mobile
Lonca is built around the events and social systems casual games run, not every genre and platform.

Moving from PlayFab

PlayFab games usually keep player data, title data, catalog items and CloudScript functions. Accounts and player data move with the player, catalog items map to Lonca's wallet, and CloudScript-driven events map to templates.

1
Tell us what you run
Your events, leaderboards, economy and the server code behind them. A 20-minute call is enough to map it.
2
Map it to Lonca
We match each event to a template and each system to its Lonca module, and list honestly what would not move.
3
Try it in staging
Early access studios get dev and staging environments with test players and a time offset, so an event can be checked before any player sees it.

Questions studios ask

Is Lonca a PlayFab alternative?

For the backend of a casual or mobile game, yes. If you ship on consoles, need dedicated servers or rely on PlayFab's Microsoft integrations, PlayFab is the better fit.

Do I need CloudScript for events in Lonca?

No. Events are configured in the console from templates. Webhooks call your server only for logic you want to own.

Does Lonca validate in-app purchases like PlayFab?

Not yet. Receipt validation is planned after early access; until then, purchases are validated by your own server or a service such as RevenueCat.

How is Lonca priced compared with PlayFab?

Lonca Cloud targets one price per daily active player, $0.05 a month, instead of separate meters for events, writes and scripts, and early access pricing is agreed with each studio. Self-hosting the open-source core has no license fee.

Other comparisons

Based on the public documentation and pricing pages of PlayFab, as of October 2026. Spot something out of date? Tell us and we'll fix it.

PlayFab, Azure and Xbox are trademarks of the Microsoft group of companies. Lonca is not affiliated with Microsoft.

Running on PlayFab today?

Tell us what you run and what you'd like your product team to launch on its own. We'll tell you honestly whether Lonca fits your game.

SDKs for Unity, Godot and web games.
Open source: Lonca Cloud or self-hosted.
Built for casual and mobile games with live ops on day one.
A founder answers every signup.