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for Python GUIs I recommend considering a console-based GUI using the excellent Textual: https://textual.textualize.io/
this is the most modern GUI (in a console or not) framework you'll find for Python right now.
Well I haven't seen anyone mention Flet, which is pleasant (if maybe not all that complete) if you have Dart/Flutter experience, so increment your counter at least one. :-)
https://flet.dev/
I think that tkinter is "good enough" for most cases that need a GUI in pythonb these days (for more complex stuff you'd better go with either a web app or a compiled language that creates normal desktop apps).
As a showcase I've built two simple utils with python and tk (and pyinstaller):
- https://github.com/spapas/pdfmerger a simple tool to merge pdfs into one
- https://github.com/spapas/pomo ; a simple pomodoro timer
I think that tkinter is "good enough" for most cases that need a GUI in pythonb these days (for more complex stuff you'd better go with either a web app or a compiled language that creates normal desktop apps).
As a showcase I've built two simple utils with python and tk (and pyinstaller):
- https://github.com/spapas/pdfmerger a simple tool to merge pdfs into one
- https://github.com/spapas/pomo ; a simple pomodoro timer
I love gooey: https://github.com/chriskiehl/Gooey
It allows me to quickly slap a GUI on an existing script that accepts command-line-arguments. In the end, I get the best of both world: Discoverability from the GUI, automation through the script, and automatic feature parity between the two.
Downside: Control over the GUI layout is basic, and only "standard" GUI features work, but I never felt limited when using it.
I have been looking at Python GUI libraries/frameworks/services over the past > 1 year. I'll cut straight to the chase with my recommendations for what they are worth. My use cases are typically 10 - 50 users in an enterprise setting, so accessibility/low barrier to entry (pretty much meaning web-based) are concerns of mine. I also lean toward wanting to avoid learning overly-specific tools in service of just a single use (I put Qt and tkinter into this category).
- NiceGUI https://nicegui.io/#features - my favorite of the bunch, essentially wraps Quasar Vue components with accessible python. Tons of features including SPA, FastAPI under the hood, TailwindCSS. Have used it on a few projects and started contributing recently.
- Streamlit https://streamlit.io/ - if your goal is to get some python code set up with a GUI and deployed ASAP this is the best option. I have gone from 0 to a full working app in like an hour for some projects. Lots of love for it. A bit limited in terms of full-scale applications and large backend databases but it actually holds up really well.
There are a lot of other ones that people regularly recommend.
- Gradio https://gradio.app/ - really popular with huggingface and ml folks. Similar to streamlit in that it sacrifices some level of depth for speed of standing up projects.
- Textual https://www.textualize.io/projects/#textual - Not to be a hater, but I have never seen a good argument for why it's worth dumping a bunch of time into this versus a web-oriented framework. They say "it's useful for products that don't need the internet", "you can use it through ssh", etc... doesn't really fit with my needs, I'll just leave it at that.
- Anvil https://anvil.works/ - a "low code" option for building python GUIs. I am pretty impressed, it has integrated databasing and a lot of plugins. If you are aiming for a scalable application for a large number of users this is probably a good options. My personal gripe with it is the number of mouse clicks it takes to do stuff but that could also be my lack of experience with the tool.
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I have been looking at Python GUI libraries/frameworks/services over the past > 1 year. I'll cut straight to the chase with my recommendations for what they are worth. My use cases are typically 10 - 50 users in an enterprise setting, so accessibility/low barrier to entry (pretty much meaning web-based) are concerns of mine. I also lean toward wanting to avoid learning overly-specific tools in service of just a single use (I put Qt and tkinter into this category).
- NiceGUI https://nicegui.io/#features - my favorite of the bunch, essentially wraps Quasar Vue components with accessible python. Tons of features including SPA, FastAPI under the hood, TailwindCSS. Have used it on a few projects and started contributing recently.
- Streamlit https://streamlit.io/ - if your goal is to get some python code set up with a GUI and deployed ASAP this is the best option. I have gone from 0 to a full working app in like an hour for some projects. Lots of love for it. A bit limited in terms of full-scale applications and large backend databases but it actually holds up really well.
There are a lot of other ones that people regularly recommend.
- Gradio https://gradio.app/ - really popular with huggingface and ml folks. Similar to streamlit in that it sacrifices some level of depth for speed of standing up projects.
- Textual https://www.textualize.io/projects/#textual - Not to be a hater, but I have never seen a good argument for why it's worth dumping a bunch of time into this versus a web-oriented framework. They say "it's useful for products that don't need the internet", "you can use it through ssh", etc... doesn't really fit with my needs, I'll just leave it at that.
- Anvil https://anvil.works/ - a "low code" option for building python GUIs. I am pretty impressed, it has integrated databasing and a lot of plugins. If you are aiming for a scalable application for a large number of users this is probably a good options. My personal gripe with it is the number of mouse clicks it takes to do stuff but that could also be my lack of experience with the tool.
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I’ve heard good things about https://build-system.fman.io/, though I haven’t used.
My guilty secret is to use Excel for my quick and dirty GUIs. I wrote a library to make that easy if you know C++. https://github.com/xlladdins/xll.
Anyone has some experience with Kivy [1]? It seems that it checks off some of my requirements, like cross-platform, supporting touch interfaces, ease of development, allows complex/fancy UIs as well, etc.
[1] https://kivy.org/
I like to use GoVCL [0] as it provides the GUI of Lazarus [1] including drag-n-drop form designer but with Go as the main language.
GoVCL's author built a C library called liblcl [2] which is what GoVCL uses to control the GUI, so if you know C you can use it instead of Go.
I'm building a lightweight Steam chat client with GoVCL so that I don't need the official client that takes like 200-300mb ram just to show text [3].
[0]: https://github.com/ying32/govcl
"The problem" might be that people in this thread and others get frustrated because others have different goals than them.
Of course Electron is overkill for a single-button application. But Visual Basic is absolutely going to be a headache if you want a custom GUI.
Pick the tool that's right for the job!
I build this with Electron: https://videohubapp.com/