Migrate from Hathora to Asobi

Hathora shuts down 2026-05-05. Asobi is the Apache-2, self-hostable backend you move to once, then never again.

Why you're here

In February 2026 Hathora announced a pivot to AI infrastructure and set a shutdown date for the game-hosting product. If you have a live game on hathora.dev or hathora.cloud, you need a new backend by May — and you probably don't want the next one to disappear the same way.

Asobi is built for that. Apache-2.0 licensed, self-hostable, Postgres-backed, single Docker container. If we ever pivot, your game keeps running — the code is yours forever.

Hathora → Asobi at a glance

Capability	Hathora	Asobi
License	Proprietary managed service	Apache-2.0, self-hostable
Rooms / matches	One container per room	Thousands of matches per container (BEAM processes)
Matchmaker	Matchmaker 2.0	Pluggable strategies (fill, skill-based, custom)
Lobbies	Public / private lobbies	Ticket-based + matches in "waiting" phase
Auth	Anonymous, Google, Discord, SIWE	Username/password, OAuth/OIDC, JWT sessions
Leaderboards	Not built-in	Built-in, scoped per board
Economy / inventory	Not built-in	Built-in (wallets, items, IAP receipts)
Chat	Not built-in	Built-in, per-channel pub/sub
Per-match dedicated UDP	Yes	No — WebSocket/TCP only. Pair with a UDP relay if sub-3ms physics matter.
Region ping / autoplacement	Yes	No — deploy one container per region, pick client-side.
Pricing	CCU-based + compute	Flat per-container (Cloud) or free (self-host)
Hot reload	No	Edit Lua, save, running matches pick it up

We're honest about the UDP gap: if you run a twitch-FPS with per-match dedicated servers, Asobi alone isn't a drop-in. Most Hathora games on turn-based, MMO, co-op, or casual loops migrate cleanly.

Migration in four steps

The full guide on GitHub covers endpoint-by-endpoint mapping, WebSocket handshake, and a before/after of a typical Hathora client. The short version:

Your existing game-server process keeps running. Bring up an asobi_lua container alongside it.
Port the Hathora calls (createLobby, getRoomInfo, loginAnonymous, listActivePublicLobbies) to the Asobi REST + WebSocket equivalents.
Once auth / matchmaking / lobbies run on Asobi, drop Hathora. Keep your game-server container on Hetzner, Fly, Scaleway — wherever.
Optional: fold your game-server logic into a match.lua script and let Asobi host that too. No game-server container at all.

The exit story — why this won't happen again

Asobi is Apache-2.0 and self-hostable. If the managed Cloud service ever goes away, you run the same container on your own hardware and your game keeps working. No re-architecture, no emergency migration, no "we're pivoting to AI" email.

The exit guide is a one-page runbook: how to move off Asobi Cloud to your own hardware, how to keep a self-hosted fork alive if the project stalls, what data lives where.

Next steps

Easiest path: join Discord and drop into #migrations. We'll walk through your specific Hathora setup rather than you fighting docs in the dark.

Prefer async? The full migration guide on GitHub has the endpoint-by-endpoint mapping.

Want the managed version from day one? Asobi Cloud opens for First-10 signups during Launch Week (June 16–20, 2026) — €9/mo Indie tier, EU-sovereign, same open-source core.