Add-ons and GDExtensions

Which popular Godot add-ons to use, their real state on 2026-10-22, how a C# game reaches them, and what doctor checks in a game that uses them. The list started from a user's list of 25 repositories and was cross-checked with garciamarquez.dev's ranking (Asset Library entries by GitHub stars, November 2024). Stars, licences and releases were read from GitHub and Codeberg that day; READMEs and .gdextension files from the repositories. Library matching was measured on Godot 4.7.2 (below). Nothing else was installed or run. A second pass over awesome-godot added the section More add-ons, from awesome-godot; awesome-lists.md says how.

How Godot picks a GDExtension's library (measured on 4.7.2)

A .gdextension names one library per build in [libraries], keyed by tags such as linux.release.x86_64. A key fits an export when every tag is one of the build's features, and the fitting key with the most tags wins. Paths are res:// or relative to the .gdextension's folder; [dependencies] values may span lines:

[libraries]
linux.release.x86_64 = "libs/rel.so"
linux.template_release.x86_64.mytag = "libs/custom.so"

[dependencies]
linux.release.x86_64 = {
"libs/tr.so": ""
}

Exported with Godot 4.7.2 (a throwaway project, the standard build, --export-release and --export-debug):

• The release export copied rel.so and tr.so; a preset with custom_features="mytag" copied custom.so instead (four tags beat three).
• The debug export, which no key fits, exited 0 with only WARNING: GDExtension: No "x86_64" library found for GDExtension: "res://addons/x/x.gdextension". Possible feature flags for your platform: pc, linux, linuxbsd, s3tc, bptc, x86_64, template, debug, template_debug, single, and shipped no library: the game runs without the extension.

The features each export has, as Godot printed them (every build also has template, debug or release, template_debug or template_release, single, and the preset's custom_features):

Not measured: macOS with one architecture, and Web with variant/extensions_support on.

Godot also refuses an extension outside compatibility_minimum and compatibility_maximum, or without a minimum (4.7.2's gdextension_library_loader.cpp: "GDExtension configuration file must contain a \"configuration/compatibility_minimum\" key").

What doctor checks

ci/godot/lib/Addons.ps1, for each export preset that does not exclude the add-on's folder:

The autoload rule replaces "plugin not enabled", which would be wrong: examples/gdscript keeps addons/gut disabled and GUT's command-line runner works. What breaks a game is an autoload such as Dialogue Manager's DialogueManager that the plugin adds only when enabled; the game's code then finds nothing in an export.

The add-ons

"C#" is how a C# game uses it. A GDExtension without a wrapper has no typed C# API: ClassDB.Instantiate, Call, Get and Set, as Terrain3D's docs show (var terrain = ClassDB.Instantiate("Terrain3D"); terrain.AsGodotObject().Call("set_show_region_grid", true);).

Do not use on Godot 4.7:

• Godot Jolt (godot-jolt/godot-jolt, 2,580 stars): "As of Godot 4.4, this integration of Jolt Physics is built into Godot itself", and "the only supported versions of Godot are between 4.3 and 4.6". Set 3d/physics_engine="Jolt Physics"; the extension's own name is "Jolt Physics (Extension)".
• godot-steam-audio (stechyo/godot-steam-audio): archived on 2026-10-07, and its README says "Don't expect to be able to ship a game with this extension right now".
• Godot-PerfBullets (Moonzel/Godot-PerfBullets): "works with Godot 4.1 and 4.2", Windows builds only. Use a MultiMeshInstance2D in the game's own code.
• py4godot (niklas2902/py4godot): "don't use this for bigger projects".

More add-ons, from awesome-godot

The names come from Calinou/awesome-godot (the list is CC BY 4.0), checked against what this page already covered. Everything below was read from each repository on 2026-10-29: the licence file, the newest tag, the last commit, the Godot version it states and its .gdextension or plugin.cfg. Dates are the commit date of the newest tag, not a release page. Nothing was built or run, so "works on 4.7.2" is unverified for every row, and the C# column is judged from .cs files and READMEs.

Systems a game ships:

World, level and physics tools:

Developer tools, which a game must never ship:

Authoring tools, also never shipped (read from their repositories on 2026-10-29; none was run, and whether they run headless was not checked):

Two things to know about all of them. The kit sets up official Godot, so a game that needs a custom engine module (godot-voxel's module edition, Voxelman, Texture Packer, Godex, FMOD GD4) cannot be tested or exported with it, and doctor finds nothing to check because such a game has no addons/ folder for it. And where an extension lacks a platform key, doctor's library check already reports it for the presets the game exports.

Do not use: godot-luaAPI (WeaselGames/godot_luaAPI) says "Archived!" on its first README line and was built for Godot 4.1 (last commit 2024-12-28); use lua-gdextension above. doctor now flags addons/luaAPI from the known-status list. The folder inside its newest release zip (v2.1-beta11, gdextension.zip) is container/addons/luaAPI, as recorded.

