Panfu.me

Panfu.me (called Panfu.us from 2020–2025) is a Panfu Private Server that was originally launched as a Panfu Client on October 4, 2016.

It is the most popular project in the community, with almost 1,000 active players per week and over 300,000 registered members in total. It was also the first to bring the game back after its closure.

Despite several closures of the project, it has been able to re-establish itself each time. The record of 540 concurrent players was reached during the latest reopening on June 16, 2018.

Since February 2024, the Flash Player emulator Ruffle has been integrated into the site, allowing the game to be played again in the browser and without any downloads.^[1]

History

The beginning

Panfu.us Maintenance — Maintenance mode after Panfus shutdown

Panfu.me started in October 2016 as Panfu Client, a modified version of Panfu that relied on the original servers. Since it was no longer possible to chat on Panfu, many players switched to Panfu.me to play and chat with the community.

After the unexpected closure of Panfu on November 1, 2016, the team started working on their own server to continue using the Panfu client.

While the server was being worked on, the site went into a maintenance mode, explaining the situation and providing a countdown to the reopening.

Panfu.me-Homepage-2017 — The website after maintenance mode was ended.

The revival of Panfu

The new website was launched on March 18, 2017, and visitors were able to pre-register, but had to wait until the opening to play.

On April 28, 2017, a closed beta was launched for the first 100 registered members. This was to test the stability of the servers and to fix bugs. Finally, the open beta took place on May 12, 2017, and the servers quickly filled up. Over 25,000 members were registered at that time and over 40,000 visitors were counted that day.

Panfu Closed Beta — Naked pandas at the first opening in May 2017, before changing clothes worked.

The project was closed on August 19, 2017 due to lack of motivation and time, but was reopened on December 15, 2017. It was closed again in February 2018 due to a server problem that resulted in the loss of player data. It was reopened on June 16, 2018 and has been accessible ever since.

The domain was changed from Panfu.me to Panfu.us due to a renewal error in October 2020,^[2] which led to the domain being sold by a backorder service.^[3] On August 21, 2021, the founders of Panfu uploaded a YouTube video together in which they mentioned Panfu.me. The team regained the domain Panfu.me on January 18, 2025, and announced they would change the domain back in the coming weeks.^[4]

The end of Flash Player

In January 2021, Flash Player was removed from all major browsers.^[5] This forced Panfu.us to provide its own desktop application called Panfu Desktop, which acts as a browser replacement and integrates the Flash Player plugin.^[6]

Panfu.us Ruffle — Panfu.me running in-browser using Ruffle

Once the Flash Player emulator Ruffle was developed enough to work with Panfu, it was finally integrated into the site in February 2024, allowing the game to be played in the browser again and without any downloads.^[1]