This is a comparison of popular proprietary dancing video games in which players must step on panels on a dance pad in time with music. Step placement and timing is indicated by rising arrows overlapping fixed targets.

• DDR = Dance Dance Revolution
• PIU = Pump It Up
• ITG = In The Groove

Panels per pad

• DDR: 4 or 6 square panels; left, down, up, right (up-left, up-right for SOLO mixes).
• PIU: 5 panels; up-left, down-left, center, down-right, up-right.
  • Center panel is square, corner panels are rectangle (height > width).
• ITG: 4 square panels; left, down, up, right.

Selection controls

• DDR: Two yellow buttons for style and song selection, with a green button for starting. The modifier menu can be scrolled through backwards by holding either yellow button and pressing the green button.
• PIU: No buttons on the cabinet itself; the songs are selected using Down-Left and Down-Right, and chosen with Center. Older mixes may have different selection methods. Every version of Pump it Up uses Down-Left and Down-Right to scroll through, whereas older versions may use Up-Left and Up-Right to make your selection.
• ITG: Two yellow (or blue on a dedicated cabinet) buttons for style and song selection, with a green button for starting. Dedicated cabinets have a red button underneath the green button, which is used for scrolling backwards in the modifier menu, as well as an alternate way to select your difficulty on the song select menu.

Player/panel modes

• DDR: Single, Double, Versus in most versions, some also feature Couple (2ndMIX), Unison and Step Battle (3rdMIX), Battle (4thMIX), Double Versus and Quad Mode (ULTRAMIX 2), and Solo play with 6-arrows.
• PIU: Single, Double (Freestyle and Nightmare), Half-Double (Premiere 2 through PREX3), Versus, Division (Premiere 2), Combo Battle (Exceed 1/2), Item Battle (Exceed 2), Minesweeper (Exceed 2), Hybrid Difficulty (Exceed 2)
• ITG: Single, Double, Versus, Battle.

Difficulties

• DDR: Three difficulties are present on all mixes – Light, Standard, Heavy (names vary between versions). Some games also have Beginner and Challenge/Oni. The latter usually offers alternative Heavy-difficulty steps. Songs are rated from 1-10 feet, with "flashing 10s" given to songs of extraordinary difficulty.
• PIU: Easy, Normal, Hard, Crazy, Another and Mission in Single; Freestyle, Half-Double, Nightmare, Another and Mission in Double. Difficulty ratings range from 1 to 23, with Another songs having a difficulty of "??".
• ITG: Novice, Easy, Normal, Hard, and Expert. All songs have Novice through Hard steps, and most songs have Expert steps, which are always level 9 or above in difficulty. Difficulty ratings range from 1 to 12, although some songs have level 13 Expert steps, which show up numerically as a 13 but visually as a 12.

Difficulty ratings between DDR and ITG are roughly analogous (e.g. an 8 in each game would be about the same difficulty)

Multiple-song courses

• DDR: Some versions feature Nonstop Mode, which allows several (usually 4) songs to be played in a row without breaks. Oni or Challenge Mode usually involves 5+ songs and gives the player a rechargeable life bar. On home versions, Endless Mode allows the player to continue playing until the player fails. Solo 2000 and Solo Bass have their own unique courses, which are 3 minute nonstop remixes which consist of 3 songs mixed together, similar to PIU's remixes.
• PIU: Some versions of PIU have nonstop remixes, which are multiple songs that are remixed together into one. On the home version there is Sudden Death Mode where the song will end automatically if the player misses a step. There is also a Survival Mode where the player has a rechargeable life bar and must continuously play song after song until the life bar has been depleted.
• ITG: Marathon Mode, allowing several songs to be played with a continuous life bar, and modifiers that change between songs and even during songs. There's also Survival, where each song has fixed mods and a timer. The player must very accurate, or extra time will be subtracted from the timer.

Song modifiers

• DDR: Modifiers are selectable by inputting codes through the dance pad (step codes), and in most versions after 5thMIX, with an Option Menu. There are about 20 options spread throughout a few categories, with one option selectable per category.
• PIU: Modifiers are only selectable through step codes. Some cabinets have a sticker displaying a few of the codes, such as speed modifiers.
• ITG: Has a modifier screen similar to DDR's Option Menu. There are over 60 modifiers in various categories; some categories allow more than one modifier to be selected.

