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FreakyChest
Inspiring
February 21, 2026
Solved

Options for PVP Multiplayer Hosting

  • February 21, 2026
  • 4 replies
  • 373 views

I have been building PVP games in Horizon Worlds for the last year, and now that VR in Horizon worlds is going away I am looking at doing a native PVP VR game instead. I have used both unreal engine and unity, was leaning on using unity because I feel I may program quicker in Unity. I have some cloud experience using AWS, mostly hosting websites. 

But for hosting or implementing Multiplayer, I am looking at options and others experiences. I am thinking of two main solutions, one being AWS (this is my go to for cloud tasks, but I use mostly for hosting websites) and proton (it sounds to good to be true, its free and you can have 100 concurrent users). 

AWS likely will be a pain to setup and seems like it will cost more (which makes no sense to me, usually cheapest for most tasks). 
Photon seems super cheap and easy to implement (sounds to good, feel like there is something I am missing). 

Have any tried both methods, and how do they compare, or are their better solutions. 

Best answer by FreakyChest

After doing some research, here is what I have found out.

For 1k peak concurrent users (CCU) on AWS GameLift it is about $239.02.

For 1k peak concurrent users (CCU) on Photon Fusion it is about $250.

With AWS GameLift it can vary a lot depending on usage, there are ways to both increase (more server extensive and packets) and decrease price (optimize, less logic on server and less packets).

Photon Fusion is a very attractive option for indie devs, because it gives 20 CCU free for developement, you get 100 CCU free for a year for first app, and can pay $100 for one year to get 200 CCU.

Photon Fusion does not seem to do persistent user data, would likely need to use different solution for things like levels, experience, or what items the player owns.

If you choose Unreal Engine (UE) that, you can use Epic Online Services EOS for voice chat, matchmaking, lobby systems, session management and other features. But can't use Photon Fusion with unreal engine, so for myself I would use AWS Gamelift if using UE.

For indie dev, first time deploying multiplayer game, possibly with less experiance I think using Unity and Photon Fusion is the way to go, Many services are free, you may only need to use external service for persistent player data and could possibly use EOS for voice chat (or exclude). But it might be harder to use EOS with unity.

I also didn't talk about unity's service because many say they perfer photon based on price and support, as well as the calculations are more complex, so I would just assume around same price as AWS GameLift.

4 replies

KevinJardine
KevinJardine
Honored Contributor
February 21, 2026

The main options have been Unity versus Photon networking for a long time now. Both are a lot of work to set up reliably. I've been able to get Photon networking to work with the Meta Avatars SDK but the implementation had so many odd quirks that I decided not to use it in my Quest app.

I wish that Meta would go beyond its Unity building blocks system and release the source for a fully functioning native app with reliable Meta avatars with locomotion and teleportation, grabbable objects, networked state, persistent storage, Noesis GUIs, hand tracking and all the other bells and whistles you need for a multiplayer app. And then maintain it.

FreakyChestAuthorAnswer
Inspiring
February 23, 2026

After doing some research, here is what I have found out.

For 1k peak concurrent users (CCU) on AWS GameLift it is about $239.02.

For 1k peak concurrent users (CCU) on Photon Fusion it is about $250.

With AWS GameLift it can vary a lot depending on usage, there are ways to both increase (more server extensive and packets) and decrease price (optimize, less logic on server and less packets).

Photon Fusion is a very attractive option for indie devs, because it gives 20 CCU free for developement, you get 100 CCU free for a year for first app, and can pay $100 for one year to get 200 CCU.

Photon Fusion does not seem to do persistent user data, would likely need to use different solution for things like levels, experience, or what items the player owns.

If you choose Unreal Engine (UE) that, you can use Epic Online Services EOS for voice chat, matchmaking, lobby systems, session management and other features. But can't use Photon Fusion with unreal engine, so for myself I would use AWS Gamelift if using UE.

For indie dev, first time deploying multiplayer game, possibly with less experiance I think using Unity and Photon Fusion is the way to go, Many services are free, you may only need to use external service for persistent player data and could possibly use EOS for voice chat (or exclude). But it might be harder to use EOS with unity.

I also didn't talk about unity's service because many say they perfer photon based on price and support, as well as the calculations are more complex, so I would just assume around same price as AWS GameLift.

DevBrain
DevBrain
Up and Coming
March 3, 2026

I would definitely use Photon Fusion. I am actually using it in my game. 

Let me know if you need assistance with Photon Fusion! 

FreakyChestAuthor
Inspiring
March 9, 2026

Sorry for late response...

I would love to see what you have made with it, can you share a link to your game?

Thank you appreciate it. It will still be a bit before I start messing with it but would greatly appreciate the help when I start. 

How much time do you think is a normal expectation for setting up a bare minimum vr app and running on Photon Fusion, possibly using the Horizon Avatars. 40 hours (always seems like a good number for new tasks that have a lot of steps)? 

Was thinking maybe after my current project is complete I'll just put a solid week into it and see what I can make.

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