What are the best cross-platform GUI toolkits?

Question

29

Options
Considered

514

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Recs.

17 hrs

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Updated

Here’s the Deal

The Best 2 of 27 OptionsWhy?

Best cross-platform GUI toolkits	Price	Platforms	Popular Language Bindings
91 wxWidgets	Free	Windows, Linux, Mac, BSD, Solaris, AIX, OS2	wxPython, wxLua, wxRuby, more...
90 Qt	-	X11, Wayland, MacOS, Windows, Android, IOS	-
-- Agar	-	-	-
-- Quasar Framework	-	-	-
66 Java / Swing	-	-	-

See Full List

Qt

Top Pro

Mature and rich library

The are modules for networking, translation, database, data formats, printer support, and more. See More

Top Con

Expensive licence for non-open source developers

$459/month See More

LovelyTitias's Experience

Detailed documents and continuous upgrades keeps my application stay secure. See More

Specs

Platforms:X11, Wayland, MacOS, Windows, Android, IOS

Mobile targets:Android, Tizen, IOS, Plasma Mobile, Blackbery

Top Pro

It looks great

Even though beauty is in the eye of the beholder, Qt apps are some of the best looking ones out there. They use the standard OS look and feel See More

Top Con

Non-standard C++ features

Signal/slots and introspection are managed by a C++ precompiler, the meta object compiler (MOC). See More

DecisiveFaunus's Experience

I have completed successful products with it See More

Top Pro

Good documentation

Professional, thorough documentation with examples, available either in a web browser or in the stand-alone desktop client called assistant. See More

Top Con

Few community widgets available

DazzlingKulullu's Experience

very complete framwork (all in one) See More

Top Pro

Stable

Only a few bugs. It is easy to migrate between major versions. See More

Top Con

Limited SVG support

Compared to other toolkits QtSVG supports only SVGTiny 1.2. See More

GutsyEleos's Experience

Well designed framework for everything. See More

Top Pro

Open-source

But commercial users have to pay $459 per month, per developer ! See More

Top Con

GUI Render

On Intel video cards, qml windows have render issues. See More

zakaria chahboun's Experience

it's not just a GUI library, it's a simple/powerful C++ framework! also we don't forget the lovely QML language, beautiful and CROSS-PLATFORM! The documentation in the official web-site is the best and enough for learning! Free for OpenSource projects. See More

Top Pro

Best documentation of any development platform

The comprehensiveness of the Qt5 documentation is setting a new bar in the industry. Not only does it explore the entire toolkit in incredible depth, but it does so without being obtuse or using an excess of unfamiliar language. See More

LovelyMors's Experience

Qt is available for numerous platforms ranging from desktop to Microcontrollers. It is also not just GUI toolkit, it has various modules like networking, XML, Socket programming etc See More

Top Pro

Global community

The community behind Qt is both massive and approachable. Digia (also owners) are joined by the likes of Intel, KDAB, ICS, Canonical and numerous others in sponsoring development, while communities such as KDE also contribute significantly. Forums are active, mailing lists are open, irc channels chatting, git repositories well managed. Answers to questions are usually minutes away. See More

HelpfulIphimedeia's Experience

I have used Qt since 2005 on Windows and Mac. Generally I have been very happy with it. It is very comprehensive. I have had issues with bugs in the Mac libraries though. See More

Top Pro

Great integration

Qt integrates itself perfectly into all major desktops and operating systems. See More

smit patil's Experience

A complete FrameWork See More

Top Pro

Event handling is very simple

Qt was written in C++, as opposed to GTK which was written in C. The fact that C++ has been described at "C with classes" lends itself to explaining how the handling of events is so much simpler under Qt. See More

Top Pro

Mobile support

Top Pro

Bindings for Python and other languages

See All

25 Other Options Considered

Agar

Top Pro

Beautiful and easy to use

OrganizedGefjun's Experience

Nice looking See More

Top Pro

Outdated look

See All

Java / Swing

Top Con

Only for JRE-based languages

Top Pro

Part of Java

Swing is part of the Java API. See More

PreciseShennong's Experience

Being limited to the Java ecosystem in 2019 is a detriment for performant and secure applications. The nicity of developing for a cross-platform VM has gone out the window with the adoption of many multi-platform pre-compiled languages in recent years with greater compatibility with C/C++ code. See More

Top Con

No real native look

Though the importance of the native look seems to have dropped the last years by the raise of in-browser-applications. See More

Top Pro

Easy to use

Drag and drop utility. See More

Top Con

Bugfixes rely on Oracle

Top Pro

Several look and feels available

Top Pro

Very good and powerful API

E.g. separate models. See More

Top Pro

Powerful controls

E.g. JTable which works fine on every platform with very large row counts, e.g. 100.000+. See More

See All

nuklear

Top Pro

A single-header ANSI C gui library

Top Con

Very limited documentation

Top Pro

No dependencies (not even the standard library if not wanted)

Top Con

No input or output implementation provided

User must connect with OS or other libraries to get input or display output on any platform. See More

Top Pro

Small codebase (~18kLOC)

Top Pro

MIT/Public Domain License

Top Pro

Customizable library modules (you can compile and use only what you need)

Top Pro

Focus on portability, efficiency and simplicity

Top Pro

Fully skinnable and customizable

Top Pro

Bindings for popular languages

Bindings for languages like C#, Java, Python, Go, Nim, Lua and Rust. See More

See All

Flutter

Top Pro

Great developer tools debug/hotreload/analyser

Top Con

It is a Google product, and Dart is a dead end.

