New versions were released relatively quickly at first, culminating in version 3.9 in 2005. During the first three major versions, the Interface was based heavily on DDR's. StepMania was originally developed as an open source clone of Konami's arcade game series Dance Dance Revolution (DDR). StepMania was included in a video game exhibition at New York's Museum of the Moving Image in 2005.

Several video game series, including In the Groove and Pump It Up Pro use StepMania as their game engine.

Released under the MIT License, StepMania is open-source free software. It was originally developed as a simulator of Konami's arcade game series Dance Dance Revolution, and has since evolved into an extensible rhythm game engine capable of supporting a variety of rhythm-based game types. StepMania is a cross-platform rhythm video game and engine.