What is a FiveM roleplay framework — and which one should I take?

What a framework actually does

FiveM gives you a city and the ability to run your own code inside it. It does not give you a character that is still there tomorrow, no money, no jobs and no rules. That layer is exactly what the framework is.

At its core every framework holds the same things:

• Characters that are saved — appearance, name, position, condition.
• Money and inventory, including the question of who may give what to whom and when.
• Jobs and groups with different rights — police may do what a mechanic may not.
• Vehicles with an owner, a garage and a licence plate instead of just cars standing around.
• An interface other resources dock onto instead of working around the framework.

The difference between frameworks lies less in what they can do than in where you configure it and how you extend it.

The common frameworks

Three names come up in almost every discussion. What follows is deliberately descriptive and not a verdict — which one fits depends on your team, not on a ranking.

1. ESXOpen source and in use for years, with a correspondingly large collection of ready-made third-party scripts. You assemble your server from individual resources and configure mostly in Lua files; the data lives in a database on your own server.
2. QBCore and qbx_coreAlso open source and younger than ESX, with an ecosystem of resources of its own; qbx_core is a community-maintained line of it. The working principle is the same: individual resources, configuration in code, your own database.
3. RPFXA single resource on your server, tied to a central administration. You create items, economy, vehicles, factions, jobs and map content in an admin panel — in the browser or as an overlay in the running game — instead of in configuration files. Changes take effect without a server restart.

The difference that actually matters

ESX and QBCore run entirely on your own server. Everything you configure sits in your files and your database. That makes you independent of any third party — and at the same time solely responsible for backups, updates and for making sure two resources do not get in each other's way.

With RPFX the administration does not sit on your server but with us: the resource fetches what it needs at runtime. That takes the maintenance off your hands and makes administration usable without programming knowledge — but it also makes you dependent on a service you do not run yourself. Anyone who does not want that is better served by one of the other two. That belongs on an honest page, even if the page is our own.

infoRPFX is the hobby project of a private individual, not run for profit and currently entirely free of charge. Accordingly there is no availability commitment and no SLA. Anyone relying on it in production should know that.

What to base your decision on

In practice four questions lead to an answer faster than any comparison:

1. Who builds the server?If someone on the team writes Lua and enjoys writing it, a code-centric framework is not an obstacle but freedom. If two of you build after work and nobody programs, every configuration file is a hurdle that will stay with you for months.
2. Are there ready-made scripts you definitely want?Many widespread resources are written for ESX or QBCore. If a particular one is on your list, that often settles the question on its own.
3. How much administration do you want to carry yourselves?Database, backups and updates are not a one-off effort but a permanent duty. Anyone who likes having that in their own hands will experience an outsourced administration as a loss — and the other way round.
4. How quickly do you want something playable?A server that gets built for months and never opens is the most common outcome. Whatever gets you to a playable state fastest is therefore rarely the wrong choice.

What RPFX is built for

RPFX is aimed at teams who want to run a roleplay server without programming it. The areas below are created and changed entirely in the admin panel — in the browser or in the game, without a server restart and without a line of Lua.

• Economy and items: inventory, item types, crafting recipes, buying and selling shops, delivery jobs, farming and mining areas, banking, invoices and storage.
• Vehicles: dealers and prices, garages, tuning, paintwork, licence plates and registration, lockpicking, towing and vehicle routes.
• Factions and conflict: groups with their own rights, gangs, gang war over zones, robberies, door locks with access rights and a case file system for the authorities.
• Map and world: map editor with entities and actions, interiors, teleporters, time and weather control, blackouts, fire, hazard zones and effects.
• Character and roleplay: character creation, clothing and tattoos, emotes, phone with chat, documents and licences, driving school, tutorial and achievements.
• Oversight and support: in-game admin menu, player search, support tickets, suspicious transactions, anti-cheat and server settings.

Resources of your own are not excluded: for Lua and TypeScript there are server exports that your own scripts dock onto cleanly instead of working around the framework.

• rocket_launchGuide: setting up a FiveM server