List of widget toolkits

This article provides a list of widget toolkits (also known as GUI frameworks), used to construct the graphical user interface (GUI) of programs, organized by their relationships with various operating systems.

Low-level widget toolkits

Integrated in the operating system

• OS X uses Cocoa. Mac OS9 and OS X use Carbon for 32-bit applications.
• The Windows API used in Microsoft Windows. Microsoft had the graphics functions integrated in the kernel until 2006^[1]
• The Haiku operating system uses an extended and modernised version of the Be API that was used by its spiritual predecessor BeOS. Haiku Inc. is expected to drop binary and source compatibility with the BeOS at some point in the future, which will result in its own Haiku API.

As a separate layer on top of the operating system

• The X Window System contains primitive building blocks, called Xt or "Intrinsics", but they are mostly only used by older toolkits such as: OLIT, Motif and Xaw. Most contemporary toolkits, such as GTK+ or Qt, bypass them and use Xlib or XCB directly.
• The Amiga OS Intuition was formerly present in the Amiga Kickstart ROM and integrated itself with a medium-high level widget library which invoked the Workbench Amiga native GUI. Since Amiga OS 2.0, Intuition.library became disk based and object oriented. Also Workbench.library and Icon.library became disk based, and could be replaced with similar third-party solutions.
• Since 2005, Microsoft has taken the graphics system out of Windows' kernel.^[2]

High-level widget toolkits

Widget toolkit comparison table

Toolkit name	Windows	OS X	Unix-like	Programming language	License
Qt	Yes	Yes	Yes	C++	LGPL, commercial
MFC	Yes	No	No	C++	Proprietary
OWL (superseded by VCL)	Yes	No	No	C++ (Borland C++)	Proprietary
VCL (supersedes OWL)	Yes	No	No	Object Pascal (Delphi)	Proprietary
WTL	Yes	No	No	C++	Microsoft Public License
LCL	Yes	Yes	Yes	Object Pascal (Free Pascal)	LGPL
LessTif	No	No	Yes	C	LGPL
GTK+	Yes	Yes	Yes	C	LGPL
FLTK	Yes	Yes	Yes	C++	LGPL
Fox toolkit	Yes	No	Yes	C++	LGPL
Nana C++	Yes	No	Yes	C++	Boost license
wxWidgets	Yes	Yes	Yes	C++	WxWindows license
SmartWin++	Yes	No	No	C++	BSD
TnFOX	Yes	Yes	Yes	C++	LGPL
Ultimate++	Yes	No	Yes	C++	BSD
Rogue Wave Views	Yes	No	Yes	C++	proprietary
CEGUI	Yes	Yes	Yes	C++	MIT
Game-GUI	Yes	No	No	C++	MIT
IUP	Yes	Yes	Yes	C	MIT
Shoes (GUI toolkit)	cross-platform			Ruby	MIT
AWT	cross-platform			Java
Swing	cross-platform			Java
Pivot (WTK)	cross-platform			Java	Apache License
GNUstep	Yes	Yes	Yes	Objective-C	LGPL
Juce	Yes	Yes	Yes	C++	GPL, commercial
Cocoa	No	Yes	No	Objective-C	Proprietary
Elementary	Yes	Yes	Yes	C	LGPL, BSD

OS dependent

On Amiga

• BOOPSI (Basic Object Oriented Programming System for Intuition) was introduced with OS 2.0 and enhanced Intuition with a system of classes in which every class represents a single widget or describes an interface event. This led to an evolution in which third-party developers each realised their own personal systems of classes.
• MUI: object-oriented GUI toolkit and the official toolkit for MorphOS.
• Zune (GUI toolkit) is an open source clone of MUI and the official toolkit for AROS.

On Macintosh

• Cocoa - used in OS X (see also Aqua).
• MacApp Macintosh framework.
• MacZoop Macintosh C++ framework.
• PowerPlant Macintosh framework.

On Microsoft Windows

• The Microsoft Foundation Classes (MFC), a C++ wrapper around the Windows API.
• The Windows Template Library (WTL), a template-based extension to ATL and a replacement of MFC
• SmartWin++, an MFC/WTL replacement using templates based on STL and Boost
• The Object Windows Library, Borland's alternative to MFC.
• The Visual Component Library (VCL) is Borland's toolkit used in its C++ Builder and Delphi products.
• Windows Forms is .NET's set of classes that handle GUI controls. In the cross-platform Mono implementation, it is an independent toolkit, implemented entirely in managed code (not wrapping the Windows API, which doesn't exist on other platforms).^[3]
• The Windows Presentation Foundation is the graphical subsystem of the .NET Framework 3.0. User interfaces can be created in WPF using any of the CLR languages (e.g. C#) or with the XML-based language XAML. Microsoft Expression Blend is a visual GUI builder for WPF.

