Earlier versions of Cocos2d were distributed with two physics engines: Box2D and Chipmunk, but after the release of Cocos2d v3, Box2D has been excluded and Chipmunk is now fully integrated.

During these previous versions, developers used to choose one of the engines depending on their preferred programming language (Box2D was written in C++, while Chipmunk was written in C), the framework syntax, or the implementation of the physics engine.

Until Cocos2d-Swift v3.x, Box2D was the most popular library, and it was even distributed with Cocos2d. However, the sponsorship of Chipmunk by Apportable has now set it in a privileged position.