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DevelopmentCross PlatformLibrariesGUI

What are the best cross-platform GUI toolkits?

39

Options
Considered

1.2K

User
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3 mins

Last
Updated

Here’s the Deal

The Best 1 of 36 OptionsWhy?

Best cross-platform GUI toolkits	Price	Platforms	Popular Language Bindings
93 wxWidgets	Free	Windows, Linux, Mac, BSD, Solaris, AIX, OS2	wxPython, wxLua, wxRuby, more...
88 Qt	Free / paid	UNIX/Unix-like (X11, Wayland), macOS, Windows, Windows UWP, Android, IOS/tvOS/watchOS, WebAssembly, Haiku	C++, Python, QML
76 Avalonia	Free	Windows, Linux, Mac, Pi, Android, iOS	C#, .NET, XAML
-- NanoGUI	Free	-	-
-- Agar	Free	Windows, Linux, Mac, BSD	-

wxWidgets

Top Pro

Mature

wxWidgets was started in 1992 by Julian Smart. See More

Top Con

Android port not totally usable yet

See WxAndroid. See More

SharpLelwani's Experience

I use wxForm Builder selecting Lua Language as output and run the Code using wxLua. The Code can be debugged easily on ZeroBrane, which supports wxLua in Windows, MAC and Ubuntu See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Linux, Mac, BSD, Solaris, AIX, OS2

Popular Language Bindings:wxPython, wxLua, wxRuby, more...

Top Pro

Can do custom control rendering

You can make a custom renderer using the class wxDelegateRendererNative to draw directly any standard control or using the class BackgroundWindow to use any bitmap as a control background. See More

Top Con

LGPL

Not viable for use in many commercial applications. See More

DiplomaticElegua's Experience

I have used wxWidgets in some complex programs and it became easy to master, I use wxFormBuilder to generate a basic GUI code and then I start to customize. Custom rendering can be tricky but I can use SVG designs and render it in my custom controls so I do can get fancy looks. I also made a wxImageButton that can use any supported image with proper scaling, now it can use SVG files too. See More

Top Pro

Open source

wxWidgets can be used for free or commercial projects, at no cost. See More

Top Con

Uses GTK on X11

WxWidgets uses GTK+ on X11 desktop which well known for looking like an alien on non GTK+ desktops. See More

DecisiveBragi's Experience

Lightweight framework. Native looks. Standart c++. See More

Top Pro

Forms designers

Several forms designers, like wxFormBuilder, are available. See More

Top Con

Has slightly heavy compiled result

IndustriousBarnumbirr's Experience

Using it with Python. See More

Top Pro

Truly native look and feel

It uses the platform's native API rather than emulating the GUI. See More

Top Con

Written in C++

DebonairMinawara's Experience

Awesome framework, very well documented, rich features, more or less easy to use, and similar to MFC. See More

Top Pro

Designer

A very nice designer: wxCrafter. Free for non-commercial use/evaluation phase (without time expiration). Highly recommended if you plan to use wxWidgets. See More

Top Pro

Perfect combination: wxFormBuilder + ZeroBrane (wxLua)

Lua Language can provide extra high level scripting See More

Top Pro

Can use Qt on X11

WxQt is available on X11. See More

35 Other Options Considered

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

DecisiveFaunus's Experience

I have completed successful products with it See More

Specs

Platforms:UNIX/Unix-like (X11, Wayland), macOS, Windows, Windows UWP, Android, IOS/tvOS/watchOS, WebAssembly, Haiku

Popular Language Bindings:C++, Python, QML

Mobile targets:Android, Tizen, IOS/tvOS/watchOS, 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

ReceptiveNephthys's Experience

Its a fair framework but there isn't much reason to use it for non FOSS projects. 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

Bloat

Huge dependency requirements for target system (sometimes in excess of 1.5GB). Cannot bundle libraries due to licensing issues. See More

InventiveErnmas's Experience

Qt is no longer a c++ framework but a javascript framework. See More

Top Pro

Bindings for Python and other languages

Top Con

Few community widgets available

smit patil's Experience

A complete FrameWork See More

Top Pro

Great integration

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

Top Con

Limited SVG support

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

ResponsibleMomus's Experience

I develop medical equipment, using a Linux SBC, Qt is perfect for the job. 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

