What Is the Best Roll20 Alternative?
Short answer
The best Roll20 alternative depends on which Roll20 limit you hit. Storage and automation point you at Foundry. The tool not knowing your game system points you at a tabletop built for that system. Ours is free for one game and players join from a link without an account.
The best Roll20 alternative depends entirely on which Roll20 problem you are leaving. If it is storage limits and performance, Foundry VTT is the usual answer. If it is that you want something simpler, Owlbear Rodeo. If the problem is that Roll20 does not understand your game and you are tired of rebuilding it by hand every campaign, then a purpose built tabletop for your system is the alternative worth looking at.
If you want more power
Foundry VTT is the standard upgrade. One time purchase, self hosted or hosted for you, deep automation, and a very large module ecosystem. The cost is that you now maintain a stack: modules break on version bumps, and someone in the group has to care about that.
If you want less
Owlbear Rodeo is a browser based map and tokens, free, no accounts to wrangle. For a group that runs theatre of the mind with an occasional battle map, it removes more friction than it adds.
If the problem is the system
Roll20 aims to support everything, so it ships as a toolbox: generic parts you assemble into your game. That is the right design for a group that plays five systems a year and the wrong one for a group running a single long campaign. A hex is a hex to Roll20. It does not know that a Stars Without Number sector is 8 by 10, that a planet has a tech level, or that a torch should have burned out two encounters ago.
We build the other kind: one tabletop per game, purpose built for that game's rules and procedures. Stars Without Number and Old School Fantasy are live now. GrimDelve, Cyberpunk Red, and Derelict are in development. Stars Without Number and Old School Fantasy each run one game free with unlimited players, and our Cyberpunk Red tabletop will be free with no caps at all, because R. Talsorian Games' Homebrew Content Policy is free-only and we agree with it. Players never pay or make an account on any of them.
The honest version: if you rotate systems constantly, stay generic. Specialised tools are worth it when you are going deep on one game.
Related questions
- Is Foundry VTT better than Roll20?
- Foundry offers deeper automation and no storage limits for a one time purchase, but you take on maintaining modules and hosting. Roll20 asks less of you and runs entirely in the browser. Neither is strictly better.
- What is a free alternative to Roll20?
- Owlbear Rodeo for maps and tokens, and system specific tabletops like ours, which runs one game free forever with unlimited players who never pay.
- Why leave Roll20?
- The three common reasons are storage caps, the automation ceiling, and rebuilding the same system scaffolding for every campaign because the tool is deliberately system agnostic.