What are the best cross-platform GUI toolkits?

Question

32

Options
Considered

784

User
Recs.

Aug 1, 2020

Last
Updated

Here’s the Deal

The Best 1 of 30 OptionsWhy?

Best cross-platform GUI toolkits	Price	Platforms	Popular Language Bindings
92 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
-- Avalonia	Free	Windows, Linux, Mac, Android, iOS	C#, .NET, XAML
-- Agar	Free	Windows, Linux, Mac, BSD	-
-- Quasar Framework	-	Windows, Linux, Mac, Web	-

See Full List

29 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

ResponsibleMomus's Experience

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

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

ReceptiveNephthys's Experience

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

InventiveErnmas's Experience

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

Open-source

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

Top Con

Poor Mac OS support

There are many issues 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

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

Bindings for Python and other languages

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

See All

Avalonia

Top Pro

Consistent UI on all platforms

CapableSarakka's Experience

Used it for a few Open Source projects. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Linux, Mac, Android, iOS

Popular Language Bindings:C#, .NET, XAML

Top Pro

Open source

DignifiedResheph's Experience

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

Top Pro

Write once, run everywhere

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

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

Also good IDE support. See More

See All

Agar

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

See All

Kivy

Top Con

Documentation & examples are terrible

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

Top Pro

Multitouch gestures

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

License:MIT

Top Con

Very difficult to deploy to various platforms, like Android.

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

See All

nuklear

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)

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

Very good and powerful API

E.g. separate models. See More

Top Con

Bugfixes rely on Oracle

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 Pro

Easy to use

Drag and drop utility. See More

Top Pro

Several look and feels available

See All

GTK+

Top Con

Terrible Integration

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

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

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

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Linux, Mac

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

NobleErsa's Experience

yes 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

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

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

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

Languages:Dart

Top Pro

A single codebase for iOS AND Android

Top Con

Still in development

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

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

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

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

See All

Tk

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 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

Top Pro

Easy Styling

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

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

Great for beginners

Easy to pick up and run with it. See More

See All

Haxe

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

Price:Free, Open Source

Site:https://haxe.org/

Current stable version:4.0.3

NanoGUI

Add Video or Image

FLTK

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

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

Top Pro

Fast

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

Simplicity

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

Top Pro

GUI designer

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

Top Pro

Stable

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

Electron

Top Con

Needs to run Chromium

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

Top Pro

Excellent

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

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

Healthy community

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

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

Active development

Electron receives updates frequently (multiple times each month). For example, the recent updates (as of July 15, 2016) are: 1.2.6 (released July 6) 1.2.5 (released June 23) 1.2.4 (released June 22) 1.2.3 (released June 16) 1.2.2 (released June 8) See More

Top Con

Each new window requires a new Chrome instance

So only suited for simple applications. 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

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 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

Hard System integration

Someone put the con "No system integration" and that is very close but when/if you do get there it was simply not worth it. Unless you are making a web-app system like Discord, or Slack, I do not recommend it. Anything valuable made with it requires a lot more JavaScript or external files, or using TypeScript to boost it and better connect it to the system [i.e. VSCode]. In the end not worth it. See More

Top Con

High CPU Usage

Electron Has High CPU Usage See More

Top Con

Huge executable size

At least a few hundred MB See More

Top Con

Destroys Available Memory

Other than that, it's ok because it is noob-friendly since you only need to know HTML/Javascript and what not, but the memory usage and needing an absolute minimum of 2 processes to run (Helper Process) is just unacceptable. Maybe if you have at least 16 gigs of ram then it aint so bad but not when trying to multitask on 8 gigs. This is one of the easier ways to get a good-looking app however and not something that looks like it came from Windows 98... See More

Top Con

Needs to run chromium

Runs chromium in the background which consumes a lot of resources. 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

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score 102 · Accepted Answer

wxWidgets

Top Pro

Mature

wxWidgets was started in 1992 by Julian Smart. 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

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

Specs

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

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

Top Pro

Open source

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

Top Con

Android port not totally usable yet

See WxAndroid. See More

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

Has slightly heavy compiled result

DecisiveBragi's Experience

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

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

Forms designers

Several forms designers, like wxFormBuilder, are available. 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

See All

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The Best 1 of 30 OptionsWhy?

My Recommendation for wxWidgets

My Recommendation for wxWidgets

Mature

Uses GTK on X11

Open source

Android port not totally usable yet

Truly native look and feel

Has slightly heavy compiled result

Can do custom control rendering

Written in C++

Forms designers

Designer

29 Other Options Considered

My Recommendation for Qt

My Recommendation for Qt

Mature and rich library

Expensive licence for non-open source developers

It looks great

Non-standard C++ features

Good documentation

Few community widgets available

Great integration

Limited SVG support

Global community

GUI Render

Open-source

Poor Mac OS support

Event handling is very simple

Best documentation of any development platform

Stable

Mobile support

Bindings for Python and other languages

My Recommendation for Avalonia

My Recommendation for Avalonia

Consistent UI on all platforms

Open source

Write once, run everywhere

Native OS Integrations

Any look and feel possible

UI designer plugin

Easy to work with

My Recommendation for Agar

My Recommendation for Agar

Easy to work with

Libraries

Beautiful and easy to use

My Recommendation for Quasar Framework

My Recommendation for Quasar Framework

Developed by a single person

Designed from the outset for desktop & mobile

Uses Vue.js 2.0

My Recommendation for Kivy

My Recommendation for Kivy

Documentation & examples are terrible

Multitouch gestures

Very difficult to deploy to various platforms, like Android.

Kv design language

My Recommendation for nuklear

My Recommendation for nuklear

A single-header ANSI C gui library

Very limited documentation

Small codebase (~18kLOC)

No input or output implementation provided

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

MIT/Public Domain License

Bindings for popular languages

Fully skinnable and customizable

Focus on portability, efficiency and simplicity

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

My Recommendation for Java / Swing

My Recommendation for Java / Swing

Only for JRE-based languages

Part of Java

No real native look

Very good and powerful API

Bugfixes rely on Oracle

Powerful controls

Easy to use

Several look and feels available