Top Con

GUI Render

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

LovelyTitias's Experience

Detailed documents and continuous upgrades keeps my application stay secure. 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 Con

Poor Mac OS support

There are many issues. See More

DazzlingKulullu's Experience

very complete framwork (all in one) 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

GutsyEleos's Experience

Well designed framework for everything. See More

Top Pro

Stable

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

Mobile support

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

Open-source

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

PRO IDE QtCreator

Qt offers a free IDE for development named QtCreator. It offers all required tools for progessional software development not only in C++. It supports natively CMake based projects (one of the most used build system) and can import complete build environment from the build cache. It can be used with non-Qt-GUI / non-GUI projects with the same full language (and framework) support as with Qt-based projects. See More

Avalonia

Add Video or Image

Top Pro

Consistent UI on all platforms

Top Con

No low level backend

3d application support minimal See More

CapableSarakka's Experience

Used it for a few Open Source projects. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Linux, Mac, Pi, Android, iOS

Popular Language Bindings:C#, .NET, XAML

Mobile targets:Android, iOS

Top Pro

Open source

Top Con

Beta

Still in beta status. See More

CharmingNingal's Experience

Iv used this for several commercial and open source applications. It is now stable enough for production use. Paid support is also available for those who need it. Free support is available in the community. Large community and plenty of open source controls available. See More

Top Pro

Write once, run everywhere

DignifiedResheph's Experience

A huge improvement over WPF and UWP, Can run practically everywhere and compile everywhere too! See More

Top Pro

Native OS Integrations

Top Pro

Any look and feel possible

Top Pro

UI designer plugin

A User Interface designer plugin for Visual Studio can be downloaded from the Visual Studio Marketplace. See More

Top Pro

Easy to work with

Top Pro

What you see is what you get

Agar

Add Video or Image

Top Pro

Easy to work with

SophisticatedFukurokuju's Experience

If you're comfortable working in C, Agar is very easy to pick up, much easier than GTK and Qt IMO. It's a complicated codebase, but if you need to add a feature or otherwise hack on the library itself, it's put together in a pretty consistent and sensible way. The maintainer is very friendly and helpful if you talk to him on IRC. Also if you don't like the look, it does have a theming system, though it's still pretty rudimentary. I used this for a visualization tool in an academic setting/research project and found it to be a good fit for that purpose. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Linux, Mac, BSD

Top Pro

Libraries

Libraries included for mathematics, networking, vector graphics etc. There is also a beta library for audio. See More

OrganizedGefjun's Experience

Nice looking See More

Top Pro

Beautiful and easy to use

Tk

Top Pro

Great for beginners

Easy to pick up and run with it. See More

Top Con

Base looks are garbage without a good amount of styling

Going with the base look for your app is a bad idea because it looks like garbage with the defaults. See More

RickZeeland's Experience

Tk is a graphical user interface toolkit, it is the standard GUI not only for Tcl, but for many other dynamic languages, and can produce rich, native applications that run unchanged across Windows, Mac OS X, Linux and more. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Linux, Unix, Mac

Popular Language Bindings:Tcl Python

Current stable version:8.6

Top Pro

Easy and good looking in Mac, Linux and Windows

Top Con

C# support lacking

Although the Eagle Project exists, which offers Mono and .NET Core support, C# support is not standard. See More

Top Pro

Bindings for several languages

Bindings for Python, C, C++, Ruby, Perl, Go, Java, Haskell and more, see Languages with a Tk binding. See More

Top Pro

Easy styling

Once you understand how to style, the styling can look great. See More

nuklear

Add Video or Image

Top Pro

A single-header ANSI C gui library

Top Con

Very limited documentation

Top Pro

Small codebase (~18kLOC)

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

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

Top Pro

MIT/Public Domain License

Top Pro

Bindings for popular languages

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

Top Pro

Fully skinnable and customizable

Top Pro

Focus on portability, efficiency and simplicity

Top Pro

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

Kivy

Add Video or Image

Top Pro

Kv design language

Kv design language is designed to work well with scalable graphical user interfaces (GUIs) as one of its primary focuses. It also segregates the logic from the design elements, making them easier to visually distinguish from each other. See More

