Frameworks compared: QBCore, Qbox, ESX and more

A framework is the shared base of a roleplay style server: player accounts and characters, money, jobs and grades, items and inventory, vehicles and garages, and a standard API that other resources build on. Picking one is the biggest technical decision you’ll make for an RP server, because most scripts you buy or write will be tied to it.

FiveM Frameworks Explained: ESX vs QBCore vs QBox (All Things Hosting)

Do you need one?

No framework (standalone) if you run freeroam, racing, drifting, car meets, a minigame or a custom game mode. The Basic Server recipe plus vMenu, ox_lib and your own scripts is lighter, simpler and easier to reason about.

A framework if you want roleplay: characters, jobs, an economy, inventories, housing, and the thousands of community resources that expect one.

The main frameworks

Honest pros and cons

QBCore

• Pros: the biggest pool of free and paid scripts, most YouTube tutorials target it, a complete recipe with ~60 resources, easy to start.
• Cons: many resources are older and vary in quality and performance; lots of servers run heavily modified forks, so “QBCore compatible” doesn’t always mean drop in; the default recipe is big, so you’ll spend time removing what you don’t need.

Qbox

• Pros: started as a QBCore fork and is now its own framework built on the ox stack (ox_lib, ox_inventory, ox_target); a qb-core compatibility bridge (qbx:enableBridge) lets many QBCore resources run; active maintenance and code review; good docs.
• Cons: requires MariaDB 10.9+ and the ox stack (no qb-inventory); some older QBCore scripts need small changes; smaller community than QBCore or ESX.

ESX Legacy

• Pros: the oldest big framework, huge catalogue of scripts, the recipe is official and maintained by the ESX team, many experienced developers know it.
• Cons: years of different ESX versions (v1 final, 1.2, Legacy) mean old tutorials and scripts often don’t match Legacy; older addons can be slow; the style differs a lot from QB-based code.

ox_core

• Pros: clean, modern, by the Overextended team, TypeScript and Lua, made to be extended.
• Cons: not a batteries included RP server: few ready jobs, you build more yourself. Best for developers.

ND Core

• Pros: lightweight, works with ox_inventory, readable code.
• Cons: small community and ecosystem.

vRP

• Pros: one of the earliest frameworks, some servers still run it.
• Cons: few new resources target it today, and knowledge is scattered. Not recommended for a new server.

How to choose

1. Is it roleplay? If not, go standalone.
2. Does your team already know one? Use it. Experience beats a “better” framework.
3. Starting fresh? Deploy Qbox and ESX Legacy (and QBCore if you like) on a dev machine with txAdmin, play each for an evening, and read some of their code.
4. Check the scripts you want. If the paid scripts you plan to buy only support one framework, that decides it. Most big script stores support all three main ones.
5. Think about performance and maintenance: fewer, well written resources beat a huge pack.

What every framework gives you

Whichever you pick, you’ll work with the same concepts:

Quick starts

• QBCore quick start
• Qbox quick start
• ESX Legacy quick start

Each covers the txAdmin install, folder structure, making yourself admin, adding a job and an item, and common pitfalls.