Software Alternatives & Reviews

CMake VS Meson

Compare CMake VS Meson and see what are their differences

CMake logo CMake

CMake is an open-source, cross-platform family of tools designed to build, test and package software.

Meson logo Meson

Meson is an open source build system meant to be both extremely fast, and, even more importantly...
  • CMake Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-09-21

We recommend LibHunt CMake for discovery and comparisons of trending CMake projects.

  • Meson Landing page
    Landing page //
    2019-03-04

CMake videos

CMake for Dummies

More videos:

  • Review - CppCon 2017: Mathieu Ropert “Using Modern CMake Patterns to Enforce a Good Modular Design”
  • Review - Hunter, a CMake driven package manager for C/C++ projects - Daniel Friedrich - Lightning Talks

Meson videos

Meson RTA by Newgen Vape - Flavour Banger - Review & Rebuild

More videos:

  • Tutorial - MESON RTA by NEWGEN - Review & Build Tutorial!
  • Review - NewGen Vape Meson RTA Review - ...it's all down to the price...

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to CMake and Meson)
Front End Package Manager
JavaScript Package Manager
JS Build Tools
60 60%
40% 40
Continuous Integration
66 66%
34% 34

User comments

Share your experience with using CMake and Meson. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
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Social recommendations and mentions

CMake might be a bit more popular than Meson. We know about 51 links to it since March 2021 and only 43 links to Meson. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

CMake mentions (51)

  • Top 7 C++ Tools to explore in 2024 if it's not already the case.
    CMake stands for "Cross-platform Make" and is an open-source, platform-independent build system. It's designed to build, test, and package software projects written in C and C++, but it can also be used for other languages. Here's an overview of CMake and its features:. - Source: dev.to / 2 months ago
  • My first Software Release using GitHub Release
    When doing research for this lab exercise I looked at both vcpkg and conan. Both are package managers that would automate the installation and configuration of my program with its dependencies. However, when it came to releasing and sharing my program my options were limited. For example, the central public registry for conan packages is conan-center, but these packages are curated and the process is very... - Source: dev.to / 5 months ago
  • A little help for a C++ newbie
    Install the CMake program using your system package manager, e.g. Sudo apt-get install cmake. Source: 7 months ago
  • Questions Regarding working with Mingw_w64, MSYS2, and CMake on Windows
    Oh I just assumed it was talking about the one from cmake.org since I was having trouble. I can now confirm that mingw-w64-cmake and the binary from cmake.org do operate in mostly identical ways. Source: about 1 year ago
  • Questions Regarding working with Mingw_w64, MSYS2, and CMake on Windows
    Then looking at any one of the many examples provided on cmake.org, it's clearly a viable way to do set(CMAKE_*), (e.g., set(CMAKE_CXX_STANDARD 11) Set(CMAKE_CXX_STANDARD_REQUIRED True)). Of course, another way to set these variables is to use the -D flag as you suggested, but I was just wondering why you would prohibit using set(CMAKE_*). Source: about 1 year ago
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Meson mentions (43)

  • Rust Without Crates.io
    I went to mesonbuild.org and it doesn't match the description (some sort of betting site? I didn't stick around ...), and a search turned up: https://mesonbuild.com/. - Source: Hacker News / 5 months ago
  • Makefile Tutorial
    Came here to post the same. The answer for How to build software? is Meson[1] for C and C++ and also other languages. Works well on Windows and Mac, too. I’ve written a small Makefile to learn the basic and backgrounds. Make is fine. But the next high-level would have been Autotools, which is an intimidating and weird set of tools. Most new stuff written in C/C++ use now Meson and it feels sane. [1]... - Source: Hacker News / 7 months ago
  • CMake x make?
    If you are very fortunate, you'll be able to choose something else. I like meson myself: it looks a bit like python, it's popular, small, simple, well-documented, easy to install and update, and it works well everywhere. Source: 7 months ago
  • C++ Papercuts
    I suggest changing the build tool. Meson improved C and C++ a lot: https://mesonbuild.com/ The dependency declaration and auto-detection is nice. But the hidden extra is WrapDB, built-in package management (if wanted):
        https://mesonbuild.com/Wrap-dependency-system-manual.html.
    - Source: Hacker News / 8 months ago
  • A Modern C Development Environment
    > C's only REAL problem (in my opinion) which is the lack of dependency management. Most everything else can be done with a makefile and a half decent editor. Care to hear about our lord and saviour Meson? Both of your quoted problems are mutually incompatible: dependency management isn't the job of the compiler, it's a job for the build or host system. If you want to keep writing makefiles, be prepared to write... - Source: Hacker News / 9 months ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing CMake and Meson, you can also consider the following products

GNU Make - GNU Make is a tool which controls the generation of executables and other non-source files of a program from the program's source files.

Ninja Build - Ninja is a small build system with a focus on speed.

SCons - SCons is an Open Source software construction tool—that is, a next-generation build tool.

SBT - SBT is a build tool for Scala, like Ant or Maven but with hieroglyphics.

Apache Maven - Apache Maven is a project comprehension and management software tool.

Gradle - Accelerate developer productivity. Gradle helps teams build, automate and deliver better software, faster. DocsExplore the documentation of Gradle. Find installation ..