Rivet
Open-source Durable Objects alternative for multiplayer games and AI agents
Website: https://rivet.dev
PUBLIC
| Name | Rivet |
| Tagline | Open-source Durable Objects alternative for multiplayer games and AI agents |
| Headquarters | San Francisco, CA, USA |
| Founded | 2022 |
| Stage | Seed |
| Business Model | Open Source / Commercial |
| Industry | Media / Entertainment |
| Technology | Software (Non-AI) |
| Geography | North America |
| Growth Profile | Venture Scale |
| Founding Team | Co-Founders (2) |
| Funding Label | Undisclosed (total disclosed ~$500,000) |
Links
PUBLIC
- Website: https://rivet.dev
- GitHub: https://github.com/rivet-dev
- Y Combinator: https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/rivet
Executive Summary
PUBLIC
Rivet is positioning itself at the convergence of two developer-heavy trends, multiplayer game infrastructure and stateful AI agents, by offering an open-source, self-hostable alternative to proprietary platforms like Cloudflare's Durable Objects [Y Combinator, 2024]. The company's managed platform for multiplayer games, described as a "Heroku for multiplayer games," aims to simplify a historically complex backend challenge with promises of auto-scaling, matchmaking, and DDoS mitigation through minimal code integration [Y Combinator, 2024].
Founded in 2022 by Nathaniel Flurry and Nicholas Kissel, the company was part of the Y Combinator Winter 2024 batch and is based in San Francisco. The founders' public profiles suggest a technical orientation, with Flurry having discussed the vision for stateful serverless on a developer podcast [devtools.fm, 2026]. The business model is dual-track, combining a commercial, managed cloud service with a fully open-source core, a common wedge for developer tools seeking adoption before monetization.
Funding details remain limited, with only a $500,000 seed round from Y Combinator formally disclosed, though a separate, undisclosed seed round is also noted [Y Combinator, 2024]. The company reports serving a range of customers from indie studios to publicly traded companies, though specific names and revenue metrics are not public [Y Combinator, 2024]. Over the next 12-18 months, the key watchpoints will be the public launch from its current closed beta, the emergence of named enterprise customers, and whether its open-source project garners significant community adoption to validate its technical differentiation against established infrastructure providers.
Data Accuracy: YELLOW -- Core product claims and YC affiliation are confirmed; funding amount is partially corroborated; team size and customer traction are based on single, unverified sources.
Taxonomy Snapshot
| Axis | Classification |
|---|---|
| Stage | Seed |
| Business Model | Open Source / Commercial |
| Industry / Vertical | Media / Entertainment |
| Technology Type | Software (Non-AI) |
| Geography | North America |
| Growth Profile | Venture Scale |
| Founding Team | Co-Founders (2) |
| Funding | Undisclosed (total disclosed ~$500,000) |
Company Overview
PUBLIC
Rivet is a Y Combinator-backed infrastructure startup founded in 2022 by Nathaniel Flurry and Nicholas Kissel, operating from San Francisco [Y Combinator, 2024]. The company's public narrative positions it as a developer-focused alternative to established cloud platforms, initially targeting multiplayer game backends before expanding into a broader open-source runtime for stateful services and AI agents. The founding team's background is not detailed in primary sources, but public profiles show Flurry as a co-founder and Kissel as a co-founder and CEO, with both active on LinkedIn [LinkedIn, 2026].
The company's key public milestone is its participation in the Y Combinator Winter 2024 batch, which included an undisclosed seed investment from the accelerator [Y Combinator, 2024]. Following the program, Rivet launched its managed game server platform into a closed beta, targeting developers from indie studios to publicly traded companies [Y Combinator, 2024]. A subsequent technical blog post in June 2025 provided a detailed comparison of its container platform against Cloudflare and Fly.io, signaling a move to compete directly in the serverless infrastructure space [Rivet, 2025]. The company also maintains an open-source presence, with projects like sandbox-agent for running coding AI agents published on GitHub in 2024 [GitHub, 2024].
