Here’s the Deal

GTK+ vs Prima

72 20

2 0

When comparing GTK+ vs Prima, the Slant community recommends GTK+ for most people. In the question“What are the best cross-platform GUI toolkits?” GTK+ is ranked 11th while Prima is ranked 25th. The most important reason people chose GTK+ is:

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.

Specs

PlatformsWindows, Linux, Mac

PlatformsWindows, macOS, Linux, *BSD, Solaris and others

Implemented inC, Perl

License2-Clause BSD License

Target languagePerl

Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking

Common Questions

What are the best cross-platform GUI toolkits?

GTK+

Prima

Pros

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.

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.

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,

Pro
Thorough documentation

Pro
Open source

Pro
Stable

Pro
Easy to use

Great for beginners and gurus alike.

Pro
Relatively compact codebase

167K SLOC in 2022.

Pro
Consistent look and behavior across platforms

Pro
Visual builder included

Pro
Free/gratis

Pro
BSD license

Pro
Mature

Since 2001 on CPAN website.

Ad
Cons

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.

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.

Con
Terrible integration

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

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.