Software Alternatives & Reviews

GLFW VS SDL

Compare GLFW VS SDL and see what are their differences

GLFW logo GLFW

GLFW is an Open Source, multi-platform library for OpenGL, OpenGL ES and Vulkan development on the...

SDL logo SDL

Simple DirectMedia Layer is a cross-platform multimedia library designed to provide low level...
  • GLFW Landing page
    Landing page //
    2019-03-22
  • SDL Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-09-26

GLFW

Categories
  • Game Engine
  • Game Development
  • 3D Game Engine
  • 2D Game Engine
Website glfw.org  
Details $

SDL

Categories
  • Localization
  • Transcription
  • Translation Service
  • Audio Transcription
Website libsdl.org  
Details $

GLFW videos

Computer Graphics with Modern OpenGL and C++ : [THEORY] Introduction to GLEW, GLFW and SDL

More videos:

  • Tutorial - OpenGL Tutorial 17 - GLFW Text/Character Input

SDL videos

Useful review features in SDL Trados Studio

More videos:

  • Review - Reviewing translations in SDL Trados Studio 2019
  • Review - Doral SDL-A All-Season TIRE REVIEW + SNOW

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to GLFW and SDL)
Game Engine
38 38%
62% 62
Game Development
38 38%
62% 62
3D Game Engine
39 39%
61% 61
Localization
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

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

Based on our record, SDL seems to be a lot more popular than GLFW. While we know about 18 links to SDL, we've tracked only 1 mention of GLFW. 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.

GLFW mentions (1)

  • Need help getting started with GLFW on Linux and VS Code
    I'm on Arch linux, so I runned sudo pacman -S glfw-x11 to get GLFW. I started vscode and copied the boiler plate code from glfw.org and then I tried to run it but I got a bunch of linking/definition (?) errors. Source: almost 3 years ago

SDL mentions (18)

  • How was Pico8 made?
    In addition to the excellent video /u/DookieChumo linked, you can also look in the manual to see some of the technologies used. It's written in C, using SDL. If you're interested in something like a devlog, you could read the changelog to see its changes and the development of features over the years. Lua is fairly easy to embed into other programs, so you can write programs that use Lua scripts to decide what to... Source: about 1 year ago
  • How does one make their own GUI from scratch? (no GUI libraries)
    You could use the cross-platform library SDL. It has Python bindings: PySDL2. Source: over 1 year ago
  • I want to become a game dev one day, can you guys help me?
    You can use SDL, which is pretty easy to get into, has straight-forward (if somewhat sparse) documentation and has lots of pretty decent tutorials - see the links on the web site. Source: over 1 year ago
  • what #include<iostream> does in C++ Program ?
    Official website is https://libsdl.org where you can read more about download and install this library because it might not work on your computer. Source: over 1 year ago
  • which Library is used to Develop 2D Game in C++ ?
    To Develop 2D Game mostly Game Developer Prefers to use SDL Library it is Simple Media Layer originally Written in C Language but compatible with C++ and run Natively. The website of Libsdl is https://libsdl.org. It is free to use. Source: over 1 year ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing GLFW and SDL, you can also consider the following products

Vulkan - Vulkan is a new generation graphics and compute API that provides high-efficiency, cross-platform access to modern GPUs used in a wide variety of devices from PCs and consoles to mobile phones and embedded platforms.

Rev.com - Transcriptions, captions, and subtitles that are affordable, fast, and high-quality.

raylib - Cross-platform, open-source game development library in C.

One Hour Translation - Professional translation services for 75 languages on a 24/7 basis.

SFML - SFML provides a simple interface to the various components of your PC, to ease the development of games and multimedia applications. It is composed of five modules: system, window, graphics, audio and network.

Lilt - A Twitter text adventure