Headcount is reported at five employees as of the Y Combinator company profile, though this figure is not independently verified [Y Combinator, 2024]. The company operates primarily through its website, rivet.dev, and maintains a separate domain, rivet.gg, for its gaming platform. Public information does not disclose a formal legal entity name or detailed incorporation history.
Data Accuracy: YELLOW -- Key founding and accelerator details confirmed by Y Combinator; headcount and specific milestones rely on single-source company statements.
Product and Technology
MIXED
Rivet’s public positioning presents two distinct product surfaces, both anchored on simplifying stateful infrastructure for developers. The first is a managed platform for multiplayer game servers, described as a “Heroku for multiplayer games” [Y Combinator, 2024]. The company claims this service provides auto-scaling game servers, matchmaking, and DDoS mitigation, integrated with a few lines of code and supporting all major game engines [Y Combinator, 2024]. The second is an open-source, self-hostable alternative to Cloudflare’s Durable Objects, targeted at developers building AI agents and stateful services [Y Combinator, 2024]. This core open-source project appears to be the foundation upon which the managed game platform is built.
Technical documentation and blog posts provide a clearer view of the underlying architecture. A June 2025 blog post compares Rivet’s container platform against Cloudflare Containers and Fly Machines, indicating a focus on serverless containers with persistent storage and global distribution [Rivet, 2025]. The company also maintains an open-source project called sandbox-agent on GitHub, which allows developers to run coding AI agents in isolated sandboxes controllable via HTTP [GitHub, 2024]. This suggests the AI agent use case is more than a marketing claim and is supported by tangible, if early, tooling. The technology stack is not explicitly detailed, but the focus on containers, HTTP APIs, and multi-region deployment points toward a cloud-native architecture built on platforms like Kubernetes (inferred from product comparisons).
Product availability remains in a closed beta for the game server platform, with access offered via a Y Combinator-associated email address [Y Combinator, 2024]. The open-source components, however, are publicly accessible. The company offers a 50% discount on its commercial cloud service to Y Combinator and a16z Speedrun companies, a common early-stage customer acquisition tactic [Rivet, 2024]. There is no public roadmap or announcement of a general availability date.
Data Accuracy: YELLOW -- Product claims are sourced from the company's Y Combinator page and GitHub repository, but specific technical specifications and performance benchmarks are not publicly available.
Market Research
PUBLIC
Rivet operates at the convergence of two distinct but adjacent developer infrastructure markets: managed backend services for multiplayer games, and stateful serverless platforms for AI agents. The immediate opportunity is defined by the growth of both sectors, though public sizing data for the specific niches Rivet targets is scarce.
The multiplayer game server hosting market is a subset of the broader game development tools and services sector. A 2023 report from Newzoo estimated the global games market at $184.4 billion in 2024, with the PC and console segments, where dedicated server hosting is most relevant, accounting for a significant portion [Newzoo, 2023]. While a direct TAM for managed game server platforms is not publicly available, the analogous market for cloud gaming infrastructure was projected to reach $6.4 billion by 2027 in a separate analysis [MarketsandMarkets, 2022]. The primary demand driver is the continued expansion of live-service and multiplayer-first game genres, which require persistent, scalable backend infrastructure. This is compounded by the growth of independent game studios, which often lack the capital and expertise to build and maintain proprietary server fleets.
For its open-source Durable Objects alternative, Rivet is addressing a segment of the broader serverless and edge computing market. Gartner estimated the worldwide public cloud services market, which includes these foundational services, at $591.8 billion in 2023, with Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) being the fastest-growing segment [Gartner, 2023]. The specific tailwind here is the rapid adoption of AI agents and stateful, long-running workloads that challenge the traditional stateless, ephemeral function model of first-generation serverless platforms. Demand is emerging from developers building AI applications that require persistent memory, coordination, and WebSocket connections over extended periods.
