GameAP vs Pelican — game server panels comparison

Comparison

Pelican

GameAP

A high-performance control panel that runs natively on Linux and Windows. Written in Go. The plugin system lets you extend the panel without touching the core.

Pelican Panel

A modern fork of Pterodactyl built on Laravel and Filament. Ships a polished UI and a guided in-browser installer, but keeps the same Wings daemon — so game servers still run inside Docker containers on Linux only.

Feature comparison

How GameAP and Pelican stack up across the features that matter most.

Feature comparison
Feature	GameAP	Pelican
Base game servers management Install, start, stop, restart and configure game servers.	Yes	Yes
Details GameAP GameAP downloads and installs the game files for you, then the server is managed from the browser: start, stop, restart, update and reinstall. You also get a live console, RCON player management, startup settings and a task scheduler for timed restarts and updates. Pelican Pelican inherited server templates (eggs), start, stop and restart controls, the web console and schedules from Pterodactyl. Every server still runs inside a Docker container.
File manager In-browser file browsing and editing, archive extraction.	Yes	Yes
Details GameAP Server files open right in the panel: browse directories, edit configs in the built-in editor, extract archives and change permissions. Large files upload in chunks and resume after a dropped connection, while a folder or several files download as a single ZIP. Plugins can add their own editors, such as a hex editor. Pelican Pelican's file manager comes from Pterodactyl: in-browser editing, uploads, and creating or extracting archives. For large transfers it provides SFTP access.
REST API Documented HTTP API for automation and integrations.	Yes	Yes
Details GameAP The GameAP panel is fully controllable through its REST API: creating servers, starting and stopping them, the console, tasks and settings. The OpenAPI specification is published at openapi.gameap.io. Scripts and integrations use personal access tokens limited to the abilities you pick — for example, only starting and stopping servers. Pelican Pelican kept both Pterodactyl APIs: the Application API for administrators and the Client API for server owners. API keys are created in the panel.
Resource statistics & graphs Built-in CPU, RAM and network monitoring with historical charts.	Yes	Limited
Details GameAP GameAP collects CPU load, memory, network traffic and disk I/O for every game server and for the dedicated server as a whole. Charts update in real time, and when you open the page they already show the last few minutes of history — 10 by default, configurable up to an hour. Pelican Pelican shows CPU, memory and network charts in real time. They start drawing when you open the page — no earlier history is kept.
Plugin system Extend the panel with installable plugins and integrations.	Yes	Yes
Details GameAP GameAP plugins install from the official catalog in a few clicks, with no changes to the panel's code. They add new pages, tabs on the server page, file editors and integrations with external services. Plugins are built on WebAssembly: the server side runs in a sandbox with no direct access to files or the network. Ready-made ones include FTP, a hex editor and a Minecraft mod installer for Modrinth. Pelican Pelican gained its plugin system during the beta. Plugins are PHP packages that extend the panel's interface, permissions and routes; they are uploaded through the admin area or installed with a console command, and ready-made ones are listed on Pelican Hub. The Pelican documentation notes that the system is still in development and some features may be missing.
Docker required Whether the panel forces all game servers to run inside Docker.	Optional	Required
Details GameAP Docker is optional in GameAP: by default game servers run as regular operating system processes. If you want container isolation, a dedicated server can be switched to Docker or Podman. That mode also runs eggs imported from Pelican. Pelican Pelican takes the same approach as Pterodactyl: the Wings daemon runs every game server in a Docker container, with no other mode. VPS plans based on OpenVZ, Virtuozzo or LXC are usually not an option.
Native daemon (no containers) Runs game servers as native processes without container overhead.	Yes	No
Details GameAP GameAP Daemon starts game servers directly: through systemd on Linux and as services on Windows. With no container between the game and the system, nothing is spent on Docker and the server uses the network and disk like any other program. CPU and memory limits are still available through systemd. Pelican Pelican's Wings daemon only works with Docker. A game server cannot be started without a container.
Windows support Ability to install the panel and run game servers natively on Windows.	Yes	No