Google has been interfering with freedom of speech and tampering in democratic elections around the world. Dart never went anywhere and is unlikely to. See More

CaffeinatedMeili's Experience

When flutter web comes out, Flutter will be the best cross-platform solution except for Electron/React Native combination. See More

Specs

Mobile targets:Android and iOS

Languages:Dart

Dev platforms:Windows, Mac and Linux

Top Pro

Based on Dart language

Dart is a Java like language, easy to learn and startup fast for millions of Java developers. See More

Top Con

Does not support 32-bit iOS devices

If you plan on targeting iPhone 5, 5C or earlier, you can forget about Flutter. See More

Top Pro

A single codebase for iOS AND Android

Top Pro

Open source

See All

GTK+

Top Pro

Language bindings

Supports a lot of languages like Java, Javascript, C++, Python, Pascal, FreeBasic and Haskell, but support for languages like C# and GO is only partial. See More

Top Con

Terrible Integration

Looks and feels like an alien on all other platforms than GNOME. See More

NobleErsa's Experience

yes See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Linux, Mac

Top Pro

Nicer user interface when using PyGi

Creating cross platform enterprise apps with PyGi and with the help of Gtk Themes makes them look great. See More

WorthyXolotl's Experience

Nice API and lightweight See More

WorthySeker's Experience

I've been creating Cross Platform Enterprise Apps with PyGi and with the help of Gtk Themes They Look Great See More

See All

JavaFX

Top Pro

CSS support for widgets

OrganizedGefjun's Experience

Very Nice Looking default theme See More

Top Pro

Great visual tooling ( SceneBuilder, ScenicView)

DebonairRongo's Experience

One of my most loved gui framework. See More

Top Pro

Same GUI appearance between operating systems

See All

Avalonia

Platforms:Windows, Linux, Mac, Android, iOS

Electron

Top Con

Not native

Electron uses a web view. This basically means it is just a website wrapped to look like a native application. This is convenient because you can use web tech to develop the application, but it won't be so performant. See More

Top Pro

Excellent

Create functional desktop apps with your web skills. Gentle learning curve if you already know web. See More

CaffeinatedMeili's Experience

Best framework for web developers. Can deploy an existing website as a desktop app in a few minutes. See More

Top Con

Needs to run Chromium

Runs Chromium in the background which consumes a lot of resources. See More

Top Pro

Healthy community

Github is behind electron and there are a lot of big companies using it to make their cross-platform apps. See More

Chicken Mcgee's Experience

I would say Electron has its ups and downs. I read that Spotify uses it as well as Slack. So some heavy industry players. In essence, the engine that powers Electron is the same engine that powers your web browser. Some cons to consider is that expect your binary application to be on the "bloated" side, so a minimum of ~100mb. Also consider that it might be considered a "ram-eater" such as you see with Google Chrome. Overall though, you would have to weigh what you value in terms of its pros and cons. See More

Top Con

Apps can have memory issues

Apps made with Electron are likely to have memory issues unless you specifically design the app with efficient coding. See More

Top Pro

Great documentation

Electron has a nice website with great documentation. It also features a lot of samples. See More

Top Con

Each new window requires a new Chrome instance

So only suited for simple applications. See More

Top Pro

Auto-updates

Enable apps to automatically update themselves. See https://electronjs.org/docs/api/auto-updater. See More

Top Con

No system integration

As it is basically a website running inside a window, there is no integration with the host system. See More

Top Pro

Crash reporter

Submit crash reports to a remote server (built-in). See https://electronjs.org/docs/api/crash-reporter. See More

Top Con

Bad for the environment

Consumes far more computing resources than a standard app. Slack itself is causing significant CO2 emissions by being such a resource hog on every user's machine running it! See More

Top Con

Poorly optimized and resource intensive

It's like running a Chrome-tab for every app you open. See More

See All

Sciter

Top Pro

Lightweight

Only a single native DLL. See More

Top Con

Linux version is not very mature

The Linux version is missing HTML/CSS features when compared to the Windows version. See More

RickZeeland's Experience

Sciter allows designing an application in a completely platform independent manner. It is free for commercial use, although it is not open-source. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Linux, Mac

Popular Language Bindings:C++, C#, Delphi, D, Go, Rust, PowerBuilder

Top Pro

Multi language

Support for C++, C#, Delphi, D, Go, Rust, Powerbuilder. See Go bindings on GitHub. The binding for C# on GitHub, SciterSharp does not seem to be free: in a commercial product you should acquire a commercial license. See More

Top Con

Not fully HTML5 compliant

Lacking HTML5 functionality and W3C standards: grabbing a library like JQuery or Bootstrap and use it in Sciter will not work. See More

Top Con

Not WYSIWYG

Not WYSIWYG like WebForms or WPF. See More

See All

Squid C# GUI

RickZeeland's Experience

Free and open source GUI library for realtime 2D and 3D applications. See More

NoesisGUI

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