A curated list of free-to-play games on Steam — now ~3,600 of them — no quality guarantees, no endorsements, just pure listings by a broke, unemployed Vietnamese dev with too much free time and a Steam library full of sale games (80% under $10).
v4.0.0 is the version that got rebuilt from the ground up. It is still a list. It is also:
- a web app at https://free-steam-games.win/ (SvelteKit, served by a Cloudflare Worker) with a virtualised table of every game, charts, fuzzy search, filters you can link to, CSV/JSON export, a command palette, a page per game that search engines can read, en/vi i18n, and an installable offline mode. It is read-only for visitors: there is no sign-in;
- a desktop app (Tauri 2, resizable window, updates itself from GitHub Releases — Win/Mac/Linux installers);
- an Android app (sideloaded APK, Android 11+);
- an admin at
/admin, behind Cloudflare Access: a review queue for the games the daily discovery sweep finds (approved by the maintainer, or in capped daily batches by a rule the maintainer turns on), corrections to published games, and removals;
- the same Python pipeline that has run daily under GitHub Actions since v1.
Powered ~70 % by AI (Grok for v1, Claude for v2 + the entire web/desktop layer) — code is reviewed and tested, but mistakes happen. See the Disclaimer for the specific accuracy caveats (genre best-effort, English-only assumptions, test-data leakage, unsigned-commit dev artefacts).
Wallet safe (for now). Play at your own risk.
Quick links
What's new in v4.0.0
A SvelteKit 2 / Svelte 5 app, prerendered and served by a Cloudflare Worker that also proxies the dataset (/api/data/*) and Steam artwork (/img/*), so your browser talks to this site only — apart from Cloudflare's analytics beacon and its Turnstile human check, both loaded only after you accept the terms. Features:
- Browse — virtualised table (TanStack Virtual), filters for genre, type, platform, status, anti-cheat and safety, Fuse.js fuzzy search, sortable columns, 50/100/200/500/all pages. Filters live in the URL, so a filtered view can be shared.
- Charts — Apache ECharts: dashboard KPIs, genres, platforms, languages, tags, anti-cheat (chart and a searchable index), reviews, player tiers, release years and catalogue growth, DRM/DLC, delisted games, plus a stats page (Metacritic, retention, games that went quiet).
- A page per game —
/games/:appid is prerendered for search engines and filled with live player counts and reviews in the browser.
- Fresh data, verified —
data/index.json carries a SHA-256 per shard; the app only caches a generation it could verify, keeps the last good one offline, and re-checks when you come back to the tab.
- Installable — a web app you can install, with an offline mode and an update prompt.
- i18n vi / en — auto-detected, switchable from the welcome page or Settings.
- ⌘K command palette, first-run introduction, and the legal documents rendered in the app.
Pushing to main deploys (Cloudflare Workers Builds). Pipeline commits to data/** do not need a rebuild: the data is proxied, not bundled. See docs/DEPLOYMENT.md.
A native shell around the same web app, distributed via GitHub Releases:
- Windows
.msi, macOS .dmg (universal Apple Silicon + Intel), Linux .AppImage and .deb, and an Android .apk.
- Resizable window;
steam:// links open the Steam client.
- The desktop app checks for a signed update on start and installs it when you say so, keeping your settings.
- Same data path as the web app (
/api/data/* on free-steam-games.win), same offline cache.
Built by .github/workflows/release-desktop.yml (matrix Win/Mac/Linux via tauri-apps/tauri-action) and release-android.yml, triggered by a desktop-v* / android-v* tag or a manual run. Each release is created as a draft.
# from web/, locally:
npm run tauri:dev # dev build with hot reload
npm run tauri:build # release binary into web/src-tauri/target/release/bundle
Discover New Games sweeps the Steam store daily and proposes candidates into a Cloudflare D1 queue. The maintainer reviews them in a small Svelte app embedded in the Worker (never shipped to visitors): approving commits the store link to scripts/temp_info.jsonl, and the pipeline does the rest, checking every game again (free, a game, reachable) before it is published. Approval can also run on its own, in batches with a daily cap, once the maintainer turns it on. Decided and already-published rows are read-only. Corrections to published games are saved as override files that survive every pipeline run, and a removed game goes into data/blocklist.jsonl, which keeps it out of the catalogue until it is restored. An overview, the pipeline's runs and a data-quality report complete it. See docs/ADMIN.md.
The Python pipeline that powered v2 is untouched and runs daily as before:
- Schema v2.2 (23 + manual fields per record), CC BY 4.0 (see LICENSE-DATA), sharded data in
data/data_*.jsonl (cap 800 records/shard) plus a data/index.json manifest with a SHA-256 per shard.