On Unix, under the X Window System

Note that the X Window System was originally primarily for Unix-like operating systems, but it now runs on Microsoft Windows as well using, for example, Cygwin, so some or all of these toolkits can also be used under Windows.

• InterViews, a toolkit written in C++.
• LessTif, an open source (LGPL) version of Motif.
• MoOLIT, a bridge between the look-and-feel or OPEN LOOK and Motif
• Motif used in the Common Desktop Environment.
• OLIT, an Xt-based OPEN LOOK intrinsics toolkit
• Xaw, the Project Athena widget set for the X Window System.
• XView, a SunView compatible OPEN LOOK toolkit

Cross-platform

Based on C (including bindings to other languages)

• Elementary, open source (LGPL), a part of the Enlightenment Foundation Libraries, a fast, stable, and scalable library that can be used to create both rich and fast applications that can be used on anything from every day desktop computers to small PDA's and set-top boxes.
• GTK+, open source (LGPL), primarily for the X Window System, ported to and emulated under other platforms; used in the GNOME, Rox, LXDE and Xfce desktop environments. The Windows port has support for native widgets.
• IUP, open source (MIT), a minimalist GUI toolkit in ANSI C for Windows, UNIX and Linux.
• Tk, open source (BSD-style), a widget set accessed from Tcl and other high-level script languages (interfaced in Python as Tkinter).
• XForms, the Forms Library for X
• XVT, Extensible Virtual Toolkit
• libui, Simple and portable (but not inflexible) GUI library in C

Based on C++ (including bindings to other languages)

• CEGUI, open source (MIT License), cross-platform widget toolkit designed for game development, but also usable for applications and tool development. Supports multiple renderers and optional libraries.
• FLTK, open source (LGPL), cross-platform toolkit designed to be small and fast.
• FOX toolkit, open source (LGPL), cross-platform toolkit.
• GLUI, a very small toolkit written with the GLUT library.
• gtkmm, C++ version of GTK+
• Juce provides GUI and widget set with the same look and feel in Microsoft Windows, X Window Systems, OS X and Android. Rendering can be based on OpenGL.
• Nana C++, open source (Boost license), a cross-platform toolkit designed to enable modern C++ GUI programming
• Qt, commercial and open source (GPL, LGPL) available under Unix and Linux (with X11 or Wayland), MS Windows (Desktop, CE and Phone 8), OS X, iOS, Android, BlackBerry 10 and embedded Linux; used in the KDE, Trinity, LXQt, and Lumina desktop environment, it's also used in Ubuntu's Unity shell.
• Rogue Wave Views (formerly ILOG Views) provides GUI and graphic library for Windows and the main X11 platforms.
• TnFOX, open source (LGPL), a portability toolkit.
• Ultimate++ is a free Win32/X11 application framework bundled with an IDE (BSD license)
• The Visual Component Framework (VCF) is an open source (BSD license) C++ framework project.
• wxWidgets (formerly wxWindows), open source (relaxed LGPL), abstracts toolkits across several platforms for C++, Python, Perl, Ruby and Haskell.
• YAAF, open source (YAAF Open Source License), designed to facilitate creating cross-platform applications.
• Zinc Application Framework, cross-platform widget toolkit.

Based on OpenGL

• GLUI (LGPL) is a GLUT-based C++ user interface library which provides controls such as buttons, checkboxes, radio buttons, and spinners to OpenGL applications.
• Clutter (LGPL) (in C) is an open source software library for creating fast, visually rich and animated graphical user interfaces.
• TouchWidgets GL is an Objective C, OpenGL and GLUT based UI library that offers animation.

Based on Flash

• Adobe Flash allows creating widgets running in most web browsers and in several mobile phones.
• Adobe Flex provides high-level widgets for building web user interfaces. Flash widgets can be used in Flex.
• Flash and Flex widgets will run without a web browser in the Adobe AIR runtime environment.
• Independent software vendors propose to embed the flash application into an executable: MDM Zinc, mProjector and more. Those solutions are cross-platform (depending on the vendors solution).