Step judgments and combos

• DDR: Marvelous, Perfect, Great, Good, Boo, and Miss. Marvelous is not available in pre-EXTREME versions, and then only in Oni and Nonstop modes, and actual judgment words vary in North American versions. A Good or below will break a combo. Combos carry over from song to song in Nonstop and Challenge Mode.
• PIU: Perfect, Great, Good, Bad, and Miss. In all mixes, Bad or Miss will break a combo. In older mixes, Goods would also break a combo, but in recent mixes, Goods do not break a combo, but don't increase it either.
• ITG: Fantastic, Excellent, Great, Decent, Way Off, and Miss. A Decent or below will break a combo. Combos carry over from song to song in all modes. If a player uses a memory card, then it is possible to carry a combo on in perpetuity.

Timing Windows

• DDR: The Perfect step rating is moderately hard to attain, and the courses-only Marvelous step rating is extremely difficult to attain. The Marvelous step judgment is the tightest judgment among any of the three dancing games. The timing windows for console versions of DDR are noticeably easier, to compensate for differences in hardware across different platforms.
• PIU: Before the introduction of Andamiro's latest Pump It Up release, PIU: Zero, a Perfect step rating was generally relatively easy to attain. Andamiro has since tightened the timing windows for PIU: Zero, and currently a Perfect step rating is considerably more difficult to attain.
• ITG: The Fantastic step rating is rather difficult to attain, and the Excellent step rating is slightly easier to attain than a Fantastic.

A Fantastic is harder to get than a DDR Perfect, but an Excellent is easier to get than a DDR Perfect. However, getting a Pump It Up Perfect (Before PIU: Zero) is easier than getting either an ITG Fantastic or Excellent combined.

Jumps/hands

• DDR: Aside from a single song in Dancing Stage 1.5, a single song in Ultramix 2, and four songs in Solo 2000, no more than two panels need to be pressed simultaneously at any given time.
• PIU: Harder difficulties require three, four and even five or more panels to be pressed simultaneously, with the song "Raw" on Nightmare difficulty requiring the player to press and hold all ten panels at once, requiring the use of hands or other body parts.
• ITG: Harder difficulties require three or more panels to be pressed simultaneously, requiring the use of hands or other body parts. It is worth noting that on machines which were converted from DDR to ITG, it is usually more difficult to hit hands because one must apply much more pressure to get steps to register; this is because DDR cabinets were not originally designed with hand play in mind.

Steps to avoid

• DDR: In the Challenge Mode from EXTRA MIX and the home version of 4thMIX, and Mission Mode found in later games, certain conditions must be met to pass a stage, often requiring the player to avoid hitting a certain arrow. ULTRAMIX 2 has "poison" arrows.
• PIU: In Exceed 2 2-player battle mode, Mines are introduced which are indicated by darker coloured arrows. Stepping on these decreases your life. There are also arrows that activate random modifiers when you step on them. In the mission mode introduced to Zero, mines attached to certain stages appear as red squares with an x, making them more distinct, though hitting them does far more damage in Zero than it did in Exceed 2(frequently causing an instant fail). Even registering a Zero mine with a 'bad' grade can set if off.
• ITG: Mines are present in higher difficulties. If you are standing on a panel when a mine crosses the target zone, it will explode, causing the player to lose life. This does not affect your combo, but does affect your overall grade.

Grades

• DDR: All versions feature A, B, C, D and E. Prior to 4th Mix features SSS, SS and S (DDR USA replaces these with AAA Perfect!, AAA and AA, respectively). 4th Mix and beyond features AA, with AAA added in 5th Mix and beyond. Since 5th mix, all steps must be "Perfect!!" or better to score a AAA.
• PIU: S, A, B, C, D, F. Different games in the series, and different songs, have different criteria for what constitues an S, A, etc.; in general, however, later mixes are easier to get higher grades in.
• ITG: ****, ***, **, *, S+, S, S-, A+, A, A-, B+, B, B-, C+, C, C-, D, F. All steps must receive a "Fantastic" judgment to score a "quad-star" (****, or 100%). Star ratings begin at a score of 96%.