WebGPU or Raylib for performance?

[anywany]

I'm currently building my own 2D game engine and deciding which rendering backend to choose. My main goals are:

• Maximum performance (FPS, memory efficiency)

• Support for large open worlds and heavy simulations

• Cross-platform (desktop and mobile; iOS and web is not critical)

• I do not want to dive deep into low-level graphics APIs unless necessary

I'm considering 4 options:

• WebGPU — (web)

• Raylib (C or C++) — native opengl based, it has a simple API

• WebGL (2.0) — (for web)

• Canvas 2D API — (for web and weakest for performance)

Even though it's for 2D only, there will be a huge number of draw calls, large tilemaps, dynamic objects, maybe even ECS later.
Which one would give me the best performance for 2D rendering in such a case? I'm currently torn between using JavaScript with WebGPU, Raylib with C/C++, or wgpu with rust.

thanks in advance!

[jestarray]

do you have any reference games to what you're making?

[anywany]

yes, noita is exactly what i'm aiming for — especially the physics and particle systems. but i'm making a large open-world/space sandbox with semi-military elements

[OnlineProxy-io]

Hey there! If raw performance is what you’re chasing Rust + wgpu (WebGPU) is likely your best bet. It’s low-level but modern, with access to compute shaders, indirect draws, and all the GPU bells and whistles. Perfect for tilemaps and tons of dynamic objects if you’re willing to wrestle with it a bit. Raylib (C/C++) is much friendlier to get going with, and still native. But it leans on OpenGL, which tends to choke under thousands of draw calls unless you get crafty with batching. WebGL and Canvas 2D are not really built for this kind of workload. They’ll work, but perf will suffer, especially once you scale.

Out of curiosity: how deep are you willing to go into the lower-level weeds (Rust, shaders, etc)? That might help narrow the path.

And good luck. Sounds like a sick project.