Based on XML

• GladeXML with GTK+
• XAML with Silverlight or Moonlight
• XML User Interface A Java and XML toolkit for building rich Internet applications.
• XUL

Based on JavaScript

General

• Acid.JS
• AJAX Calendar.NET developer control
• Backbase Enterprise Ajax Framework
• Cappuccino
• jQuery UI
• MooTools
• Qooxdoo Could be understood as Qt for the Web
• Script.aculo.us

RIAs

• Adobe AIR
• DHTMLX
• Dojo Toolkit
• Sencha (formerly Ext JS)
• Telerik Kendo UI
• TIBCO General Interface, a rich set of GUI components that include vector charts and is now also available through an open source BSD license
• Webix
• WinJS
• React

Full-stack framework

• Echo3
• SmartClient
• SproutCore
• Telerik UI for ASP/PHP/JSP/Silverlight
• UIZE JavaScript Framework
• Vaadin - Java
• ZK - A Java Web framework for building rich Ajax and mobile applications

Resource-based

• Google Web Toolkit
• Pyjamas
• FBML －Facebook Markup Language
• Web Application Markup Language

No longer developed

• Ample SDK
• Cooee
• Rialto Toolkit
• YUI (Yahoo! User Interface Library)

Based on SVG

• Raphaël is a JavaScript toolkit for SVG interfaces and animations

Based on .NET

• Gtk#, C# wrappers around the underlying GTK+ and GNOME libraries, written in C and available on Linux, MacOS and Windows.
• Windows Forms. There is an original Microsoft's implementation that is a wrapper around the Windows API and runs on windows, and Mono's alternative implementation that is cross platform.
• Xwt, Mono's toolkit that maps API calls to native platform calls of the underlying platform. In this way it exposes one unified API across different platforms and makes possible for the graphical user interfaces to have native look and feel on different platforms. Runs on Linux, MacOS and Windows.
• MonoMac, allows access to MacOS X APIs from C#, including the AppKit GUI APIs.
• QtSharp, a C# wrapper around Qt.

Based on Java

• The Abstract Window Toolkit (AWT) is Sun Microsystems' original widget toolkit for Java applications. It typically uses another toolkit on each platform on which it runs.
• Swing is a richer widget toolkit supported since J2SE 1.2 as a replacement for AWT widgets. Swing is a lightweight toolkit, meaning it does not rely on native widgets.
• Apache Pivot is an open-source platform for building rich web applications in Java or any JVM-compatible language, and relies on the WTK widget toolkit.
• JavaFX and FXML.
• The Standard Widget Toolkit (SWT) is a native widget toolkit for Java that was developed as part of the Eclipse project. SWT uses a standard toolkit for the running platform (such as the Windows API, OS X Cocoa, or GTK+) underneath.
• Qt Jambi, the official Java binding to Qt from Trolltech. The commercial support and development has stopped^[4]

Based on Object Pascal

• IP Pascal uses a graphics library built on top of standard language constructs. Also unusual for being a procedural toolkit that is cross-platform (no callbacks or other tricks), and is completely upward compatible with standard serial input and output paradigms. Completely standard programs with serial output can be run and extended with graphical constructs.
• Lazarus LCL (for Pascal, Object Pascal and Delphi via Free Pascal compiler), a class library wrapping GTK+ 1.2, Gtk+ 2.x and the Windows API (Carbon, Windows CE and Qt4 support are all in development).
• fpGUI is created with the Free Pascal compiler. It doesn't rely on any large 3rdParty libraries and currently runs on Linux, Windows and Windows CE. A Carbon (OS X) port is underway.
• CLX (Component Library for Cross-platform), used with Borland's Delphi, C++ Builder, and Kylix, for producing cross-platform applications. It is based on Qt, wrapped in such a way that its programming interface is similar to that of the VCL toolkit.

Based on Ada

• RAPID is the Rapid Ada Portable Interface Design tool. Current implementations utilize the TASH binding to Tcl/Tk, the GNAT to JVM compiler, the Microsoft .NET Framework, or GtkAda.
• GWindows is a GUI framework that mostly supports Windows development, but also has incomplete implementations for OS X and Linux.
• QtAda, the official Ada binding to Qt.

Based on Objective-C

• GNUstep
• Cocoa
• newSTEP
• TouchWidgets

Based on Eiffel

• EiffelVision is a cross-platform, object-oriented framework for graphical user interface development.

Based on Ruby

• Shoes (GUI toolkit) is a cross platform framework for graphical user interface development.

