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Philosophy: Lessons from Unreal Engine

Reaktor's vision is not just to be a framework, but an engine. This means adopting the same discipline and design principles that made Unreal Engine dominant in its field.

1. Eat Your Own Dogfood Aggressively​

Unreal's relationship with Fortnite is the single most important factor in its dominance. Every feature is battle-tested in a live product serving millions of users before being documented as stable. Reaktor follows this same discipline:

  • Battle-Tested: Every new Reaktor feature must ship in a flagship product like Bestbuds or Manna before being declared stable.
  • No Frozen Forks: Every consulting project must use the latest Reaktor version, ensuring real-world feedback on the latest changes.
  • Production First: Bug reports from production applications always take priority over new feature requests.

2. The 30-Second Rule​

A developer evaluating a framework will decide in 30 seconds. Reaktor aims to provide:

  • Instant Pitch: A landing page with a clear 30-second pitch and animated graph visualization.
  • A Playground: A browser-based playground where developers can modify a Reaktor graph and see results instantly.
  • 5-Minute Tutorial: A getting-started guide that produces a working cross-platform app in under five minutes.

3. Make the Graph Visible​

Unreal's Blueprints visual scripting system made the engine accessible to non-programmers. Reaktor's equivalent is the Blueprint editor, which must be:

  • Interactive: Click any node to see its live state, ports, and active edges.
  • Live: Connected to a running application, updating in real-time as the graph evolves.
  • Debuggable: Set breakpoints on edges and inspect the data flowing through ports.
  • Editable: Eventually, Reaktor will support full drag-and-drop graph construction.

4. Free Core, Paid Everything Else​

Unreal is free to download, with a royalty model for successful products. Reaktor's model is similarly designed to lower barriers to entry while ensuring sustainability:

  • Free: The engine layer, platform services, CLI, documentation, and community support.
  • Paid: Managed hosting (Reaktor Cloud), enterprise support SLAs, custom module development, and certification programs.
  • Revenue Share: A micro-royalty model for applications exceeding a high revenue threshold.