FoFiX and Clone Hero are the two games a Frets on Fire player is most likely to compare. FoFiX extends the original Frets on Fire format; Clone Hero rebuilds the Guitar Hero experience from scratch. Both are free. Only one is actively maintained.
Head to head
- Roots: FoFiX is a fork of Frets on Fire 1.2.451; Clone Hero is an independent game inspired by Guitar Hero.
- Customisation: FoFiX’s theme engine is deep and beloved, and its Guitar Hero / Rock Band look-alikes are still its best feature. Clone Hero also supports custom highways, backgrounds and note styles.
- Instruments and play: FoFiX adds drums, bass and vocals to the Frets on Fire format with four-player local play. Clone Hero adds online multiplayer, leaderboards and a much larger active community.
- Maintenance: FoFiX’s latest stable release is 3.123 (2021-12-16); Clone Hero is maintained and updated.
- Setup: Clone Hero is simpler to install on a current system; FoFiX can need version-matched themes and a Python-2-era build path on Linux.
Verdict
Start with Clone Hero if you want the game you will still be playing in a year. Keep FoFiX if you love its themes, its local multiplayer, or the Frets on Fire format itself — and read FoFiX vs vanilla for the other side of the fork.
Browse the full hub. Related guides: frets on fire vs clone hero, frets on fire vs yarg, fofix install themes.