Key adjacent markets include general-purpose cloud compute (AWS EC2, Google Compute Engine) and container orchestration platforms (Kubernetes), which serve as substitutes for developers willing to manage greater complexity. Regulatory forces are currently minimal, though data sovereignty and privacy regulations (like GDPR) can influence where game or AI agent data is processed and stored, potentially favoring platforms with global edge networks.
Given the absence of confirmed, Rivet-specific market sizing, the following table presents analogous market data points that frame the broader sectors the company participates in.
| Market Segment | Size Estimate (Year) | Source | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Global Games Market | $184.4B (2024) | [Newzoo, 2023] | Analogous total addressable market for game services. |
| Cloud Gaming Infrastructure | $6.4B by 2027 | [MarketsandMarkets, 2022] | Analogous serviceable market for cloud-based game compute. |
| Worldwide Public Cloud Services | $591.8B (2023) | [Gartner, 2023] | Analogous total market for underlying PaaS/IaaS. |
The analyst takeaway is that Rivet's bet rests on capturing share within two growing but already competitive infrastructure layers. The multiplayer game server wedge offers a clearer, product-defined entry point, while the open-source stateful platform targets a more nascent but potentially larger architectural shift in how AI and real-time applications are built. Success depends on execution against established incumbents rather than riding an unclaimed greenfield wave.
Data Accuracy: YELLOW -- Market sizing is based on analogous, third-party reports for broader sectors, not Rivet's specific niches. No primary source sizing for its exact product categories is available.
Competitive Landscape
MIXED
Rivet positions itself as a developer-focused alternative to managed cloud services, carving out a wedge in two distinct but adjacent segments: multiplayer game backends and stateful serverless infrastructure for AI agents.
| Company | Positioning | Stage / Funding | Notable Differentiator | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rivet | Open-source Durable Objects alternative; managed platform for multiplayer games. | Seed (2024); Y Combinator-backed. | Self-hostable core; targets game devs with a "Heroku-like" experience for servers. | [Y Combinator, 2024] |
| Cloudflare | Global edge network; offers Durable Objects as a proprietary stateful serverless primitive. | Public (NET). | Massive global scale and integrated security/CDN; Durable Objects are a closed, managed service. | [Rivet, 2025] |
| Fly.io | Application platform with global edge deployments and stateful Machines. | Venture-backed (Series B, 2023). | Focus on full-stack app deployment with built-in Postgres; less game-specific tooling. | [Rivet, 2025] |
| Heroku | Platform-as-a-Service for general web applications. | Acquired by Salesforce (2010). | Pioneered developer simplicity; does not offer game server orchestration or stateful serverless primitives. | [Fondo, 2024] |
The competitive map splits along two axes: general-purpose platforms versus specialized game services, and open-source versus proprietary architectures. In the game server segment, Rivet faces incumbents like Google Agones (open-source, Kubernetes-based) and commercial managed services from Unity and AWS GameLift, which offer deep engine integration but higher complexity and cost. Rivet's wedge is simplicity, promising integration in "4 lines of code" [Y Combinator, 2024]. In the stateful serverless segment, the primary incumbent is Cloudflare's Durable Objects, a proprietary, edge-native service. Rivet's open-source alternative appeals to developers seeking vendor neutrality, portability, and the ability to run agents in isolated sandboxes, as demonstrated by its sandbox-agent project [GitHub, 2024]. Adjacent substitutes include container platforms (like AWS ECS) and broader PaaS offerings, which require more configuration but offer greater generality.
Rivet's defensible edge today rests on its open-source core and its dual-track product strategy. The open-source project serves as a lead generation and trust-building mechanism, allowing developers to self-host before committing to the managed cloud. This creates a natural funnel from evaluation to paid conversion. The edge is durable if the project maintains community momentum and technical parity with proprietary alternatives. However, it is perishable if a larger incumbent (like Cloudflare) decides to open-source a competing primitive or if the project fails to keep pace with feature development, ceding its differentiation. The team's focus on the specific pain points of game developers, a niche often underserved by generic platforms, provides a channel advantage within that community, evidenced by its listing on the Godot Engine asset library [Godot Engine, 2024].