Top Con

Documentation & examples are terrible

Terrible documentation & not too many resources can be found. See More

ReceptiveNephthys's Experience

Just was not fun developing this, trying to install it is impossible if you haven't before, documentation is garbage, and when you do learn it it is just not great. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Linux, Mac, iOS, Android, Pi

Top Pro

Multitouch gestures

Top Con

Very difficult to deploy to various platforms, like Android

Godot

Top Pro

Outstanding toolkit for building GUI applications, not only games

Godot editor is made in Godot engine itself - "eat your own dog food" approach. See here. See More

Top Con

Primarily supports own proprietary language (GD Script)

While it's very accessible, and if you know Python you'll pick it up fast, having to learn a new language to fully make use of the platform can be a bit discouraging. And for those learning to code as well as learning Godot for the first time, many would rather learn a language they can 'take with them' when they explore other platforms in the future. See More

Top Pro

Comprehensive tooling

In addition to the scene editor and the script editor (with debugger), the engine also provides a tile map editor, an animation editor (not just for rigs), a performance monitor, a network profiler, and an audio bus console. See More

Top Pro

Engine is yours

There is no royalty and the game you made + engine itself is yours. See More

Top Pro

Easy to get involved

No need to learn anything with node, you can build a game without typing a line of code + has visual scripting. See More

Top Pro

Friendly towards Version Control Systems

The engine is build not only to support version control but to really use it. Scene files for example which usually get compiled into some sort of unreadable data stay in a text format - that way you can actually see your changes in a version control system like Git. See More

Top Pro

Easily expanded scripting system

With 3.0's addition of NativeScript and PluginScript via GDNative, developers can easily define bindings for new scripting languages. In addition to the primarily supported C++, GDScript, VisualScript, and C# languages, the community has contributed D, Nim, and Python as well with more on the way. See More

Top Pro

Creating editor tools is a breeze

Godot Engine is itself a Godot game. By adding the "tool" keyword to the top of a script, you can design extensions for the editor itself INSIDE the editor. Integrating these editor scripts into a bundled plugin for sharing is extremely easy to do. See More

Top Pro

Easy to learn scripting language

Godot has their own scripting language called GDScript. The scripting language is easy to learn with Python-like syntax, but it is not Python. It's very powerful, easy to learn, and it's free of unnecessary things because it was custom built for optimized integration with the Godot Engine. It can be used to add custom behaviors to any object by extending it with scripting, using the built-in editor with syntax highlighting and code completion. A built-in debugger with breakpoints and stepping can be used and graphs for possible bottlenecks can be checked. See More

Top Pro

Really good community

The community is great and really cares about the engine. It is easy to get help and to be part of Godot's future. See More

Top Pro

Drag & drop interface

Many parts of the editor allow you to drag & drop, which makes working with assets and scene trees a joy. See More

Top Pro

Editor and runtime are fully cross-platform

You can run Godot on all 3 major operating systems (Windows/Mac/Linux) and build your game to all available platforms from each without any platform-specific work needed. All platforms including Linux are supported first class. See More

Top Pro

Under constant development

This engine barely released one year ago has more than 1000 forks on github and about 100 developers. Not only that just a bit of browsing trough issues you will quickly find out the dev community loves new esp free technology and does not shy away from completely rewriting parts of the engine. The audio engine is being completely rewritten to use threads and so forth. See More

Top Pro

Free and open source

Godot is licensed under MIT license. Anyone can grab the source from here, and compile the engine themselves. See More

Top Pro

Unified game editor interface

All the game development work is done inside one program: the engine editor. The scripting is done in the same program. No need for Eclipse or other front-end editors. See More

Top Pro

Can be deployed to multiple platforms

Deploy games to desktops (Windows/OS X/Linux), smartphones (iOS/Android/BlackBerry), and the web (HTML5 via Emscripten). See More

Top Pro

Lightweight

The executable is portable and less than 40 MB in size. See More

Top Pro

Integrated animation editor

Every property can be animated. See More

GTK+

Add Video or Image

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

Sucks for traditional applications

GTK3 added CSD widgets and added a lot of paddings to make widgets bigger for touchscreen use, GTK4 also even removed Menubar and Toolbar widgets. See More

