GLFW VS sokol

Compare GLFW vs sokol and see what are their differences.

GLFW

A multi-platform library for OpenGL, OpenGL ES, Vulkan, window and input (by glfw)

sokol

minimal cross-platform standalone C headers (by floooh)
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GLFW sokol
78 38
12,244 6,062
0.9% -
9.3 9.7
12 days ago 1 day ago
C C
zlib License zlib License
The number of mentions indicates the total number of mentions that we've tracked plus the number of user suggested alternatives.
Stars - the number of stars that a project has on GitHub. Growth - month over month growth in stars.
Activity is a relative number indicating how actively a project is being developed. Recent commits have higher weight than older ones.
For example, an activity of 9.0 indicates that a project is amongst the top 10% of the most actively developed projects that we are tracking.

GLFW

Posts with mentions or reviews of GLFW. We have used some of these posts to build our list of alternatives and similar projects. The last one was on 2024-03-16.
  • macOS 14.4 causes JVM crashes
    2 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 16 Mar 2024
    Minecraft runs on various Javas.

    And there's a known issue with an interaction between minecraft, Java, and the video drivers that crashes out and it can be traced back all the way to here: https://github.com/glfw/glfw/issues/1997

    It's not fixed.

  • Technical Considerations for GUI Toolkits [Discussion]
    1 project | /r/compsci | 11 Dec 2023
    Window context manager - glfw, sdl
    2 projects | /r/learnprogramming | 11 Dec 2023
    Types of tools for creating a gui (and how those tools approximately work): 1. Utilize the native _graphical interface API_, and depending on the platform, they have specific layers to interface: * Wayland, X11, for Linux * [GDI](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/gdi/windows-gdi) for windows * [Quartz](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quartz\_(graphics\_layer)) for macOS Example - GTK uses [wayland](https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gtk/-/blob/main/docs/reference/gdk/wayland.md) ([source code](https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gtk/-/tree/main/gdk/win32)) [X11](https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gtk/-/blob/main/docs/reference/gdk/x11.md) ([source code](https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gtk/-/tree/main/gdk/x11)) GDI ([source code](https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gtk/-/tree/main/gdk/win32)) Quartz ([source code](https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gtk/-/tree/main/gdk/macos)) [How to use wayland display server](https://bugaevc.gitbooks.io/writing-wayland-clients/content/black-square/the-wayland-client-library.html) (TODO missing "animation" section) 2. Utilize opengl _or other low level graphics api's_ with window context, use GPU to render widgets * Window context manager - [glfw](https://github.com/glfw/glfw), [sdl](https://www.libsdl.org/) * contexts and surfaces, reading input, handling events Example: ImGui, NanoVG, Nuklear, raylib Why? Mainly used for game development, but also good for gui's. _(i haven't seen any examples that uses this method that are used for developing general-use graphical user interfaces.)_
  • How to set-up GLFW 3.3.8 with C++ visual studio community 2022?
    1 project | /r/gamedev | 10 Dec 2023
  • Exploring Computer Graphics: Weekly Chronicle #1
    5 projects | dev.to | 16 Oct 2023
    GLFW: A library for window creation and managing user input.
  • New Vulkan Documentation Website
    10 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 11 Oct 2023
    Not SDL2, but GLFW has something like that under the tests/ directory:

    https://github.com/glfw/glfw/blob/master/tests/triangle-vulk...

  • LWJGL = SFML vs Allegro vs SDL vs Ogre vs ???
    2 projects | /r/opengl | 5 Jul 2023
    I'm not familiar with LWJGL, my 5 seconds on their website makes me think you might be looking for something like GLFW https://www.glfw.org/ to handle I/O and window creation/management.
  • I have spent two whole work days trying to install GLEW
    6 projects | /r/GraphicsProgramming | 3 Jul 2023
    Consider GLFW3 for windowing and GLAD for function loading. I've used this combination myself successfully. Granted, that is "two things" you need, but OTOH it'll work well.
  • OpenGL (GLFW and GLAD) not linking with cmake
    2 projects | /r/cmake | 30 May 2023
    There is a pattern to it which is usable with every GitHub repository. For example, GLFW v3.3.8 can be fetched from: https://github.com/glfw/glfw/archive/refs/tags/3.3.8.tar.gz
  • Help
    1 project | /r/cpp_questions | 24 May 2023
    That is a static or import library for glfw. You need add the path to the directory where this file is located to the "library directories", see: https://www.learncpp.com/cpp-tutorial/a2-using-libraries-with-visual-studio-2005-express/

sokol

Posts with mentions or reviews of sokol. We have used some of these posts to build our list of alternatives and similar projects. The last one was on 2024-01-06.
  • STB: Single-file public domain libraries for C/C++
    4 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 6 Jan 2024
  • Container2wasm: Convert Containers to WASM Blobs
    16 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 3 Jan 2024
    I'm using Dear ImGui for my cross-platform code (which includes running in browsers):