The company is most exposed on two fronts. First, to Cloudflare's distribution and capital advantage. Cloudflare can bundle Durable Objects with its vast suite of security and performance products, making a standalone alternative harder to justify for enterprises already embedded in its ecosystem. Second, Rivet lacks the deep, public traction metrics or named enterprise customers that would signal product-market fit beyond early adopters. Its closed beta status [Y Combinator, 2024] and the absence of disclosed revenue or player counts leave its commercial viability unproven against well-funded incumbents with published case studies.
The most plausible 18-month scenario hinges on adoption within the indie and mid-market game developer segment. If Rivet successfully converts its closed beta users and demonstrates reliable scaling for "millions of monthly players" as claimed [Y Combinator, 2024], it could become the default choice for indie studios on engines like Godot and Unity, creating a sustainable niche. The winner in this scenario is Rivet, if it can use its open-source community to build a robust ecosystem of integrations and templates. The loser is likely to be smaller, undifferentiated PaaS providers trying to cater to games, as Rivet's specialized tooling could capture that budget. Conversely, if Cloudflare aggressively lowers the price or simplifies the developer experience of Durable Objects, or if a major cloud provider launches a similar open-source project, Rivet's wedge could be nullified, relegating it to a niche open-source project with limited commercial upside.
Data Accuracy: YELLOW -- Competitor positioning and funding stages are confirmed via public sources and company analysis; Rivet's differentiation and beta status are based on its Y Combinator page and blog, which are primary but unverified by third-party traction reports.
Opportunity
PUBLIC Rivet's opportunity lies in capturing a significant portion of the growing, multi-billion dollar market for developer-centric, stateful cloud infrastructure, specifically within multiplayer gaming and AI agent orchestration.
The headline opportunity is to become the default managed platform for multiplayer game backends and the canonical open-source runtime for stateful AI agents. This dual-track approach targets two large, adjacent markets with a shared technical foundation in durable, scalable state management. For game developers, the promise is operational simplicity: auto-scaling servers, matchmaking, and DDoS protection integrated with "4 lines of code," a proposition framed as "Heroku for multiplayer games" [Y Combinator, 2024]. In AI, the open-source "Durable Objects alternative" aims to provide the foundational layer for persistent, long-running agents, a critical need as agentic workflows move beyond stateless prompts [Y Combinator, 2024]. The reachability of this outcome is supported by early signals of adoption, including an integration with the Godot game engine's asset library [Godot Engine, 2024] and the release of the sandbox-agent project for coding AI agents [GitHub, 2024], demonstrating execution on both fronts.
The path to scale could follow several concrete scenarios, each hinging on a specific catalyst.
| Scenario | What happens | Catalyst | Why it's plausible |
|---|---|---|---|
| Game Developer Wedge | Rivet becomes the preferred backend for indie and mid-market game studios, displacing in-house infrastructure and legacy platforms. | A breakout hit game launches on Rivet, demonstrating scalability and reliability to millions of concurrent players. | The platform's closed beta is already marketed to developers from "publicly traded companies to indie studios" [Y Combinator, 2024], and the technical comparison content shows active benchmarking against Cloudflare and Fly.io [Rivet, 2025]. |
| AI Infrastructure Standard | The open-source runtime is adopted as the core orchestration layer by major AI frameworks and agent platforms. | A leading AI research lab or framework (e.g., LangChain, LlamaIndex) officially integrates or recommends Rivet for stateful agent deployment. | The project is explicitly positioned as an alternative to Cloudflare's proprietary Durable Objects, tapping into demand for open, self-hostable agent infrastructure [Open Source Alternative, 2024]. |
Compounding for Rivet would manifest as a classic developer tools flywheel. Initial adoption by game studios generates revenue and real-world load testing, funding improvements to the core platform's performance and reliability. These improvements, coupled with a growing reputation, attract more developers. Simultaneously, contributions and use cases from the open-source community around the AI runtime would enhance its features and robustness, making it more attractive for commercial adoption in enterprise AI agent deployments. Evidence of this flywheel beginning is the company's own detailed technical blog comparing its container platform to competitors, a signal of engaging with a sophisticated developer audience [Rivet, 2025].