- HTML scraper for accurate language tables, DLC pricing, user tags and the developer's anti-cheat disclosure — single GET per game.
- Health-checked daily: Steam's store API screens every game, and a game is removed only when appdetails agrees.
- Reviews refreshed daily from Steam's own summaries; full refresh daily. Every data job queues for its turn and has a time budget, so a growing catalogue slows a refresh down instead of breaking it (plan).
.
├── data/ # Sharded data (the source of truth)
│ ├── data_001.jsonl # ≤ 800 records
│ ├── data_002.jsonl … 005 # the rest
│ └── index.json # last_updated, totals, shard manifest
│
├── games/ # The two generated leaderboards
│ ├── top-online.md # live leaderboard
│ └── top-offline.md # most-played offline-capable
│
├── scripts/ # Python data pipeline
│ ├── core/
│ │ ├── constants.py # rate limits, anti-cheat patterns, schema
│ │ ├── steam_client.py # rate-limited HTTP client
│ │ ├── data_store.py # JSONL I/O, dedup, schema merge
│ │ ├── fetcher.py # batch processor
│ │ ├── scraper.py # HTML page parser
│ │ └── health_checker.py # status detection
│ ├── ingest_new.py / update_data.py / discover_new.py / …
│ └── temp_info.jsonl # ingest queue
│
├── web/ # Everything that is not the pipeline
│ ├── src/ # SvelteKit app: routes, components, charts, i18n
│ ├── admin/ # /admin review app (embedded in the Worker, never in dist/)
│ ├── worker/ # Cloudflare Worker: data + image proxy, admin API, D1 migrations
│ ├── shared/ # rules shared by the Worker and the admin app
│ ├── src-tauri/ # Tauri 2 desktop + Android shell (Rust)
│ └── static/ # icons, social image, robots.txt, _headers
│
├── docs/ # Legal + acknowledgements + contact
├── .github/workflows/ # data pipeline, discovery, CI, desktop/Android release
├── LICENSE # MIT — code
└── LICENSE-DATA # CC BY 4.0 — dataset
scripts/
├── core/
│ ├── constants.py # Config, rate limits, anti-cheat patterns
│ ├── steam_client.py # HTTP client, backoff, retry, session pooling
│ ├── data_store.py # JSONL I/O, validation, dedup, save_main() + index.json
│ ├── overrides.py # Human corrections re-applied on every write
│ ├── blocklist.py # Removed games, left out of every write
│ ├── fetcher.py # Batch processor, apply_details/reviews/players/scraped
│ ├── scraper.py # Store page HTML parser (languages, DLC, tags, anti-cheat)
│ ├── anticheat.py # Steam's anti-cheat disclosure and the rule that applies it
│ ├── steamcharts.py # SteamCharts all-time peak reader (polite, stops on refusal)
│ ├── peaks.py # all_time_peak: only ever raised
│ ├── rotation.py # crc32 daily slices shared by the refresh jobs, growing with the catalogue
│ ├── budget.py # A job's time budget: stop in time to save, warn before it runs out
│ └── health_checker.py # Game status detection with cached API data
├── discover_new.py # Propose new games into the /admin review queue
├── ingest_new.py # Add queued games (health check + fetch from Steam)
├── remove_games.py # Apply data/blocklist.jsonl now (runs before every ingest)
├── update_data.py # Daily: fill in incomplete records
├── refresh_store_data.py # Daily rotation: tags/languages weekly, store details monthly
├── refresh_anticheat.py # Daily: every game's anti-cheat, as its developer declares it on Steam
├── refresh_peaks.py # Daily rotation: all-time peak from SteamCharts, monthly per game
├── update_reviews.py # Daily: every game's review summary from Steam, ~2 minutes
├── mark_dead_games.py # Flag online games with no players
├── purge_unhealthy.py # Daily: remove delisted/not-free/unreleased (store API screen + appdetails)
├── top_online.py / top_offline.py # Leaderboards
├── edit_game.py # Overrides from the command line
├── refetch_all.py # Force re-fetch, in parts (manual only)
└── delete_game.py # Remove games (blocklist) from the command line
Automated workflows
| Workflow | Trigger | What it does |
|---|
| Auto Update JSON | Daily 00:00 UTC | Fills in incomplete records (API + HTML scrape) |
| Discover New Games | Daily 05:00 UTC | Propose new free games into the /admin review queue |
| Ingest New | On scripts/temp_info.jsonl or data/blocklist.jsonl push, and every 3 h | Apply removals, then add approved games |
| Top Online | Sun/Wed/Fri 03:00 UTC | Live player leaderboard |
| Top Offline | 1st + 15th of month 05:00 UTC | Leaderboard for single-player F2P concurrents |
