Amazon GameLift managed hosting roadmap - Amazon GameLift
Choose a hosting option

Amazon GameLift managed hosting roadmap

This topic helps you choose from the different Amazon GameLift hosting options for your session-based multiplayer game. The rest of the topics in this section walk you through how to use Amazon GameLift for your managed hosting.

Before you start preparing to launch your game to production, fill out the launch questionnaire to begin working with the Amazon GameLift team.

Topics

Choose a hosting option

The following flowchart asks questions to lead you to the correct Amazon GameLift solution for your use case.

  1. Do you want a managed solution for game server management?

    • Yes – Continue to step two.

    • No – Consider self-managed game servers on Amazon EC2 instances.

  2. Do you need full control of the instances hosting your game servers?

    • Yes – Consider Amazon GameLift FleetIQ.

    • No – Continue to step 3.

  3. Do you have existing infrastructure you want to use with Amazon GameLift?

    • Yes – Consider Amazon GameLift Anywhere.

    • No – Continue to step four.

  4. Is your game lightweight without existing game server logic?

    • Yes – Consider Realtime servers.

    • No – Consider custom servers.

A flowchart with Yes/No questions that help you choose a Amazon GameLift game server hosting option.

Here's some more information about some of the Amazon GameLift hosting options mentioned in the flowchart:

Amazon GameLift Anywhere

Use Amazon GameLift Anywhere to host your games on your own hardware with the benefit of Amazon GameLift management tools. You can also use Anywhere fleets to test your game servers iteratively. For more information, see Create an Amazon GameLift Anywhere fleet.

Managed Amazon GameLift

There are two options for managed Amazon GameLift hosting:

Custom servers – Amazon GameLift hosts your custom server that runs your game server binary.

Realtime Servers – Amazon GameLift hosts your lightweight game server.

Amazon GameLift FleetIQ

In the flowchart, a lift and shift migration refers to a migration when you can't make changes to the game architecture. Using Amazon GameLift FleetIQ requires fewer changes to your existing deployment and provides Amazon GameLift tools for fleet management. For more information, see the Amazon GameLift FleetIQ Developer Guide.

If you decide to use Amazon GameLift Anywhere or managed Amazon GameLift, continue to Prepare your game for Amazon GameLift.