Other PDF SDKs promise a lot - then break. Laggy scrolling, poor mobile UX, tons of bugs, and lack of support cost you endless frustrations. Nutrient’s SDK handles billion-page workloads - so you don’t have to debug PDFs. Used by ~1 billion end users in more than 150 different countries. Learn more →
Top 23 Cocoa Open-Source Projects
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Project mention: Show HN: NotepadJs – A cross-platform love letter to Notepad | news.ycombinator.com | 2025-01-22
I would recommend TextMate: https://macromates.com
It's feature-rich, but it just shows´an empty text window on startup. Can't remember if that's the default or I configured it that way.
For larger text files I use vscode.
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Project mention: Show HN: NotepadJs – A cross-platform love letter to Notepad | news.ycombinator.com | 2025-01-22
I like Coteditor [1] as an open-source, minimal editor. TextEdit isn't even plain text by default, IIRC.
[1] https://coteditor.com/
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Project mention: Solitaire: Authentic remake of the Windows 95 original | news.ycombinator.com | 2024-04-17
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ravynos
A BSD-based OS project that aims to provide source and binary compatibility with macOS® and a similar user experience.
Project mention: FreeBSD: How Can We Make It More Attractive to New Users? | news.ycombinator.com | 2024-10-12Another angle to look at this is ravynOS, a desktop OS that could attract people interested in MacOS. The project is based on FreeBSD and has lots of customization to provide a familiar desktop experience. While the main site hasn't been updated for a while, the GitHub has a release from this year.
https://ravynos.com/
https://github.com/ravynsoft/ravynos
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Nutrient
Nutrient – The #1 PDF SDK Library, trusted by 10K+ developers. Other PDF SDKs promise a lot - then break. Laggy scrolling, poor mobile UX, tons of bugs, and lack of support cost you endless frustrations. Nutrient’s SDK handles billion-page workloads - so you don’t have to debug PDFs. Used by ~1 billion end users in more than 150 different countries.
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Project mention: Rio-labs/rio: WebApps in pure Python. No JavaScript, HTML and CSS needed | news.ycombinator.com | 2024-09-17
afaict it uses https://github.com/r0x0r/pywebview under the hood (so yes, cross-platform)
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Latest
A small utility app for macOS that makes sure you know about all the latest updates to the apps you use.
Project mention: Ask HN: What macOS apps/programs do you use daily and recommend? | news.ycombinator.com | 2024-06-09Latest is a modern, OSS replacement for Bodega (IIUC). https://github.com/mangerlahn/latest
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Project mention: Shoes makes building little graphical programs for Mac, Windows, Linux simple | news.ycombinator.com | 2024-02-23
Something for which I wish there was a windows variant...
Embedding a script into a small tray icon/menubar app can be extremely powerfull even with its low complexity.
[1]: https://github.com/sveinbjornt/Platypus
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WinDiskWriter
🖥 Windows Bootable USB creator for macOS. 🛠 Patches Windows 11 to bypass TPM and Secure Boot requirements. 👾 UEFI & Legacy Support
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Project mention: So You Want to Ship a Command-Line Tool for macOS | news.ycombinator.com | 2024-02-21
This is really specific, but for this point in the article:
> There’s a long guide on Embedding a Command-Line Tool in a Sandboxed App, so I followed that, and then slowly, painfully, factored Xcode out of it, so that I wouldn’t have to figure out how to get a 10GB Xcode install onto the CI machine (remember, you need to be signed in to an Apple ID to download Xcode, and there’s no way to do it from the command-line).
You could actually solve this with Rust and no Xcode whatsoever. cacao [1] and cargo-bundle [2] will produce an app bundle you could sign/notarize/distribute without needing to ever open Xcode.
[1] https://github.com/ryanmcgrath/cacao
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SubEthaEdit
General purpose plain text editor for macOS. Widely known for its live collaboration feature.
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For macOS/iOS, you could give Strongbox a try: https://strongboxsafe.com/
I haven't really looked into it myself, but it seems to be using the same database format as KeePass, and it hooks into macOS's "FIDO provider" API, which makes it accessible to not only Safari but all browsers that use it (which includes Firefox and Chrome on macOS, and probably everything on iOS), without requiring any browser-side extension.
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AuroraEditor
Aurora Editor is a IDE built by the community, for the community, and written in Swift for the best native performance and feel for macOS.
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Project mention: Show HN: Spot – Simple, cross-platform, reactive desktop GUI toolkit for Go | news.ycombinator.com | 2024-05-24
Given the right C compiler and everything, Spot should work without changes on Windows (and select the FLTK) backend.
My (low prio, though) goal is to implement a Win32-based backend, though, the first step is done: https://github.com/roblillack/spot/pull/4
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RGFW
A cross platform lightweight single-header simple-to-use window abstraction library for creating graphical programs or libraries.
Project mention: RGFW: Single-header C99 window abstraction library | news.ycombinator.com | 2024-11-22 -
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SaaSHub
SaaSHub - Software Alternatives and Reviews. SaaSHub helps you find the best software and product alternatives
NOTE:
The open source projects on this list are ordered by number of github stars.
The number of mentions indicates repo mentiontions in the last 12 Months or
since we started tracking (Dec 2020).
Cocoa discussion
Cocoa related posts
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Show HN: NotepadJs – A cross-platform love letter to Notepad
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CotEditor 5.0 – The Plain-Text Editor for macOS
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Show HN: Spot – Simple, cross-platform, reactive desktop GUI toolkit for Go
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Spot: Reactive, cross-platform desktop GUI toolkit for Go
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Racket Language
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Calling Haskell from Swift
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So You Want to Ship a Command-Line Tool for macOS
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A note from our sponsor - Nutrient
www.nutrient.io | 15 Feb 2025
Index
What are some of the best open-source Cocoa projects? This list will help you:
| # | Project | Stars |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Carthage | 14,974 |
| 2 | TextMate | 14,257 |
| 3 | macdown | 9,464 |
| 4 | vimr | 6,743 |
| 5 | CotEditor | 6,642 |
| 6 | wxWidgets | 6,330 |
| 7 | ravynos | 5,740 |
| 8 | darwinkit | 5,116 |
| 9 | pywebview | 4,966 |
| 10 | Latest | 3,443 |
| 11 | Platypus | 2,920 |
| 12 | BetterSegmentedControl | 2,242 |
| 13 | WinDiskWriter | 1,972 |
| 14 | cacao | 1,930 |
| 15 | SwiftyAttributes | 1,637 |
| 16 | SubEthaEdit | 1,377 |
| 17 | Strongbox | 1,363 |
| 18 | AuroraEditor | 1,203 |
| 19 | spot | 1,169 |
| 20 | NSWindowStyles | 1,137 |
| 21 | RGFW | 854 |
| 22 | sentry-cocoa | 836 |
| 23 | Scrooge | 796 |
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