NobleErsa's Experience

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

Top Con

No menuicons or mnemonics

Gtk3 has removed the support of icons and mnemonics making navigating menus just terrible for the use with a keyboard. Sure there are some hacks to make them working again but they will never work as they did/do work in Windows, GTK2 or QT. See More

WorthyXolotl's Experience

Nice API and lightweight See More

Top Pro

Working with GTK focused Vala is great

Vala is made to make GTK easy [as well as for other things] and it really does, and makes it easier than working with C/C++, Python, or any other, See More

Top Con

Terrible integration

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

Top Con

Promotes Wayland as the standard X11 server on Unix

Lets face it, Wayland is not a replacement for XORG since Wayland works currently only in GNOME and there are many issues. Some desktops and window managers will never get ported to Wayland and it is not available to all Unix and Unix-like systems. X11 on the other hand is available for almost everything, so it will be available for the next decade or even longer. See More

ReceptiveNephthys's Experience

I have to say when I make GNOME focused applications it is fantastic, One problem, it looks super alien on anything non-GNOME based. If the desktop isn't GTK based it looks bad, which included Windows as will not work, but looks GREAT on most Linux distributions. See More

Java / Swing

Add Video or Image

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

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

Only for JRE-based languages

Top Pro

Powerful controls

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

Top Con

Severely deprecated

The system is ancient and Oracle has dropped support for it in favor of JavaFX See More

Top Pro

Very good and powerful API

E.g. separate models. See More

Top Con

Bugfixes rely on Oracle

Top Pro

Easy to use

Drag and drop utility. See More

Top Pro

Several look and feels available

Haxe

Add Video or Image

Specs

Platforms:Web, iOS, Android, Blackberry, Windows, OSX, Linux

Supported languages:C++, C#, Java, Javascript, PHP, Lua, Python, Actionscript

FLTK

Top Pro

Simplicity

It's simple design and lack of more advanced C++ features makes it easy for beginners. See More

Top Con

Can be too simple for some projects

FLTK offers far fewer widgets than most other toolkits. See More

PleasantMnevis's Experience

FLTK is an excellent cross-platform ui toolkit, very small but extremely stable and well designed. The widgets are simple but easy to customize, and the speed is truly excellent. While most widgets are not native, FLTK provides a seamless interface to native file choosers on all platforms, which goes a long way towards making the resulting apps familiar to new users. We have been using FLTK in a large application for more than 10 years, and the app works beautifully on Windows, masOS and Linux/Unix. Really top-notch. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Linux, Mac

Languages:C++, Haskell, Rust, Ruby, Lua, Perl, Python

Top Pro

Lightweight

Uses a limited and lightweight design and restricts itself to solely GUI functionality. Because of this restriction, the FLTK hello world example is only about 100 KiB. See More

Top Con

Does not look like a native application

Because it uses non-native widgets, it doesn't look like a native application on any platform. See More

ReceptiveNephthys's Experience

For me FLTK has use, and is good for most workflows but I have to say stay away. it is good but not good enough, doesn't look native and is extremely hard because it is so simple. It is too simple. See More

Top Pro

Fast

Well-designed widgets, coded with careful attention to rendering/execution speed. See More

Top Pro

Stable

FLTK code developed more than 10 years ago still compiles and runs perfectly, without changes. See More

Top Pro

GUI designer

Fast Light User-Interface Designer (FLUID) included. See More

Flutter

Add Video or Image

Top Pro

Great developer tools debug/hotreload/analyser

Top Con

Still in development

According to the website, Flutter is still in its early stages of development. See More

FerventCymopoleia's Experience

because it's new, there isn't a lot plugins. See More

Specs

Mobile targets:Android and iOS

Dev platforms:Windows, Mac and Linux

Desktop targets:announced Windows

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

CaffeinatedMeili's Experience

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

Top Pro

Open source

Top Con

Dart is unpopular and never gained serious community traction like Kotlin or Java

Top Pro

A single codebase for iOS AND Android

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