wxWidgets

WxWidgets

wxWidgets is an open source widget toolkit that allows developers to create cross-platform user interfaces for desktop, mobile and embedded applications using C++. It offers native look and feel on Windows, Mac, Linux and other platforms.
wxWidgets image
crossplatform c widget-toolkit gui

wxWidgets: Cross-Platform UI Toolkit

An open source widget toolkit for creating desktop, mobile, and embedded applications with native look and feel on Windows, Mac, Linux, and other platforms.

What is WxWidgets?

wxWidgets is an open source C++ library that lets developers create graphical user interfaces (GUIs) for cross-platform applications. It enables building desktop apps for Windows, Mac, Linux and other platforms with native look and feel.

Some key features of wxWidgets include:

  • Supports a variety of popular toolkits like GTK+, Qt, Win32/CE for consistency across platforms
  • Includes an extensive set of UI controls such as buttons, menus, toolbars along with advanced controls like grids, graph controls
  • Equipped with device context classes for drawing and printing
  • Comes with features like networking, multithreading and internationalization
  • Permissive licencing allows free commercial and non-commercial use

wxWidgets enables C++ developers to use a single codebase across Windows, macOS, Linux and other platforms. This avoids having to rewrite the GUI layer and makes it easy to maintain cross-platform apps. The library also promotes native look and feel by adopting platform-standard controls.

WxWidgets Features

Features

  1. Cross-platform GUI library for C++
  2. Supports Windows, macOS, Linux, Unix and other platforms
  3. Wide range of widgets including buttons, menus, toolbars, text controls, etc
  4. Device context classes for drawing and graphics
  5. Internationalization and localization support
  6. XML-based user interface layout
  7. Bindings for other languages like Python, Perl, Ruby, etc

Pricing

  • Open Source

Pros

Native look and feel on each platform

Large user base and active development community

Permissive open source license (LGPL)

Extensive documentation and samples

Highly customizable and extensible

Cons

Steep learning curve compared to other GUI toolkits

Not as visually polished as some commercial options

Limited native support for 3D graphics

No built-in database connectivity


The Best WxWidgets Alternatives

Top Development and Gui Framework and other similar apps like WxWidgets


Qt icon

Qt

Qt is a popular cross-platform application development framework used for developing GUI (graphical user interface) and CLI (command-line interface) applications that can run on multiple operating systems such as Windows, macOS, Linux, and Unix platforms, as well as on mobile platforms like Android and iOS. It provides developers with a...
Qt image
Tkinter icon

Tkinter

Tkinter is a graphical user interface (GUI) library included with Python. It allows Python developers to create desktop applications with a graphical window, buttons, menus and other widgets. Tkinter is built on top of the Tk GUI toolkit, hence the name Tkinter.Tkinter provides a simple yet powerful way to create...
Tkinter image
PyQt icon

PyQt

PyQt is a Python binding for the Qt application framework. Qt is a popular open source widget toolkit for creating graphical user interfaces and cross-platform applications. PyQt provides a seamless integration of Qt with Python, enabling Python developers to build highly responsive graphical user interfaces easily.With PyQt, developers can utilize...
PyQt image
NoesisGUI icon

NoesisGUI

NoesisGUI is an open-source UI framework for .NET that allows developers to create cross-platform user interfaces using XML and C#. Some key features of NoesisGUI include:Uses a declarative XAML framework to define UIs, similar to WPF, UWP, and Xamarin.FormsSupports creating desktop, web, and mobile app UIs using the same code...
NoesisGUI image
Qt Creator icon

Qt Creator

Qt Creator is a powerful, cross-platform integrated development environment (IDE) designed specifically for developing applications using the Qt framework. It provides a comprehensive set of tools for Qt development, making the process of creating complex Qt applications quicker and easier.Key features of Qt Creator include:Code Editors - Advanced text editors...
Qt Creator image
Azula icon

Azula

Azula is an open-source project management and bug tracking software that can be used as an alternative to Atlassian's Jira. It has a wide range of features that help streamline agile development workflows, including:User stories, epics, tasks and subtasks to break down workCustomizable workflows for different team processesReal-time collaboration with...
Azula image
Dear ImGui icon