In terms of the size of the win, a credible comparable is Cloudflare, whose Workers platform (including Durable Objects) is a core part of its service portfolio. Cloudflare's market capitalization exceeds $30 billion. While Rivet is not a direct competitor at that scale, capturing a meaningful segment of the specialized markets for game backends and AI agent infrastructure could support a valuation in the high hundreds of millions to low billions (scenario, not a forecast) if a growth scenario plays out. The underlying driver is the total addressable market for cloud gaming services, which analysts at Newzoo projected to generate $3.6 billion in revenues in 2023, and the rapidly expanding market for AI development platforms and tools.
Data Accuracy: YELLOW -- Opportunity framing relies on company claims from YC page and technical blogs; market size context is inferred from industry analysts, not company-specific traction.
Sources
PUBLIC
[Y Combinator, 2024] Rivet: Open-Source alternative to Durable Objects | https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/rivet
[Rivet, 2024] Rivet | startups | https://rivet.dev/startups/
[Fondo, 2024] Rivet launches 🚀 Heroku for multiplayer games | https://www.fondo.com/blog/rivet-launches
[Godot Engine, 2024] Rivet - Multiplayer Tooling, Game Servers, & Backend (Open-Source & Self-Hostable) - Godot Asset Library | https://godotengine.org/asset-library/asset/1881
[Open Source Alternative, 2024] Rivet | Open Source Alternative to Cloudflare Workers | https://www.opensourcealternative.to/project/rivet
[Rivet, 2025] Container Platform Comparison: Cloudflare Containers vs Rivet Containers vs Fly Machines - Rivet | https://rivet.dev/blog/2025-06-24-cloudflare-containers-vs-rivet-containers-vs-fly-machines/
[GitHub, 2024] GitHub - rivet-dev/sandbox-agent: Run Coding Agents in Sandboxes. Control Them Over HTTP. Supports Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, and Amp. | https://github.com/rivet-dev/sandbox-agent
[devtools.fm, 2026] Nathan Flurry - Rivet - The Future of Serverless is Stateful by devtools.fm: Developer Tools, Open Source, Software Development | https://creators.spotify.com/pod/profile/devtoolsfm/episodes/Nathan-Flurry---Rivet---The-Future-of-Serverless-is-Stateful-e38r1ml
[LinkedIn, 2026] Nathan Flurry - Rivet | LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/in/nathanflurry/
[LinkedIn, 2026] Nicholas K. - Rivet | LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicholaskissel/
[Newzoo, 2023] Global Games Market Report 2023 | https://newzoo.com/resources/trend-reports/newzoo-global-games-market-report-2023-free-version
[MarketsandMarkets, 2022] Cloud Gaming Market by Type, Device, Gamer Type, Solution and Region - Global Forecast to 2027 | https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/cloud-gaming-market-1227.html
[Gartner, 2023] Gartner Forecasts Worldwide Public Cloud End-User Spending to Reach Nearly $600 Billion in 2023 | https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2023-04-19-gartner-forecasts-worldwide-public-cloud-end-user-spending-to-reach-nearly-600-billion-in-2023
Articles about Rivet
- Rivet's Four-Line Bet Wires a Game Server Into the AI Sandbox — The Y Combinator-backed startup is building an open-source alternative to Cloudflare's Durable Objects, aiming to unify multiplayer backends and agent infrastructure.