Pygame vs Arcade vs Pyglet for Python Games

Python has three well-known 2D game libraries. They make the same kinds of games but feel different to write:

• Pygame (and pygame-ce): the oldest and most used, built on SDL. You draw on Surfaces in a loop you write.
• Arcade: a newer library built on pyglet and OpenGL, with sprites, cameras, physics and tile maps built in.
• pyglet: a windowing and multimedia library on OpenGL. Event handlers instead of a loop, and you build the game structure yourself.

The same moving square

Pygame, which runs here:

import pygame

pygame.init()
screen = pygame.display.set_mode((480, 320))
clock = pygame.time.Clock()
player = pygame.Rect(220, 140, 40, 40)
running = True

while running:
    for event in pygame.event.get():
        if event.type == pygame.QUIT:
            running = False

    keys = pygame.key.get_pressed()
    player.x += (keys[pygame.K_RIGHT] - keys[pygame.K_LEFT]) * 5

    screen.fill((30, 30, 46))
    pygame.draw.rect(screen, (255, 196, 0), player)
    pygame.display.flip()
    clock.tick(60)

pygame.quit()

Arcade: you subclass arcade.Window and fill in methods that Arcade calls. Arcade's y axis points up, from the bottom of the window:

import arcade


class Game(arcade.Window):
    def __init__(self):
        super().__init__(480, 320, "Arcade")
        self.x = 240
        self.dx = 0

    def on_key_press(self, key, modifiers):
        if key == arcade.key.RIGHT:
            self.dx = 5
        elif key == arcade.key.LEFT:
            self.dx = -5

    def on_key_release(self, key, modifiers):
        if key in (arcade.key.LEFT, arcade.key.RIGHT):
            self.dx = 0

    def on_update(self, delta_time):
        self.x += self.dx

    def on_draw(self):
        self.clear()
        arcade.draw_lrbt_rectangle_filled(self.x - 20, self.x + 20, 140, 180, arcade.color.AMBER)


Game()
arcade.run()

pyglet: also event driven, with decorators on a window and a scheduled update function:

import pyglet
from pyglet.window import key

window = pyglet.window.Window(480, 320)
keys = key.KeyStateHandler()
window.push_handlers(keys)
square = pyglet.shapes.Rectangle(220, 140, 40, 40, color=(255, 196, 0))


def update(dt):
    square.x += (keys[key.RIGHT] - keys[key.LEFT]) * 300 * dt


@window.event
def on_draw():
    window.clear()
    square.draw()


pyglet.clock.schedule_interval(update, 1 / 60)
pyglet.app.run()

Side by side

Which to choose

Choose pygame to learn game programming in Python: the loop is yours, the API is small, and almost any question you have has been answered somewhere. It is what these docs teach.

Choose Arcade if you want a platformer or top-down game with physics, scrolling cameras and Tiled levels without writing those parts, and your players have reasonably modern graphics.

Choose pyglet if you want a thin, fast OpenGL layer and will build your own structure on top, or need video and 3D drawing through OpenGL.

All three are free and installed with pip. For editors, scenes and publishing to phones, a full engine is the next step: see pygame vs Godot.