Games Like Bitburner: Hacking Games, With or Without Code
What should I play after Bitburner?
Play Grey Hack if you want what Bitburner does: break into procedurally generated servers and write your own scripts to do it, in a language built into the game. Play hackmud if you want to keep writing JavaScript. Play EXAPUNKS if you want every hack to be a closed programming puzzle scored against other players, and Hacknet for the hacking without any code.
Everything below is a hacking game, and I sorted it by how close the hacking gets to a real programming language, from no code at all to JavaScript.
Updated October 2026.
What makes a game like Bitburner?
An incremental game is a game built around numbers that grow faster than you can spend them: you buy something that makes more of the resource, which buys more of that thing, until the scale changes and new systems appear. (The longer version is in what is an incremental game.)
Bitburner is that loop with a code editor attached. Its store page calls it a “programming-based idle incremental RPG”: you write scripts in JavaScript that break into servers on a fictional network, and, per the hacking documentation, those scripts steal money from them, grow it back and weaken their security in a loop you keep tuning. It also has a prestige reset: installing Augmentations wipes your money, your stats and the scripts on every server except your home computer, and the Augmentations page calls it the game’s “soft reset” or “prestige” mechanic. Bitburner is free, open source, also playable in a browser, and has 7,433 Steam reviews at 94.9% positive (as of October 2026).
So a game belongs here if you hack things in it, and the list is sorted by the second half of what Bitburner does: how close the code you write gets to a real programming language. The store page names Else Heart.Break(), Hacknet, Uplink and Deus Ex as inspirations. The first three are below. I left Deus Ex off because it is an action RPG.
Which games are most like Bitburner?
Of the eight, EXAPUNKS is the best, with the highest share of positive reviews (94.8%, as of October 2026), and Grey Hack is the closest to Bitburner. Hacknet is the cheapest and the most reviewed, and Else Heart.Break() is the one to read reviews on first.
| Game | How real the code is | What you type or write | Regular price (as of October 2026) | Steam reviews (as of October 2026) | Solo or online |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Uplink | None | Nothing: you run tools such as password crackers and log modifiers | $11.99 | 2,440 at 90.6% positive | Solo |
| Hacknet | None | Terminal commands based on real UNIX ones | $9.99 | 26,161 at 93.5% positive | Solo |
| Midnight Protocol | None | Short typed commands, keyboard only | $14.99 | 454 at 85.9% positive | Solo |
| Quadrilateral Cowboy | A little | One-line function calls such as cam8.off(3), timed in sequence | $19.99 | 1,015 at 91.9% positive | Solo |
| EXAPUNKS | A small invented language | A small assembly-style instruction set for your hacking agents | $19.99 | 1,900 at 94.8% positive | Solo, plus optional battles against friends |
| Else Heart.Break() | A full language | Sprak, a language made for the game | $24.99 | 843 at 66.8% positive (Mixed) | Solo |
| Grey Hack | A full language | GreyScript, the game’s own scripting language | $19.99 | 1,886 at 90.2% positive | Online, with a single-player mode |
| hackmud | A full language | JavaScript, the same as Bitburner | $18.99 | 846 at 77.5% positive (Mostly Positive) | Online |
All eight have Windows, macOS and Linux builds on Steam, and none of them is free (as of October 2026). Prices are the regular US price; sale prices change too fast to quote.
Which hacking games need no code at all?
Uplink
Uplink is the oldest game here. Introversion released it in 2001, according to Wikipedia (checked October 2026), and you play a freelance hacker taking contracts: steal corporate data, sabotage rivals, frame someone else. You never write code. You run password crackers and log modifiers, bounce your connection through other machines to avoid detection, and spend your credits on faster CPUs and better software so you can take harder jobs. That upgrade loop is the part a Bitburner player will recognise. It costs $11.99 and has 2,440 reviews at 90.6% positive (as of October 2026).
Hacknet
Hacknet is the pick if you want Bitburner’s hacking without writing a line of code. A hacker called Bit is dead, his failsafe starts sending you emails, and you follow them through a terminal whose commands are, in the store page’s words, “based on actual UNIX commands”: scan a machine, run the programs that break its protections, take it over, read its files. Bitburner even has a passive income system called Hacknet Nodes. It is the cheapest game on the list at $9.99 and the most reviewed, with 26,161 reviews at 93.5% positive (as of October 2026). The Steam Workshop carries player-made campaigns built with its Extensions tools.
Midnight Protocol
Midnight Protocol is the least-reviewed pick here and plays most like a tactics game. You are a hacktivist called Data who has just been doxxed, and you move through each network by typing short commands that, as its store page puts it, “eliminate or evade security programs”. Between jobs you buy programs and hardware on the black market and build a deck, and your choices move your black, grey and white hat reputation. Everything runs from the keyboard. It has 454 reviews at 85.9% positive and costs $14.99 (as of October 2026).
Which ones make you write a little code?
Quadrilateral Cowboy
Quadrilateral Cowboy is where code starts, one line at a time. It is a first-person heist game from Blendo Games: your crew breaks into buildings, and you type commands into a hacking deck to switch off their security. Wikipedia’s example is cam8.off(3), which shuts Camera 8 for three seconds, because holding it off any longer raises an alarm. So the skill is timing: you write a short sequence so the doors and cameras drop exactly when your agents reach them. It won the Independent Games Festival’s Seumas McNally Grand Prize, per its store page. It costs $19.99 and has 1,015 reviews at 91.9% positive (as of October 2026).