Not yet categorised

• WINGs
• LiveCode
• Wt

Comparison of widget toolkits

Toolkit	Initial release	Latest release	Main language	Bindings	Tools	License	Pros	Cons	Back-end
Agar [5]	2005	2011	C			BSD	portable, unique across platforms, fast, low-level	no property grid
Xaw, Athena	1983		C
AWT	1995		Java				portable
CEGUI	December 2004	0.8.5 (March 12, 2016) [±][6]	C++	Python,[7] Lua (using tolua++)[8]	CEED[9]	MIT License	Free license, fast, cross-platform, portable, free GUI editing tool
Clutter	2006		C	Perl, Python, C#, C++, Vala, Ruby		LGPL	GTK+ and WebKit embedding
Elementary	2007 (EFL: 2001)	2011	C	JavaScript, Python, Vala, C++	editje, edje	LGPL	Portable, stable, fast, finger-friendly
FLTK	1998		C++	Python (pyFLTK), Perl (FLTK.pm), Ruby (Ruby/FLTK), Tcl (Tcl Fltk), Guile (guile-fltk), Eiffel (IFLTK)	FLUID (Fast Light UI Designer)	LGPL (with an exception that allows static linking)	fast, small enough to static link	limited widget selection
FOX	1997		C++	Ruby (FXRuby), Python (FXPy), Eiffel (EiffelFox)			consistent across platforms	non-native look and feel
GLUI			C++
GNUstep	1994	2010	Objective-C	Java, Ruby, Scheme	Gorm (computing)	GPL for the apps, LGPL for the libs			X11
GTK+	1997	3.22.5 (December 9, 2016) [±]	C	C++ (gtkmm), Perl (Gtk2-perl), Ruby (ruby-gtk2), Python (PyGTK), Haskell (Gtk2Hs), Java (java-gnome) (not available for Microsoft Windows), C# (Gtk#), PHP (PHP-GTK), Ada (GTKAda), D (gtkD), FreeBasic (GladeToBac), Go (go-gtk), OCaml (lablgtk), JavaScript (Gjs, Seed), Fortran (gtk-fortran), Lua (lua-lgi), R (RGtk2) and others via GTK-server	Glade	LGPL	Portable, free license	Partly native only.[10][11]
IUP	1992	2011[12]	C	Lua (IupLua)[13]	LEDC: a compiler for LED	MIT	Portable, lightweight, use the native API, native look&feel, free licence	Non‑Unicode (only plain ASCII) [14]
KWWidgets			C++	Tcl/Tk, Python	VisualStudio, gcc	BSD	portable
Motif, Lesstif	1980s		C		BX Pro
MWT Multi-Platform Widget Toolkit	2000-11-15	2009-10-20	C/C++	Ruby, Perl, Python, Java, Objective Caml	WideStudio Application Builder, Eclipse/NAB	MIT License	very portable, many language bindings (incl. embedded systems)
Nana C++	2007	1.2.2 (December 8, 2015) [±][15]	C++		VisualStudio, Dev-C++, Code::Blocks, GCC		portable, lightweight, modern C++ style
NTK	2012	2012	C++			LGPL	Free license, portable, stable, fast
Qt	1991	5.7.0 (June 16, 2016) [±][16]	C++	Ruby (QtRuby), Python (PyQt, PySide, PythonQt), Ada (QtAda), c# ( Qyoto), Java (Qt Jambi), Pascal ( FreePascal Qt4 ), Perl (Perl Qt4), PHP(PHP-Qt), Haskell (Qt Haskell), Lua (lqt, QtLua), Dao ( DaoQt), Tcl ( qtcl ), Common Lisp (CommonQt), D (QtD), Harbour (hbqt)	Qt Designer, Qt Creator	GPL, LGPL.[17]	Portable, rich widget set, GUI builder, free license, stable API	Partially native only.[18][19][20]
Shoes (GUI toolkit)	2007	2010	Ruby			MIT license/Open source	Simplicity, ease of use
SWT			Java	D (DWT)	Eclipse		portable
Swing	1996		Java		Eclipse, NetBeans	GPL for OpenJDK	Portable (Java), advanced widgets, GUI builders
Tk	1991	2015	C, Tcl	Ruby (RubyTk), Python (Tkinter), Perl (Perl/Tk), Ada (TASH), Common Lisp (LTk), Erlang (etk), ... |		BSD	very portable, many language bindings
TouchWidgets		2015	Objective-C			LGPL for the library			OpenGL
Ultimate++	2004		C++		TheIDE	BSD	portable, NTL, free license
Rogue Wave Views	1993	2014 (5.8)	C++		ivfstudio	proprietary	portable (Windows, Unix-like), good support	commercial
VCF			C++			BSD	free license
Windows Forms			CLI languages	CLI languages	Expression, Visual Studio			portability issues, no MVC
WPF, XAML, Silverlight	2007		CLI languages	CLI languages	Expression, Visual Studio			Portability issues
MFC, WinAPI	1992		C++		Visual Studio			not portable (but Wine implements it for X Window)
ATL, WTL	2004		C++		Visual Studio			not portable
wxWidgets	1992	3.1.0 (29 February 2016) [±][21]	C++	C++ (native), Ruby (wxRuby), Python (wxPython), Perl (wxPerl), Java (wxJava, jwx!), Lua (wxLua), Tcl(wxTCL), JavaScript (GLUEscript), Smalltalk (wxSqueak), Erlang (wxErlang), Haskell (wxHaskell), C (wxC), D (wxD), .NET Framework (wxNet), Common Lisp (wxCL), Basic (wxBasic), BlitzMax (wxMax), Euphoria (wxEuphoria), Ada (wxAda), Pike (wxPike)	VisualWx, Boa Constructor, PythonCard, Spe, XRCed, wxGlade, wxFormBuilder, DialogBlocks ($), wxDesigner ($), Philasmicos Entwickler Studio	wxWindows License	Portable, rich widget set, free licence, semantic similarities to MFC make migration easy.
XUL			XML, JavaScript				portable
YAAF			C++
SmartWin++			C++
Juce	2004		C++		Jucer	GPL, commercial	Cross-platform, with additional audio plug-in wrapping tools (VST, RTAS, AAX etc.)
XVT	1989	2010	C and C++		Design for C and architect for C++	Proprietary	Cross-platform, rich widget set, C and C++ GUI builders, very stable
NUI			C++		Yapuka	GPL and proprietary
CLX			C++
InterViews			C++
VCL			Delphi
tekUI			C, Lua
Toolkit	Initial release	Latest release	Main language	Bindings	Tools	License	Pros	Cons	Back-end

