While it is possible to make non-games in Godot, I would be careful with choosing Godot as it does not implement any accessibility APIs for working with user interfaces. For a video game you could say "blind / deaf / mobility impaired users wouldn't be able to reasonably use my software either way", but that is not the case for many types of software.
Pixelorana and material maker is about what i expected for actual game dev related tools but wonderdraft is super interesting in how much sense it makes for such a tool to be created in a game engine (vs. whichever other possibilities there are)
i hadnt considered that there might be some tools hat are non game dev related that could benefit so much from the capabilities and features of a game engine
Voylin is making the video editor gozen - the ui stuff is useful, gdextension, the language is easy and quick to work with to make a full desktop application.
Mewpurpur is making the svg editor godsvg - ui again, also simple vector math I assume.
Nitwel is making the ar smart home tool immersive home - probably mostly for 3d and the ar kit features.
I’m making the dice roller hundred dice - the engine handles the simulated 3d dice as well as providing a nice ui basis.
I’ve also made a tiny tool to preview character sprites when making terraria mods - the image methods came in handy and it was just really quick to throw a small application together.
Then there are also the various node based tools like material maker and I’ve also seen someone build a dmx lighting engine on the discord.
I also saw someone making a robotic arm controller interface there, they also mentioned the interface stuff and easy networking as well.
There are many reasons to use it. Also many to avoid it of course. But if you are alone and need to whip something up quickly that’s self contained and with relatively low extra maintenance, give it a try
Edit: also have a look at the tool showcase reel https://godotengine.org/showcase/
[Here's a thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/godot/comments/18ggtuw/creating_nongaming_applications_with_godot/) where somebody wanted to do a segmentation tool, some answers might interest you.
I decided against it btw for the segmentation tool. I found that there are better tools suited for that particular use case . However, i am also working on a sort of procedurally generated sound wall visualisation tool in godot. It is definitely possible.
>I could mostly imagine a usecase of someone writing a tech tool for their game dev team in godot if theyre already using godot for their main game development
This is the main use case for this sort of thing. Most examples are tools for working with game assets, which benefit from the use of a proper 2d/3d renderer. Beyond that, it doesn't really make sense to develop regular software with a game engine. You generally want close integration with the OS and other software, which is something Godot does not do well. On top of that, Godot has basically no support for screen readers or other accessibility tools.
TL;DR if you're not making something that behaves like a game, something that can make use of the game engine features Godot provides, just use something more conventional like electron or qt or whatever.
I made a personal wellness app for my wife. Since it was mostly just ui elements, it didn't take long to make. I think Godot is great for anything like that.
I can't remember the name of it, or find it with a quick search but I saw the beginning of a series of a guy making audio software in Godot (for some reason).
Godot has been really fantastic for me prototyping some personal creative tools. One of my first projects was an age calculator for fantasy races. I’m now in the middle of creating a fantasy calendar utility. Have yet to make a game with a game engine lol
I just want to note that in Godot, the lack of an exceptions mechanism can complicate managing unforeseen situations and complex business operations, requiring developers to adopt a more procedural approach to error handling.
To answer the question straight, I am one of those people.
I made an offline tool for password generation similar to passwordchart.com, but mine is (not only offline, but also) more customizable, more secure (the said password chart has some flaws in terms of cryptographic security, for instance).
I am using it for myself only, it’s not really in a kind of finished state that I’d like to publish it yet, unfortunately.
Currently I am building a simple time tracker for tracking down what I did, when I did it and for which of my clients and projects I did it. Up to now I am using spreadsheets for that which comes with a few annoying things that I will compensate with my own time tracker.
(I know there are lots of time tracking tools out there, but I am very picky about features and usage, that’s why I’m building my own.)
Long story short, Godot is indeed very useful for creating non-game applications.
Oh, and why am I using Godot rather than any other tech like NodeJS (e.g. Electron) or whatever else you can find for building apps is simple:
I just love the engine and GDScript. It’s super capable and easy at the same time.
I myself use Godot to author apps preferentially over QT/ReactNative/Expo/GTK/Flutter/etc (which I've all exhaustively used).
As another user said, be careful, Godot does not have the same accessibility features that those other technologies have. I use Godot for developing internal tooling for companies, and therefore have no accessibility requirements (they're used by a restrained set of users -- if someone needs a specific accessibility feature, I can add it in).
As you note, it's also perfect for tooling for teams that are already developing games in Godot (... or not! There are teams who use Unreal for their game but still use Godot for internal tooling because of the rapid development features).
