I made a shortlist of good libraries for my GUI C project and I want your thoughts and comments.

This page summarizes the projects mentioned and recommended in the original post on /r/C_Programming

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  • nuklear

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

    Good C library list: https://en.cppreference.com/w/c/links/libs https://github.com/Immediate-Mode-UI/Nuklear + C89, no dependencies, public license. 5/5 https://www.tecgraf.puc-rio.br/iup/ + good tutorial and wiki guides 5/5 https://libsdl.org/ + infinite possibilities - whole library for making games, forums, wiki - complicated, not many C tutorials, need to manage game states... 4/5 https://github.com/lvgl/lvgl + good docs - for embedded systems 4/5 https://github.com/ocornut/imgui + Popular, inspired Nuklear - for C++ 3/5 https://docs.enlightenment.org/api/imlib2/html/ + very efficient, used in Conky - uses X so only for Linux, just for displaying images and text and stuff 2/5 https://github.com/rxi/microui + simple, small - you need to handle your own drawing 2/5 GTK+ - no

  • SDL

    Simple Directmedia Layer

    Good C library list: https://en.cppreference.com/w/c/links/libs https://github.com/Immediate-Mode-UI/Nuklear + C89, no dependencies, public license. 5/5 https://www.tecgraf.puc-rio.br/iup/ + good tutorial and wiki guides 5/5 https://libsdl.org/ + infinite possibilities - whole library for making games, forums, wiki - complicated, not many C tutorials, need to manage game states... 4/5 https://github.com/lvgl/lvgl + good docs - for embedded systems 4/5 https://github.com/ocornut/imgui + Popular, inspired Nuklear - for C++ 3/5 https://docs.enlightenment.org/api/imlib2/html/ + very efficient, used in Conky - uses X so only for Linux, just for displaying images and text and stuff 2/5 https://github.com/rxi/microui + simple, small - you need to handle your own drawing 2/5 GTK+ - no

  • InfluxDB

    Power Real-Time Data Analytics at Scale. Get real-time insights from all types of time series data with InfluxDB. Ingest, query, and analyze billions of data points in real-time with unbounded cardinality.

  • lvgl

    Embedded graphics library to create beautiful UIs for any MCU, MPU and display type.

    Good C library list: https://en.cppreference.com/w/c/links/libs https://github.com/Immediate-Mode-UI/Nuklear + C89, no dependencies, public license. 5/5 https://www.tecgraf.puc-rio.br/iup/ + good tutorial and wiki guides 5/5 https://libsdl.org/ + infinite possibilities - whole library for making games, forums, wiki - complicated, not many C tutorials, need to manage game states... 4/5 https://github.com/lvgl/lvgl + good docs - for embedded systems 4/5 https://github.com/ocornut/imgui + Popular, inspired Nuklear - for C++ 3/5 https://docs.enlightenment.org/api/imlib2/html/ + very efficient, used in Conky - uses X so only for Linux, just for displaying images and text and stuff 2/5 https://github.com/rxi/microui + simple, small - you need to handle your own drawing 2/5 GTK+ - no

  • imgui

    Dear ImGui: Bloat-free Graphical User interface for C++ with minimal dependencies

    Good C library list: https://en.cppreference.com/w/c/links/libs https://github.com/Immediate-Mode-UI/Nuklear + C89, no dependencies, public license. 5/5 https://www.tecgraf.puc-rio.br/iup/ + good tutorial and wiki guides 5/5 https://libsdl.org/ + infinite possibilities - whole library for making games, forums, wiki - complicated, not many C tutorials, need to manage game states... 4/5 https://github.com/lvgl/lvgl + good docs - for embedded systems 4/5 https://github.com/ocornut/imgui + Popular, inspired Nuklear - for C++ 3/5 https://docs.enlightenment.org/api/imlib2/html/ + very efficient, used in Conky - uses X so only for Linux, just for displaying images and text and stuff 2/5 https://github.com/rxi/microui + simple, small - you need to handle your own drawing 2/5 GTK+ - no

  • microui

    A tiny immediate-mode UI library

    Good C library list: https://en.cppreference.com/w/c/links/libs https://github.com/Immediate-Mode-UI/Nuklear + C89, no dependencies, public license. 5/5 https://www.tecgraf.puc-rio.br/iup/ + good tutorial and wiki guides 5/5 https://libsdl.org/ + infinite possibilities - whole library for making games, forums, wiki - complicated, not many C tutorials, need to manage game states... 4/5 https://github.com/lvgl/lvgl + good docs - for embedded systems 4/5 https://github.com/ocornut/imgui + Popular, inspired Nuklear - for C++ 3/5 https://docs.enlightenment.org/api/imlib2/html/ + very efficient, used in Conky - uses X so only for Linux, just for displaying images and text and stuff 2/5 https://github.com/rxi/microui + simple, small - you need to handle your own drawing 2/5 GTK+ - no

  • nappgui

    Cross-Platform C SDK (precompiled)

    Best option for lean multi-platform lib: https://nappgui.com

  • raygui

    A simple and easy-to-use immediate-mode gui library

    You might also want to take a look at raygui

  • WorkOS

    The modern identity platform for B2B SaaS. The APIs are flexible and easy-to-use, supporting authentication, user identity, and complex enterprise features like SSO and SCIM provisioning.

NOTE: The number of mentions on this list indicates mentions on common posts plus user suggested alternatives. Hence, a higher number means a more popular project.

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