Read and left out, with the reason: Quest Manager (Questify covers it), QuestSystem (another GDScript quest manager), Inventory Manager (trivial to write), Shaker (unmaintained since 2024-09), Godot Radial Menu (shader-drawn, poor for gamepad focus and screen readers), Nodot (pre-1.0 and too broad), Importality (the kit says to export PNGs from Aseprite), License Manager (assets.json and credits do this), GodotVMF (func_godot's sibling), Godot SQLite (named further down this page), godot-actions (pins Godot 3.5), asdf-godot, Godot Package Manager (Godot 3, abandoned since 2022), godot-launcher (deprecated), GodotSx, Gedis, godot-playfab (0.0.x tags, last tag 2022), Godot Shader Warmup (a Windows research project), Script-IDE (editor only), gd2cs.py and codetranslator (regex ports of old Godot), Godot Torrent, Godot NDI and spout-gd (desktop only, with their own runtimes), obs-websocket-gd (tested on 4.0.2), Polygon 2D Fracture, AntialiasedLine2D, SimpleGodotCRTShader, PixelPen, AnimSheet, 3D Auto Collision Generator.

The known-status list

doctor finds the four above in a game from ci/godot/addons-status.json: each entry's folder under addons/, its .gdextension file name and entry_symbol (for a copy in another folder), the Godot it stops at (godotMax), why and the fix. Each name was confirmed on 2026-10-23 from the add-on's repository at its newest commit, read with git (the confirmed field of each entry says which files):

On 2026-10-29 the names were checked again against the newest release zip of each add-on that has one (listed with Python's zipfile, never extracted or run; the releaseZip field of each entry records the tag, the asset, the folder prefix inside the zip and the date): godot-jolt_v0.16.0-stable.zip holds addons/godot-jolt/godot-jolt.gdextension, godot-steam-audio-v0.3.1.zip holds addons/godot-steam-audio/bin/libgodot-steam-audio.gdextension, and py4godot.zip (4.7-alpha21, 243 MB) holds install_dir/addons/py4godot/python.gdextension, so the folder to copy sits under a wrapper folder (prefix is install_dir/). Each entry_symbol read from the zip's .gdextension is the recorded one. Godot-PerfBullets has no tags or releases, so its names stay those of the repository.

Not confirmed: whether Godot Jolt, Godot-PerfBullets and py4godot are archived. From the sandbox that ran the check GitHub's API and the repository pages answered 403 (only raw.githubusercontent.com, git and release downloads by their exact URL were reachable), so archived is null until the canary reads it. Nor could the newest release be looked up there: the asset names above were found by trying the names the repositories' own workflows suggest.

The weekly canary runs ci/godot/tools/Update-AddonStatus.ps1: it records each repository's newest commit (head) and archived, checks that the file each entry names still holds its entry_symbol, and reads the newest release's zip. It downloads the asset the entry's releaseZip.asset names ({tag} stands for the release's tag, up to 600 MB, to a new temporary folder that is deleted after), lists its files and compares them with the entry: a folder under another prefix is applied, a new tag whose zip still matches is applied (releaseZip.tag, checked), and a missing addons/<name>/ folder or .gdextension file, an asset that is gone, or a repository that now has a release and no releaseZip is reported. It builds the download URL from the repository, tag and asset name, not from the API's answer. Without a token the API allows 60 calls an hour, which is enough; an API or download that fails is a note and the entry stays as it was. It opens an issue for what needs a person, such as new commits on an add-on that may now support Godot 4.7. Statuses are changed by hand.

Not add-ons: gdext (Rust, 5,319 stars, MPL-2.0), graphics.gd (Go), godot-cpp-template (the reference for writing a GDExtension; nathanfranke/gdextension is older and has no macOS or iOS) and godot-lang-support (a list).

Corrections to the list as received: Terrain3D is TokisanGames/Terrain3D; Konclan/iree.gd does not exist (the project is iree-gd/iree.gd); ProtonScatter's GitHub repository is a mirror of Codeberg.

On garciamarquez.dev's page but not above, all Asset Library add-ons: LimboAI (behaviour trees and state machines; C# needs its module build, docs/game-ai.md), Godot State Charts, Gaea (procedural generation, procgen), SmartShape2D, Metroidvania System, Panku Console (debug-tools), Orchestrator (visual scripting), Godot-SQLite (saves, game-data), Aseprite Wizard (asset-pipeline), COGITO (moved to Codeberg), Kenney's starter kits and a tactical RPG demo. Rivet, 7th on the page, now describes itself as "the primitive for stateful workloads. Built for AI agents", not a game backend.

Licences

Every add-on's code ships with the game, so its licence notice does too: an assets.json entry for addons/<name>/** lets credits write it (asset-pipeline), and doctor writes that entry for an add-on with a licence file and none. Some add-ons wrap SDKs with their own terms (FMOD, Steamworks, Epic Online Services, Steam Audio's "proprietary libraries"), ProtonScatter's textures "cannot redistribute them on their own", and EIRTeam.FFmpeg's h264 needs a check of patent law where the game sells.