Top 23 C header-only Projects

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1. nuklear

   1 65 11,205 8.7 C

   A single-header ANSI C immediate mode cross-platform GUI library (by Immediate-Mode-UI)

   

   Project mention: Nuklear: A minimal-state, immediate-mode graphical user interface toolkit | news.ycombinator.com | 2025-09-23

2. SaaSHub

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3. pocketpy

   2 12 2,073 9.6 C

   Portable Python 3.x Interpreter in Modern C for Game Scripting

   

4. librg

   3 1 1,481 4.5 C

   🚀 Making multi-player gamedev simpler since 2017

   

5. metalang99

   4 46 1,069 6.0 C

   Full-blown preprocessor metaprogramming

   

   Project mention: Recursive macros in C, demystified (once the ugly crying stops) | news.ycombinator.com | 2025-11-05

   The CPP does allow quite advanced metaprogramming, it's just so obtuse to use and requires insane hacks so almost nobody does. See one of my favorite projects https://github.com/hirrolot/metalang99

6. zpl

   5 3 1,062 4.0 C

   📐 Pushing the boundaries of simplicity

   

7. earcut.hpp

   6 3 992 6.4 C

   Fast, header-only polygon triangulation

   

   Project mention: Earcut64: Zero-Allocation Triangulation for Tiny Polygons | dev.to | 2025-06-16

   Earcut is almost a teaching example: pick any non-self-intersecting polygon, find an "ear" (three consecutive vertices that form an empty inner triangle), cut it off, repeat. Simple? Yes. Slow? Sometimes. But on contours with few points Earcut can be the fastest tool in the shed, as my benchmarks against iTriangle and Mapbox implementations have shown.

8. minicoro

   7 10 934 2.0 C

   Single header stackful cross-platform coroutine library in pure C.

   

   Project mention: Minicoro: Single header stackful cross-platform coroutine library in pure C | news.ycombinator.com | 2025-11-14

9. rawdraw

   8 1 475 6.1 C

   Primitive Platform Agnostic Windowing+Input Header-Only Library

   

10. Tina

    9 1 298 3.8 C

    Tina is a teeny tiny, header only, coroutine and job library.

    

11. ctl

    10 22 287 3.3 C

    My variant of the C Template Library (by rurban)

    

12. tiny-dream

    11 6 265 7.1 C

    Tiny Dream - An embedded, Header Only, Stable Diffusion C++ implementation

    

13. RSGL

    12 2 198 8.5 C

    A simple-to-use modular, cross-platform graphics library. It combines the freedom of lower-level graphics libraries with modern C techniques, offering both simplicity and convenience.

    

14. libcester

    13 1 66 0.0 C

    A robust header-only unit testing framework for C and C++ programming language. Support function mocking, memory leak detection, crash report.

    

15. TurboStitchGIF-HeaderOnly-Fast-ZeroAllocation-PlatformIndependent-Embedded-C-GIF-Decoder

    14 4 49 4.8 C

    TurboStitchGIF: A fast, header-only C GIF decoder without dynamic allocations, ideal for embedded systems and cross-platform projects.

    

    Project mention: Show HN: TurboStitchGIF GIF decoder that lets you choose: safety or speed | news.ycombinator.com | 2026-02-22

    Version 1.2 introduces two LZW backends (safe bounds-checked vs unsafe turbo), micro-cache for 30-40% faster decoding, three output formats (RGB888/RGB565LE/RGBA8888), span-based turbo blit, optional 256KB RGB565 map2 for 2-pixel-at-once rendering, proper disposal method 3 support, renderer API for indexed output, safety toggles to disable checks when you need raw speed, and prefix mode to avoid symbol conflicts — all while staying 100% malloc-free on a user-provided scratch buffer.

    Repo: https://github.com/Ferki-git-creator/TurboStitchGIF-HeaderOn...

16. sgc

    15 3 37 7.2 C

    Generic Algorithms and Data Structures in C

    

17. rexo

    16 1 31 2.6 C

    Neat single-file cross-platform unit testing framework for C/C++.

    

18. OpenCSTL

    17 1 26 8.4 C

    Drop-in C++ STL for C — same push_back, insert, begin/end. Header-only.

    

    Project mention: Implementing C++ STL containers in pure C — what I learned | dev.to | 2026-04-08

    Source is here if anyone wants to look at the macro internals: https://github.com/springkim/OpenCSTL

19. pega-texto

    18 2 18 6.1 C

    Single-file Parsing Expression Grammars (PEG) runtime engine for C

    

20. exile.h

    19 1 18 5.0 C

    Painless Linux sandboxing API

    

21. Mathc

    20 2 16 3.4 C

    A simple and clean, glsl like, math (linear algebra) header only library for C.

    

22. c-flags

    21 1 12 5.7 C

    Library for parsing command line arguments easily. Like golang flag module.

    

23. Canon-C

    22 1 12 9.9 C

    A semantic standard library for verified C — explicit, composable modules that add meaning without hiding behavior.

    

    Project mention: Show HN: Canon-C – a semantic C library | news.ycombinator.com | 2026-02-09

24. PoxHash

    23 12 8 7.6 C

    A block hashing algorithm with implementations in C, Rust, Go, Nim, Python and JS

    

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• A note from our sponsor - SaaSHub
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