See also

• List of platform-independent GUI libraries

References

1. Microsoft: MS Windows NT Kernel-mode User
2. Techworld: Microsoft to move graphics outside OS kernel
3. This version provides the core API of the .NET Framework 2.0, but its implementation of this API is still incomplete.
4. Qt Software to discontinue Qt Jambi after 4.5 release
5. http://libagar.org/
6. http://cegui.org.uk/download/cegui-085
7. http://cegui.org.uk/wiki/PyCEGUI
8. http://cegui.org.uk/wiki/Extending_your_Lua_Interface
9. http://cegui.org.uk/wiki/CEED
10. Migrating to client-side windows: “GDK looks for the GDK_NATIVE_WINDOWS environment variable and makes all windows native if it is set. It also tries to be more compatible with the way prior versions worked in some other ways.”
11. Coding Horror: Non-Native UI Sucks: “[…] has a cross-platform UI based on GTK, which produces predictably bland, least-common-denominator results:”
12. http://sourceforge.net/projects/iup/files/3.5/
13. http://www.tecgraf.puc-rio.br/iup/
14. Comparing IUP with Other Interface Toolkits: “[…] it does not have support for Unicode characters.”
15. http://www.nanapro.org/en-us/
16. Knoll, Lars (2016-06-16). "Qt 5.7 released". Qt Blog. The Qt Company. Retrieved 2016-06-16.
17. Nyström, Sebastian (14 January 2009). "Nokia to license Qt under LGPL". Retrieved 5 December 2013.
18. WxWidgets Compared To Other Toolkits: “Qt doesn't have true native ports like wxWidgets does. Qt does not use system provided widgets, but emulates it with themes. What we mean by this is that even though Qt draws them quite realistically, Qt draws its own widgets on each platform.”
19. "Qt Modular Class Library". Digia. Archived from the original on 2013-11-01. Qt uses the native graphics APIs of each platform it supports, taking full advantage of system resources and ensuring that applications have native look and feel.
20. "The Qt 4 Style API". The Qt Company. Qt's built-in widgets use [QStyle] to perform nearly all of their drawing, ensuring that they look exactly like the equivalent native widgets.
21. "wxWidgets releases". 1 March 2016. Retrieved 1 March 2016.

External links

• The GUI Toolkit, Framework Page, comparing some of the modern GUIs out there.
• Survey of Widget sets (for the X Window System) (Edward Falk)
• GUI Toolkits for The X Window System (Leslie Polzer, freshmeat.net, 27 July 2003)
• Overview of Microsoft Windows GUI libraries