| Update Reviews | Daily 06:00 UTC | Every game's review summary from Steam's store API |
| Refresh Store Data | Daily 16:00 UTC | Rotating re-fetch: tags, languages, DLC flag weekly; name, image, description, developer/publisher, release date, platforms, Metacritic, DRM monthly. Then every game's anti-cheat from Steam's disclosure (committed separately; manual run with only: anticheat does just that) |
| Refresh All-Time Peaks | Daily 19:30 UTC | all_time_peak from SteamCharts, every game once a month, plus our own samples; manual run with backfill asks about every game |
| Purge Unhealthy | Daily 07:00 UTC | Store API screen of every game; removal once appdetails agrees |
| Mark Dead Games | Mon + Thu 04:30 UTC | Online + >1y + 0 players ≥14d → is_dead=true + 💀 note |
| Daily Snapshot | Daily 23:00 UTC | Per-game players and reviews into data/snapshots/ |
| Force Re-fetch | Manual only | Re-fetch games from scratch, one part (1/8 … 8/8) a run |
| Web CI / Python Tests | On web/** / scripts/** change | Type check, tests, build and output checks |
| Release Desktop / Android | On desktop-v* / android-v* tag | Build the apps into a draft release |
| Announce Discussion | On release published |
The site itself is deployed by Cloudflare Workers Builds on every push to main, not by a workflow.
Contribute
New games arrive on their own: Discover New Games sweeps the Steam store
daily into a review queue, and the maintainer approves them at /admin — by
hand, or with an auto-approve rule that has a daily cap and is off until turned
on. Discovery only proposes, and every approved game is checked again by the
pipeline (free, a game, reachable) before it is published. Missing a free game
a few days after it went free? Post its store link in
Discussions › Ideas.
The companion browser extension, steam-f2p-extension,
is archived and no longer a way in.
Issues are for reports, not submissions:
Bug report,
Feature request,
Delete game and
Feedback. All reviewed by hand.
The manual way. Fork, append store links to scripts/temp_info.jsonl, and open a pull request:
{"link": "730"}
{"link": "https://store.steampowered.com/app/570/"}
Accepts a full URL, short URL, or bare appid. A line is a link and nothing else: any other key is ignored, and the game is fetched from Steam. A correction to a published game (genre, anti-cheat, notes…) goes in a Discussion; the maintainer records it as an override.
See CONTRIBUTING.md for the full flow.
Why this exists
Unemployed, introvert max level, dropped out uni year 3, mooching off family. Needed a clean F2P list without digging Steam every time "hôm nay chơi free cái gì đây". So this repo was born — hobby project of a "barely competent" dev pumped by AI.
- v1 was spaghetti.
- v2.0 was organised spaghetti.
- v2.1 was spaghetti with proper seasoning. It got a scraper.
- v3.0 was spaghetti with a website on top, a desktop app, and bilingual menus.
- v4.0 is the same spaghetti, rebuilt, with a review queue so it stops needing to be cooked by hand. Still a hobby.
[!WARNING]
Disclaimer. Quality / fun / safety: who knows. The maintainer only vouches for games personally played (safe column: y = yes, ? = dunno, n = nope). Problems with a game are between you, Valve, and the developer of that game — not the maintainer. See docs/DISCLAIMER.md for the specific accuracy caveats.
Docs
- AUTHORS — maintainer + canonical handle map + AI-assistant disclosure.
- CHANGELOG — what changed in each version.
- CONTRIBUTING — issue templates, suggesting a game, manual fork.
- PC spec (VI) — maintainer's dev hardware + test devices.
- Dev environment (VI) — IDE, toolchains (Python 3.15 / Node 26 / TypeScript 7 / Rust stable / Tauri 2), workflow.
- Tauri build — desktop build prerequisites + signing + auto-update.
- DISCLAIMER — accuracy caveats, no-warranty, the broke-maintainer note.
- Terms of Use — usage agreement, contributions, governing law.
- EULA — plain-language commentary on both licences.
- Privacy Policy — no accounts, no tracking cookies, no profile; what Cloudflare logs as the host, the one cookieless page-view count, and where the site is not served.
Code is MIT; the dataset is CC BY 4.0 with carve-outs for fields the project does not own (description, header_image). Keep the right licence with you if you fork. Star if you find a hidden gem ✨
Last auto-update: daily via GitHub Actions. Manual runs from the Actions tab.