Dear ImGui

Dear ImGui is an immediate mode graphical user interface library for C++. It is designed to be easy to use and integrate into games or applications to create fast graphical user interfaces requiring minimal code. Some key features of Dear ImGui include:Minimal dependencies - Uses only a single header file...
Dear ImGui image
Uno Platform icon

Uno Platform

Uno Platform is an open-source UI framework that allows developers to build native mobile, desktop and web applications using C# and XAML from a single codebase.It provides a single API surface across iOS, Android, Windows, macOS and WebAssembly. Uno leverages XAML from existing Microsoft frameworks like WPF, UWP and Xamarin.Forms...
Uno Platform image
JUCE icon

JUCE

JUCE is an open-source cross-platform framework that allows developers to create desktop, mobile, embedded, and console applications with native user interfaces. It handles a lot of complex tasks and processes under the hood, enabling developers to focus on writing the actual application code.Some key features and benefits of JUCE include:Supports...
JUCE image
WxPython icon

WxPython

wxPython is an open source Python library that wraps the cross-platform wxWidgets GUI toolkit. It allows Python developers to easily create native user interfaces for desktop applications on Windows, macOS, and Linux.Some key features of wxPython include:Wraps the wxWidgets C++ library with a Python APISupports creating multi-platform GUIs that look...
WxPython image
PyGTK icon

PyGTK

PyGTK is a set of Python bindings for the GTK+ toolkit and assorted GNOME libraries, allowing you to build graphical user interfaces and applications in Python. Some key things to know about PyGTK:It provides an object-oriented interface to GTK+ that is more Pythonic and easy to use compared to other...
PyGTK image
Fox toolkit icon

Fox toolkit

Fox toolkit is an open source C++ library and UI framework for developing cross-platform desktop applications on Windows, Linux, and macOS. It includes a large set of widgets, tools, and components to build modern and lightweight user interfaces.Some of the key features of Fox toolkit include:An extensive set of UI...
Fox toolkit image
PySide icon

PySide

PySide is an open-source Python binding for the Qt cross-platform application development framework. It provides a comprehensive set of Python bindings for the Qt framework that allow Python developers to leverage the power of Qt for building desktop applications, user interfaces, and more using Python.Some key things to know about...
PySide image
FLTK icon

FLTK

FLTK (pronounced 'fulltick') is a cross-platform C++ GUI toolkit for developing desktop applications and graphical user interfaces (GUIs). It stands for Fast Light Tool Kit.Some key features of FLTK include:Lightweight, small dependency footprint, and fast performance for building responsive UIsWritten in C++ but provides bindings for other languages like Python...
Avalonia UI icon

Avalonia UI

Avalonia UI is an open source cross-platform user interface framework for building .NET desktop applications. It allows developers to create graphical user interface (GUI) apps that can run on Windows, Linux and macOS platforms using .NET Standard 2.0 and .NET technologies like XAML.Avalonia aims to integrate easily with .NET frameworks...
Avalonia UI image
Gtkmm icon

Gtkmm

gtkmm is a C++ interface for the GTK+ graphical user interface library. It allows developers to build cross-platform GUI applications in C++ using the GTK+ toolkit. Some key points about gtkmm:It wraps GTK+ objects and functions in C++ classes and methods, providing an object-oriented API for GTK+. This makes GTK+...
Gtkmm image
WxSVG icon

WxSVG

wxSVG is an open-source C++ library that allows developers to load, display and manipulate Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) files in applications built with the wxWidgets GUI toolkit. Some key features of wxSVG include:GUI components like wxSVGCanvas and wxSVGButton to render SVG images and iconsClasses to load SVG files from disk...
WxSVG image
MauiKit icon

MauiKit

MauiKit is an open-source cross-platform UI framework for building native mobile and desktop applications using C# and .NET. It allows developers to use a single shared C# codebase to target Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, and Android.MauiKit builds on top of Microsoft's .NET Multi-platform App UI (.NET MAUI) framework. It provides...
MauiKit image
IUP Portable User Interface icon

IUP Portable User Interface

IUP, which stands for Portable User Interface, is an open source graphical user interface (GUI) library written in the C programming language. It provides a set of portable widgets like buttons, lists, text fields, frames and dialogs that are designed to work across multiple operating systems including Windows, macOS, Linux,...
IUP Portable User Interface image