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DiceyTable vs Tabletop Simulator

Tabletop Simulator defined this category, and it is what DiceyTable gets measured against — both give you a real physics table, custom assets and scripting. The difference is where it runs and where your work ends up: a bought Steam install and the Steam Workshop, or a browser tab and a GitHub repo you own. It is also, today, the more capable product, and this page says where.

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We make DiceyTable, so treat this as our side of the story — we have tried to keep it checkable. Tabletop Simulator details were read off its Steam store page and its own scripting documentation on 20 September 2026 and may have changed since; anything we could not verify is described without a number rather than guessed at.

Side by side

DiceyTable compared with Tabletop Simulator. Rows where a figure could not be verified describe the difference in words instead.
Feature	DiceyTable	Tabletop Simulator
Where it runs	A browser tab, on Windows, Mac, Linux, Chromebooks, tablets and phones. No installer, launcher or plugin.	A downloaded app for Windows, macOS and SteamOS/Linux, sold and distributed through Steam.
Price	Free to play, and free to build and publish. Optional $1.99 or $4.99 a month adds private and friends-only tables, monthly chips and a faster earn rate. Nothing about creating is behind the paywall.	$19.99 on Steam as a one-time purchase, with a $59.99 four-pack. There is no free tier and no demo. Paid DLC games exist, and only the host needs to own a DLC for the table to play it.
What each player needs	A free account, for every player at the table — that is a real cost of joining, and we are working on guest seats. Nothing to download on any device.	A Steam account, the app installed, disk space, and a copy of the game.
Physics	A Bullet/Ammo rigid-body simulation compiled to WebAssembly, with mass, friction, bounce and damping set per object.	A full rigid-body physics sandbox — it is the product's core pitch.
Players per table	Eight seats plus spectators, each seat with a private hand.	Up to 10 players at any given time, per its store page.
Scripting	TypeScript, written in a Monaco editor inside the page. It type-checks and compiles as you save, and only the compiled output runs — sandboxed, with no network and no DOM access.	Lua, written in its in-game code editor or an external editor plugin, stored in the save file.
Where your game lives	A public GitHub repo you own, with the models, art, manifest and scripts in it. Anyone can read it, fork it, or keep playing it if we disappear.	The Steam Workshop, tied to your Steam account and reachable from inside the app.
Catalogue	Small and new. Most games today are played with friends from a shared link rather than found in a public catalogue.	A very large community Steam Workshop library built up over years, plus paid DLC.
VR	WebXR. Open the same table link in a standalone headset's browser — no PC, no store, no separate app. Controllers and hand tracking both work.	VR through SteamVR, so it expects a VR-capable PC; no standalone-headset build is offered. VR and non-VR players can share a table.
Importing your own models	GLB and glTF plus FBX, OBJ, COLLADA, STL, PLY, 3DS, 3MF, OFF, LWO and DirectX .x, converted to GLB in the browser on the way in, with an inspection report and in-place optimisation.	Importing images, custom decks and 3D models is a headline feature.
Hidden information	Hidden cards are stripped out of the data before it leaves the host, so another player's browser never receives them — it is not just hidden in the renderer.	Nothing we can verify from first-party documentation, so we make no claim.
Playing offline	Installable as an app, and a game you have already played can be opened solo offline.	An installed desktop application, so it runs without a connection.

Where Tabletop Simulator wins

Tabletop Simulator is the mature product here and it is not close. If any of the following matters to you, it is the better buy today.

An enormous Steam Workshop library. Whatever you want to play, somebody has probably already built it — DiceyTable's catalogue is a handful of games by a couple of authors.
Years of polish. It has been shipping since long before DiceyTable existed and it shows in the edge cases: camera controls, table states, save formats, and the sheer number of things that already work.
A large install base, so your friends may already own it and there are people to play with who are not already your friends.
Ten players at one table to our eight.
A native desktop app can use the whole machine. On a very heavy table, a browser tab is working with less.
Lua scripting with a decade of community examples, tutorials and copy-pasteable snippets behind it. Our scripting API is newer and still moving.
Official DLC versions of licensed board games, and only the host has to own them. We have nothing equivalent.

Which one fits your group

Pick DiceyTable if…

Someone in your group will not install Steam or buy a $20 app for one game night.
You play on a Chromebook, a work laptop, a tablet or anything you cannot install software on.
You want the game you build to be an open, forkable GitHub repo rather than a Workshop entry.
You want VR without owning a gaming PC — a standalone headset's browser is enough.
You are a designer sending a prototype to playtesters, and a link is the whole ask.

Pick Tabletop Simulator if…

You want a big library of ready-made games tonight.
Your group already owns it.
You want a decade of community scripts, guides and Workshop content to build on.
You want official versions of licensed board games.
You run very large, heavy tables and want a native app's headroom.

Try the browser one first — it costs nothing

There is no download and no purchase, so comparing them is ten minutes rather than a decision. Open a game, roll some dice, and see whether the browser is enough for your group.

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