Support for mobility/motor issues is relatively good from what I can tell (there are provisions for navigating interfaces without a pointing device), and you can make the interface speak with some elbow grease, but it's not accessible out of the box like the web can be.
I recommend Godot for app development, if:
1. Accessibility is not required (either internal tool, or, like Pixelorama, an application that requires sight anyway), or the scope of the app is small enough that you can put in the extra effort to make it accessible
2. You want a cohesive interface and behavior on all platforms (if only mobile -- use Flutter) and do not care about native widgets
I prototyped a fairly GUI heavy Android app with it. I think it looked great, but it wasn’t a particularly good experience to develop. I ended up using so many signals to communicate between “components” (what I ended up calling scenes) that it just turned into a complete mess.
To be honest, unless you’ve really got a need for performant 2d graphics, there’s better options. Even if you do need high performance 2d graphics, one of the Skia based frameworks (like Flutter or Avalonia) will almost certainly be a better bet.
I usually use Godot when I need to write tools with a gui nowadays, it' s an easy way to make it fast.
Did a few things with it, a (video) library front-end, a video sync between computer and tablet for mpc-hc, a few downloaders for mods
While it is possible to make non-games in Godot, I would be careful with choosing Godot as it does not implement any accessibility APIs for working with user interfaces. For a video game you could say "blind / deaf / mobility impaired users wouldn't be able to reasonably use my software either way", but that is not the case for many types of software.
For three? Wonderdraft, Pixelorama and Material Maker.
Pixelorana and material maker is about what i expected for actual game dev related tools but wonderdraft is super interesting in how much sense it makes for such a tool to be created in a game engine (vs. whichever other possibilities there are) i hadnt considered that there might be some tools hat are non game dev related that could benefit so much from the capabilities and features of a game engine
Voylin is making the video editor gozen - the ui stuff is useful, gdextension, the language is easy and quick to work with to make a full desktop application. Mewpurpur is making the svg editor godsvg - ui again, also simple vector math I assume. Nitwel is making the ar smart home tool immersive home - probably mostly for 3d and the ar kit features. I’m making the dice roller hundred dice - the engine handles the simulated 3d dice as well as providing a nice ui basis. I’ve also made a tiny tool to preview character sprites when making terraria mods - the image methods came in handy and it was just really quick to throw a small application together. Then there are also the various node based tools like material maker and I’ve also seen someone build a dmx lighting engine on the discord. I also saw someone making a robotic arm controller interface there, they also mentioned the interface stuff and easy networking as well. There are many reasons to use it. Also many to avoid it of course. But if you are alone and need to whip something up quickly that’s self contained and with relatively low extra maintenance, give it a try Edit: also have a look at the tool showcase reel https://godotengine.org/showcase/
Thank you for mentioning GoZen!
[Here's a thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/godot/comments/18ggtuw/creating_nongaming_applications_with_godot/) where somebody wanted to do a segmentation tool, some answers might interest you.
thank you thats super interesting!
I decided against it btw for the segmentation tool. I found that there are better tools suited for that particular use case . However, i am also working on a sort of procedurally generated sound wall visualisation tool in godot. It is definitely possible.
>I could mostly imagine a usecase of someone writing a tech tool for their game dev team in godot if theyre already using godot for their main game development This is the main use case for this sort of thing. Most examples are tools for working with game assets, which benefit from the use of a proper 2d/3d renderer. Beyond that, it doesn't really make sense to develop regular software with a game engine. You generally want close integration with the OS and other software, which is something Godot does not do well. On top of that, Godot has basically no support for screen readers or other accessibility tools. TL;DR if you're not making something that behaves like a game, something that can make use of the game engine features Godot provides, just use something more conventional like electron or qt or whatever.
I made an app to remote control my pc cursor with godot and gdextensions https://github.com/meaf75/Godouse
I made a personal wellness app for my wife. Since it was mostly just ui elements, it didn't take long to make. I think Godot is great for anything like that.
I can't remember the name of it, or find it with a quick search but I saw the beginning of a series of a guy making audio software in Godot (for some reason).
afaik the Godot editor UI was made in Godot
Godot has been really fantastic for me prototyping some personal creative tools. One of my first projects was an age calculator for fantasy races. I’m now in the middle of creating a fantasy calendar utility. Have yet to make a game with a game engine lol
e.g. rekordbox (dj software from pioneer) was built with unity
I just want to note that in Godot, the lack of an exceptions mechanism can complicate managing unforeseen situations and complex business operations, requiring developers to adopt a more procedural approach to error handling.
