libGDX is a free and open-source[3] game-development application framework[2] written in the Java programming language with some C and C++ components for performance dependent code.

[1] In March 2010 Zechner decided to open-source AFX, hosting it on Google Code under the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL).

[1] At the start of 2012 Zechner created a small helper library called gdx-jnigen for easing the development of JNI bindings.

[1][16][17] In August 2012 the project switched its version control system from Subversion to Git, moving from Google Code to GitHub.

[28][29] From a diverse team of open source enthusiasts comes libGDX, a cross-platform game development framework that allows programmers to write, test, and debug Java games on a desktop PC running Windows, Linux, or Mac OS X and deploy that same code to Android, iOS and WebGL-enabled browsers—something not widely available right now.

The goal of libGDX, says creator Mario Zechner, "is to fulfill the 'write once, run anywhere' promise of the Java platform specifically for game development.

[31][32] With the release of libGDX 1.9.3 on 16 May 2016 Multi-OS is provided as an alternative, while by default the library uses its own fork of the open source version of RoboVM.

The usual development cycle consists of staying on the desktop PC as much as possible while periodically verifying that the project still works on Android.

Most of the time the developer does not have to write platform-specific code, except for starter classes (also called launchers) that require different setup depending on the backend.

[50] While libGDX is written primarily in Java, the compiled bytecode is language-independent, allowing many other JVM languages to directly use the library.