What is Luanti used for?

Luanti is an open-source voxel game engine, formerly Minetest, with a Lua modding API for building custom games and worlds. It is a good fit for creating custom block-based games, and playing and sharing community mods.

Is Luanti open source?

Yes. Luanti is open source under a custom licence. Its source code is on GitHub at luanti-org/luanti and is written mainly in C++.

Yes. Luanti is open source, so the software itself is free to use under the terms of its own licence.

Can I self-host Luanti?

Yes. Luanti can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure.

What is Luanti an alternative to?

Luanti is an open-source alternative to Roblox.

Is Luanti actively maintained?

Yes. The most recent commit to Luanti was on 29 September 2026, and the latest release is 5.17.0, published on 20 August 2026. The project has 14k stars on GitHub.

Luanti: open-source alternative to Roblox

About Luanti

Luanti, previously known as Minetest, is a free and open-source voxel game-creation platform. It provides an engine for block-based worlds together with a modding system, so that games, mods and content can be built and shared without modifying the engine itself.

The engine is written in C++17 and uses Lua for modding, as shown by the project's topics. All controls can be rebound through settings, and the README documents default keys, file paths, the configuration file, command-line options and compilation steps. A Docker setup is described for people who want to run it in a container, and the project follows a documented version scheme.

Documentation is split between the official website, a dedicated docs site, a community forum and developer documentation inside the source tree. The project is maintained by its contributors, with copyright held by the original author and others, and the code is hosted in the luanti-org organization on GitHub.

Key features

Voxel game engine written in C++
Lua-based modding for games and content
Fully rebindable controls
Configuration file and command-line options
Docker support described in the README

Good fit for

→Creating custom block-based games
→Playing and sharing community mods

Built with: C++
Tags: game-engine; voxel; minetest; lua; modding; c-plus-plus; gaming

Luanti: questions and answers

What is Luanti used for?: Luanti is an open-source voxel game engine, formerly Minetest, with a Lua modding API for building custom games and worlds. It is a good fit for creating custom block-based games, and playing and sharing community mods.
Is Luanti open source?: Yes. Luanti is open source under a custom licence. Its source code is on GitHub at luanti-org/luanti and is written mainly in C++.
Is Luanti free?: Yes. Luanti is open source, so the software itself is free to use under the terms of its own licence.
Can I self-host Luanti?: Yes. Luanti can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure.
What is Luanti an alternative to?: Luanti is an open-source alternative to Roblox.
Is Luanti actively maintained?: Yes. The most recent commit to Luanti was on 29 September 2026, and the latest release is 5.17.0, published on 20 August 2026. The project has 14k stars on GitHub.