Details GameAP GameAP installs on Windows 10, 11 and Windows Server 2019, 2022 and 2025: download gameapctl, run it and click Install in the browser tab that opens. The panel, the daemon and the game servers run on Windows directly — no WSL or virtual machines involved. Pelican Pelican supports Linux only: its documentation states that Wings will not work on Windows. Game servers that are released only for Windows have to be run through Wine.
Performance Overall responsiveness and resource footprint of the control plane.	High performance	Low performance
Details GameAP In a load test on identical virtual machines (4 vCPU, 8 GB RAM) GameAP handled 1,126 requests per second with no errors. With 100 concurrent users the median response time was 0.59 ms and CPU load peaked at 2.4%. Pelican Pelican reached 76 requests per second in the same test — fewer than Pterodactyl, the project it was forked from. With 100 concurrent users its median response time was 54.5 ms and CPU load peaked at 97%. The system running the panel needed roughly 1.5 GB of memory versus 0.6 GB for GameAP.
Installation complexity How quickly you can get the panel up and running.	Easy, one command	Many manual steps
Details GameAP GameAP installs with a single command. The script asks for the panel address and a database — PostgreSQL, MySQL or the built-in SQLite — and handles the rest. No web server, PHP or other dependencies are required: the panel is a single program with the web interface built in. Pelican Pelican offers an in-browser setup wizard and SQLite support, but first you have to install PHP with its extensions, a web server and Composer by hand, download the panel files and set permissions. Docker and Wings are installed separately after that. The Pelican documentation warns that basic familiarity with Linux is required.
Automatic SSL certificate Built-in HTTPS setup with automatic Let's Encrypt certificates.	Yes	No
Details GameAP GameAP has a built-in Let's Encrypt client: a single gameapctl command obtains the certificate, and from then on the panel tracks its expiry and renews it on its own. No certbot, nginx or cron jobs needed. Both HTTP and DNS domain validation are supported. Pelican In Pelican the certificate is obtained separately — with certbot or acme.sh — then added to the web server configuration, with renewal handled by cron. The alternative is the Caddy web server, which obtains certificates on its own. If the panel uses HTTPS, Wings needs a certificate as well.
Test coverage Public test coverage metric and breadth of automated checks across the codebase.	85%+ coverage unit · integration · e2e · mutation	Not published
Details GameAP Tests cover more than 85% of the GameAP codebase. The figure is published openly on Coveralls and shown in the GitHub repository. Every change goes through unit, integration and end-to-end tests, and mutation testing checks that the tests themselves actually catch bugs. Pelican The Pelican repository does include automated tests, but the project does not publish a coverage figure, so there is no way to tell from the outside how much of the code is tested.
License Open-source license used by the project.	MIT	AGPL-3.0
Details GameAP GameAP is released under the MIT license: the code can be freely used, modified and embedded in commercial projects without publishing your own changes. Pelican Pelican is released under AGPL-3.0. It is an open-source license too, but with a condition: if you modify the panel and offer access to it over a network — to hosting customers, for instance — you have to publish the source code of your changes.
Project status Whether the project is production-ready or still in active beta.	Stable	Beta
Details GameAP GameAP has been in development since 2013. The current fourth version was released in December 2025 and is ready for production: updates ship regularly and install with a single command. Pelican Pelican is still in beta, with no stable 1.0 release yet. The project's documentation says that things may change or break between beta versions.

Why GameAP is a strong Pelican alternative

High performance

The Go-based daemon sips RAM and CPU, staying responsive even on modest hardware.

Linux and Windows natively

Run the panel and game servers without containers on either operating system.

Docker is optional

Deploy on bare-metal, a VPS, or containers — Docker stays an option, never a requirement.

Plugin ecosystem

Install plugins from the catalog with one click and extend the panel without touching the core.

Easy installation

One command and the panel is up and running in minutes — no multi-step setup guides.

Permissive MIT license

MIT license without AGPL copyleft restrictions — use and embed GameAP freely in your projects.

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GameAP

Pelican Panel

Feature comparison

Base game servers management

File manager

REST API

Resource statistics & graphs

Plugin system

Docker required

Native daemon (no containers)

Windows support

Performance

Installation complexity

Automatic SSL certificate

Test coverage

License

Project status