Transport simulation
Simutrans vs OpenTTD vs Transport Fever
Simutrans, OpenTTD and Transport Fever let you build networks across several modes of transport. Compare how passengers and goods use those connections, and whether you prefer tile-based building or a free-form 3D landscape.
Compare the three games
| Game at a glance | Simutrans ↗ | OpenTTD ↗ | Transport Fever 2 ↗ |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vehicles | Trains, trams, monorails and maglevs, buses and trucks, ships and aircraft, all carrying passengers, mail and goods across one map. | Trains, road vehicles, ships and aircraft, hauling passengers and cargo between towns and industries. | Trains, trams, buses, trucks, ships and aircraft — over 200 vehicles in Transport Fever 2, plus a large Steam Workshop of mods. |
| Building | An isometric tile grid. Track, roads and waterways follow the squares, and the pak set you install — 64, 128 or 192 pixels to the tile — decides what the whole world looks like and how hard it is. | A tile grid. Track runs along square tiles in 45° steps and terraforming raises and lowers tile corners — the look is unmistakable, and entirely deliberate. | Free-form: curves you place yourself, full terrain modification, and modular stations, harbours and airports assembled from pieces. |
| Towns and cities | Simulated. Towns grow when they are served, and every passenger and crate routes itself to a destination of its own, changing vehicles on the way. | Simulated. Towns grow when the service they get is good, stall when it is not, and you can fund roads and buildings to push them along. | Simulated. Towns grow and re-zone into residential, commercial and industrial districts as your network makes them reachable. |
| Economy | Yes, in full. Fares and freight revenue against purchase prices and maintenance costs, a company balance to keep in the black, and industries that only produce once you connect them. | The whole game. Cargo pays by how much, how fast and how perishable; there are loans, a running balance, company value, AI competitors and multiplayer for up to fifteen companies. | Yes — more than ten production chains with factories and goods, running costs per vehicle and line, a campaign across three continents and a free-play mode. |
| Price and platforms | Free and open source under the Artistic License 1.0 — the current stable release is 124.5 — for Windows, macOS and Linux, from simutrans.com and free on Steam. No browser build. | A free download for Windows, macOS and Linux from openttd.org. Since March 2026 its Steam and GOG listings are bundled with a paid copy of Transport Tycoon Deluxe for new players, though the download from the project stays free. No official mobile or browser build. | A paid download on Steam, GOG and Epic for Windows, macOS and Linux, plus a Console Edition for PlayStation and Xbox released in March 2023. Transport Fever 3 follows on 29 September 2026 on PC, Mac, Linux, PS5 and Xbox Series X|S. No mobile or browser version. |
This guide is published by the creators of Rail Island. We are not affiliated with the other games featured here. Details are based on official websites and store pages; features, prices and availability may change. Spotted a mistake? Let us know at info@railisland.com.
Which game should you choose?
Choose Simutrans for destination-based journeys, transfers and a choice of paksets. Choose OpenTTD for classic transport management with extensive add-ons. Choose Transport Fever for detailed 3D construction and passenger and freight networks built around growing towns.
Twenty-five years of a free game
Simutrans dates from the late 1990s and has been developed by a community ever since, under the Artistic License 1.0. It is genuinely free — no purchase, no subscription, no advertising — both from the project's own site and on Steam, where it is listed as free to play. Releases still arrive regularly: 124.4 in April 2026, and the current stable 124.5 shortly after it.
It is also extremely light. A game that has been maintained for a quarter of a century on 2D sprites runs comfortably on machines that would not start a modern simulation, which is a real argument for it if your computer is old or borrowed.
Every passenger routes itself
This is the thing Simutrans does that almost nothing else does. Passengers and goods are not flows assigned to a line — each one has an origin, a destination and an opinion about how to get there, and will change vehicles as many times as the journey needs. Build an interchange and people use it. Build a line that does not connect to anything useful and they will not.
The consequence is that a Simutrans network behaves like a network rather than a collection of routes. A new feeder bus can fill a distant train, because the people it collects will go and find that train. Getting that emergent behaviour working is the game.
Pak sets: the game is modular
Simutrans ships as an engine, and the artwork, the vehicle catalogue, the industries and much of the difficulty come from a separate download called a pak set. The number in its name is the tile size in pixels: pak64 is the compact original, pak128 is more detailed and covers climates from desert to tundra, pak192.Comic is the largest and most stylised. National sets such as pak64.German, pak128.German and pak128.Britain model one country's railways specifically.
Changing the pak set changes the game, not the skin — prices, chains and balance all come with it. On Steam the maintained sets are offered as free DLC and through the Workshop; from the project site they are a separate download on the paksets page. Whichever way you get Simutrans, you need at least one.
Building on the grid
Track, roads and canals follow an isometric tile grid, with the terrain raised and lowered by tile. Stations are assembled from pieces and extended tile by tile, which is what lets a mature Simutrans station sprawl into something that genuinely looks like a junction station.
Map size is free-form and does not have to be square, and the practical limits are your patience and your machine rather than the game. Very large maps with hundreds of towns are a normal way to play it.
The company accounts
Simutrans keeps a real set of books. Vehicles have purchase prices and monthly maintenance, infrastructure costs to build and to keep, and revenue comes from the fares and freight charges your services actually earn. Industries only produce once they are connected, and towns grow when the service they get is good — so the network and the world push each other along.
Multiplayer and servers
There is online multiplayer, played on servers anybody can run, which is how the long-lived community games work. It is the same game with several companies in it rather than a separate mode.
Where to get it
Free for Windows, macOS and Linux from simutrans.com, and free on Steam — where Workshop integration for pak sets and add-ons is available on Windows and Linux. The project's download page also keeps legacy Haiku and BeOS builds around, which tells you something about the project. There is no browser version, and the project publishes no Android build of its own.
Who it is for
Simutrans is for people who want the simulation to be honest and do not mind what it looks like. The self-routing passengers give it a depth that far prettier games do not have, the price is nothing, it will run on your old laptop, and the pak sets mean you can have several quite different games out of one download. What it asks in return is tolerance for a dense, old-fashioned interface.
Frequently asked questions
- Is Simutrans really free?
- Yes. Simutrans is free and open source under the Artistic License 1.0. The download from simutrans.com costs nothing, and the Steam listing is free to play with the pak sets offered as free DLC.
- What is a pak set in Simutrans?
- A pak set is the artwork, vehicles, buildings and industry balance that the Simutrans engine loads — the number in its name is the tile size in pixels. pak64, pak128 and pak192.Comic are the general sets, with national ones like pak128.Britain and pak64.German beside them. You need at least one to play, and swapping it changes the game rather than just the look.
- How is Simutrans different from OpenTTD?
- The biggest difference is routing: in Simutrans every passenger and unit of goods picks its own route to a specific destination and changes vehicles on the way, so the network behaves as a network. Simutrans is also modular — the pak set decides the artwork, catalogue and difficulty — and its maps do not have to be square.
- Does Simutrans have multiplayer?
- Yes. Simutrans can be played online on servers that anybody can set up, with several companies sharing one map.