EXAPUNKS
EXAPUNKS has the highest share of positive reviews of the eight, and it is the most puzzle-shaped. It is set in an alternate 1997 where you trade one hack for one dose of medicine, and you hack by programming EXAs, small agents with what Wikipedia describes as “a few simple opcodes for movement, data processing, network messaging, and interfacing with files and registers”. They copy themselves, trash files and fight other agents inside banks, TV stations and highway signs. Each job is a closed puzzle, scored on cycles and code size against other players, so it has none of Bitburner’s open world. Zachtronics made it. Its store page lists it at $19.99, and it has 1,900 reviews at 94.8% positive (as of October 2026).
Which ones use a full programming language?
Else Heart.Break()
Else Heart.Break() is the strangest pick, and the one with the weakest reviews. It is an adventure game: Sebastian moves to the city of Dorisburg for his first job, falls in with hackers and activists, and learns from them, in the developer’s words, how “the reality of the game can be changed through programming”. Everyday objects and computers run code you can open and change, written in Sprak, a small language its developer made for the game. Players are split on it: 843 reviews at 66.8% positive, which Steam rates Mixed, and at $24.99 it is the most expensive game here (as of October 2026).
Grey Hack
Grey Hack is the closest game to Bitburner on this list. You start with a terminal, a file explorer and a text editor on a network of procedurally generated computers, and every command and exploit in the game is built in its own scripting language, so you can rewrite the tools or write new ones. The GreyScript manual describes that language as a fork of MiniScript. The online world keeps running 24/7 while you are logged off, and a single-player mode pauses the world when you quit. It is still in Early Access on Steam, and its store page calls the current build beta version 0.9. It costs $19.99 and has 1,886 reviews at 90.2% positive (as of October 2026).
hackmud
hackmud is the pick if you want to keep writing JavaScript. It is an online text game set in an abandoned internet styled like a 90s hacker movie, where players run corporations, sell data and scam each other, and you start by running scripts other players wrote before you write your own. Those scripts are JavaScript: the hackmud wiki lists the features its scripts get “that are not present in other JavaScript environments”. Other players are the content, including the ones who will try to scam you. Its reviews are the second lowest here, 846 reviews at 77.5% positive, Mostly Positive on Steam (as of October 2026). Steam also lists in-app purchases. It costs $18.99 (as of October 2026).
Is there a game that runs your code while you sleep?
Screeps: World is the nearest thing to Bitburner’s idle half, though it is a strategy game with no hacking in it. You write JavaScript that controls a colony in a shared online world, and the store page says that code runs “24/7 even while you’re offline”: your units mine, build and fight while you are at work. It also takes C, C++, Rust and other languages through WebAssembly. The starter package caps your CPU, and Screeps sells an unlock. It costs $19.99 and has 2,098 reviews at 86.3% positive (as of October 2026).
If you came to Bitburner to learn Python rather than JavaScript, The Farmer Was Replaced has you program a farming drone in what its store page calls “a simple language similar to Python”, saved as .py files you can edit in VS Code. It has no hacking in it, and it is Windows and macOS only.
Which games did I leave off, and where are they?
Steam’s own More like this shelf for Bitburner mixes Hacknet and Uplink with programming puzzle games such as TIS-100 and Turing Complete. Those are good games about writing code with nothing to hack, so they stay off this page.
Two of our own pages sit next to this one. Endgame: Singularity, a free game where you are an AI spreading from computer to computer to stay hidden, is in games where you play as the AI. Universal Paperclips, the free browser incremental where you are an AI making paperclips, has its own list in games like Universal Paperclips.
Where our game fits
Our own game, Sam, We Talked About This, sits next to this list rather than on it. Like Bitburner it is an idle incremental about the internet, but it is not a programming game. Bitburner has you break into servers for money; ours has you scrape whatever the internet has, train text, image and video models on it, rack the models to win subscribers, and put the cash into more disks, bigger machines and a bigger crew, with AGI waiting at the end. It is unreleased, due on Steam in Q1 2027, so there is nothing to point at yet beyond its Steam page.
Quick answers
Is there a game like Bitburner that uses Python? Yes, though not a hacking game. The Farmer Was Replaced uses a Python-like language for a farm drone, close enough that its store page says Python IntelliSense works on it. None of the eight hacking games here uses Python.
Are there free games like Bitburner? Yes, one: Endgame: Singularity, a free, open source game (as of October 2026) where you are an AI spreading between computers, covered in games where you play as the AI. None of the eight above is free; the cheapest is Hacknet at $9.99 regular (as of October 2026).
Is Grey Hack the closest game to Bitburner? Yes. It is the one game here that pairs your own scripts with a big network of generated servers, which is the loop Bitburner is built on. If the language matters more to you, hackmud also runs JavaScript, but it is a social online game first.
Is Hacknet like Bitburner? Yes in theme, no in code. You sit at a terminal and break into machines with commands modelled on UNIX, but you never write a program, and a dead hacker’s emails tell you where to go next.
Key takeaways
- Grey Hack is the closest match; EXAPUNKS has the best reviews of the eight; Hacknet is the cheapest and the no-code pick.
- hackmud and Screeps: World are the two that run on JavaScript, the same language as Bitburner.
- Else Heart.Break() is Mixed on Steam and hackmud is Mostly Positive; read their reviews before you buy.
- For more games built around a growth loop, see the games with the most satisfying progression systems.