    - https://floooh.github.io/visual6502remix/

    - https://floooh.github.io/tiny8bit/c64-ui.html

    - (start these samples by clicking on the little "UI" icon) https://floooh.github.io/sokol-html5/

    Platform abstraction is handled through the sokol headers: https://github.com/floooh/sokol

  • New Vulkan Documentation Website
    10 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 11 Oct 2023
    I wonder if using your library (https://github.com/floooh/sokol) instead of OpenGL will alleviate some of these issues for newcomers! There's already a sokol port of the learnopengl.com code (https://github.com/GeertArien/learnopengl-examples), so it shouldn't be too hard to match between the tutorial articles and these.
  • Meta Releases Intermediate Graphics Library
    12 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 7 Jul 2023
    If you're looking for something like this, Sokol is a much simpler alternative:

    https://github.com/floooh/sokol

    It doesn't support vulkan though, but if that's important to you you're probably much better off just using vulkan directly since it's supported on all the major platforms.

  • Why glibc 2.34 removed libpthread
    3 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 2 Jul 2023
    All I can do is give you a couple of Github ticket links where users of my libraries stumbled over the issue (and with different symptoms):

    - https://github.com/floooh/sokol/issues/376

    - https://github.com/floooh/sokol/issues/404

    - https://github.com/floooh/cimgui-sokol-starterkit/issues/6

    We then added a dummy call to a no-op pthread function, so that users can better figure out that they need to use -pthread because now they get a linker error instead of a runtime crash or hang. This has since reduced the 'support overhead' quite a bit:

    - https://github.com/floooh/sokol/pull/456

  • File for Divorce from LLVM
    9 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 29 Jun 2023
    My stuff for instance:

    https://github.com/floooh/sokol

    ...inspired by:

    https://github.com/nothings/stb

    But it's not so much about the build system, but requiring a separate C/C++ compiler toolchain (Rust needs this, Zig currently does not - unless the proposal is implemented).

  • Minimal cross-platform standalone C headers
    1 project | news.ycombinator.com | 12 Jun 2023
  • How can i play .wav file with C ?
    1 project | /r/C_Programming | 1 Jun 2023
    I have never personally used it but I'm pretty sure sokol has an audio library that might be what you are after.
  • Website with Godot?
    3 projects | /r/godot | 11 May 2023
    And I asked floooh for similar thoughts on making a website with sokol here: https://github.com/floooh/sokol/issues/825
  • I want to talk about WebGPU
    15 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 3 May 2023
    It's not Rust and TS, instead C and JS, but Emscripten has a very nice way of integrating C/C++ and JS (you can just embed snippets of Javascript inside C/C++ source files), e.g. starting at this line, there's a couple of embedded Javascript functions which can be called like C functions directly from the "C side":

    https://github.com/floooh/sokol/blob/4535a3b4be59eb912e77e04...

What are some alternatives?

When comparing GLFW and sokol you can also consider the following projects:

SDL - Simple Directmedia Layer

bgfx - Cross-platform, graphics API agnostic, "Bring Your Own Engine/Framework" style rendering library.

raylib - A simple and easy-to-use library to enjoy videogames programming

glad - Multi-Language Vulkan/GL/GLES/EGL/GLX/WGL Loader-Generator based on the official specs.

tinyrenderer - A brief computer graphics / rendering course

Skia - Skia is a complete 2D graphic library for drawing Text, Geometries, and Images.

LearnOpenGL - Code repository of all OpenGL chapters from the book and its accompanying website https://learnopengl.com

OpenSceneGraph - OpenSceneGraph git repository

v - Simple, fast, safe, compiled language for developing maintainable software. Compiles itself in <1s with zero library dependencies. Supports automatic C => V translation. https://vlang.io

Ogre 3D - scene-oriented, flexible 3D engine (C++, Python, C#, Java)

nanovg - Antialiased 2D vector drawing library on top of OpenGL for UI and visualizations.