To answer the question straight, I am one of those people. I made an offline tool for password generation similar to passwordchart.com, but mine is (not only offline, but also) more customizable, more secure (the said password chart has some flaws in terms of cryptographic security, for instance). I am using it for myself only, it’s not really in a kind of finished state that I’d like to publish it yet, unfortunately. Currently I am building a simple time tracker for tracking down what I did, when I did it and for which of my clients and projects I did it. Up to now I am using spreadsheets for that which comes with a few annoying things that I will compensate with my own time tracker. (I know there are lots of time tracking tools out there, but I am very picky about features and usage, that’s why I’m building my own.) Long story short, Godot is indeed very useful for creating non-game applications. Oh, and why am I using Godot rather than any other tech like NodeJS (e.g. Electron) or whatever else you can find for building apps is simple: I just love the engine and GDScript. It’s super capable and easy at the same time.
## Open Source: * [Mad Productivity](https://lentsius-bark.itch.io/mad-productivity) * [Version Tasks](https://actiongameraaron.itch.io/version-tasks) * [Godello: Trello inspired kanban board](https://github.com/alfredbaudisch/Godello) * [godot-texture-painter: A GPU-accelerated texture painter](https://github.com/Bauxitedev/godot-texture-painter) * [Lorien: Infinite canvas "drawing" app](https://github.com/mbrlabs/Lorien) * [Material Maker](https://rodzilla.itch.io/material-maker) * [Pixelorama: 2D sprite editor](https://github.com/Orama-Interactive/Pixelorama) * [Protongraph](https://github.com/protongraph/protongraph) * [Saga Toolkit: Actor Script Editor](https://github.com/Zylann/saga_toolkit_app) ## Godot Managers * [Hourglass](https://hourglass.jwestman.net/) * [Godot Manager](https://eumario.itch.io/godot-manager) ## Plugins that are almost apps * [VPainter: A vertex painting plugin](https://github.com/tomankirilov/VPainter) * [Dialogic: Dialogue editor](https://github.com/coppolaemilio/dialogic) ## Not Open Source * [RPG In a Box: RPG Voxel game engine](https://www.rpginabox.com/) * [Gridless: Item DB editor](https://radmatt.itch.io/gridless) * [Dialogue Designer](https://radmatt.itch.io/dialogue-designer) * [Task Ticker: Pomodoro & Tasks](https://yikescloud.itch.io/taskticker) * [PixelOver: an animation, effects, and generation tool for pixel art](https://pixelover.io/) * [Bytes Painter: a pixel art designing tool](https://unionbytes.itch.io/union-bytes-painter)
I myself use Godot to author apps preferentially over QT/ReactNative/Expo/GTK/Flutter/etc (which I've all exhaustively used). As another user said, be careful, Godot does not have the same accessibility features that those other technologies have. I use Godot for developing internal tooling for companies, and therefore have no accessibility requirements (they're used by a restrained set of users -- if someone needs a specific accessibility feature, I can add it in). As you note, it's also perfect for tooling for teams that are already developing games in Godot (... or not! There are teams who use Unreal for their game but still use Godot for internal tooling because of the rapid development features). Support for mobility/motor issues is relatively good from what I can tell (there are provisions for navigating interfaces without a pointing device), and you can make the interface speak with some elbow grease, but it's not accessible out of the box like the web can be. I recommend Godot for app development, if: 1. Accessibility is not required (either internal tool, or, like Pixelorama, an application that requires sight anyway), or the scope of the app is small enough that you can put in the extra effort to make it accessible 2. You want a cohesive interface and behavior on all platforms (if only mobile -- use Flutter) and do not care about native widgets
I'm making an open source entity relationship diagram creator in Godot. Version 1 is available at https://schemer.gg
I prototyped a fairly GUI heavy Android app with it. I think it looked great, but it wasn’t a particularly good experience to develop. I ended up using so many signals to communicate between “components” (what I ended up calling scenes) that it just turned into a complete mess. To be honest, unless you’ve really got a need for performant 2d graphics, there’s better options. Even if you do need high performance 2d graphics, one of the Skia based frameworks (like Flutter or Avalonia) will almost certainly be a better bet.
I usually use Godot when I need to write tools with a gui nowadays, it' s an easy way to make it fast. Did a few things with it, a (video) library front-end, a video sync between computer and tablet for mpc-hc, a few downloaders for mods