Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

PySide VS wxWidgets

Compare PySide VS wxWidgets and see what are their differences

PySide logo PySide

Qt for Python - Qt Wiki

wxWidgets logo wxWidgets

wxWidgets: Cross-Platform GUI Library
  • PySide Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-07-27
  • wxWidgets Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-07-21

PySide features and specs

  • Official Support
    PySide is officially supported by the Qt Company, ensuring regular updates and a reliable source of information for developers.
  • Cross-Platform
    PySide allows developers to create applications that run on various operating systems, including Windows, macOS, and Linux, with little to no code modification.
  • Comprehensive Documentation
    PySide is backed by extensive and well-maintained documentation, making it easier for developers to find solutions and learn the framework effectively.
  • Open Source
    PySide is available under the LGPL license, allowing developers to use it in open-source and commercial projects without licensing fees.
  • Bindings for QT Libraries
    Provides Python bindings to the Qt libraries, which are highly reputable for their performance and extensive functionality in GUI development.

Possible disadvantages of PySide

  • Potential Licensing Issues
    While PySide is LGPL licensed, understanding its requirements for dynamic linking and distribution can be complex for some projects.
  • Memory Consumption
    Applications developed using PySide can sometimes consume more memory compared to other lightweight frameworks, impacting performance in resource-constrained environments.
  • Complexity for Beginners
    The vast array of features and options available in PySide might be overwhelming for beginners, requiring a steep learning curve to master.
  • Community Size
    PySide's community is smaller compared to other Python GUI frameworks like Tkinter or PyQt, possibly leading to fewer third-party resources and community support.
  • Size of Deployment
    Qt libraries can be large, resulting in increased application size, which can be problematic for users with limited bandwidth or storage.

wxWidgets features and specs

  • Cross-Platform
    wxWidgets allows developers to create applications that run on different platforms such as Windows, macOS, Linux, and more, without changing the codebase.
  • Native Look and Feel
    It provides a native look and feel on each platform by using the native GUI components, making applications appear more integrated with the host OS.
  • Wide Range of Widgets
    wxWidgets offers a rich set of widgets and controls, supporting complex interfaces and various types of user interactions.
  • Extensive Documentation
    The library is well-documented, with numerous tutorials, guides, and an active community to help developers troubleshoot and expand their understanding.
  • Open Source
    Being open source, wxWidgets provides the flexibility to customize and modify the library to better fit specific needs without licensing costs.

Possible disadvantages of wxWidgets

  • Steep Learning Curve
    Due to its extensive features and the complexity of configuring UI components, new users may find it challenging to learn and utilize effectively.
  • Large Binary Size
    Applications built with wxWidgets can become quite large, which might be a drawback for developers focusing on lightweight applications.
  • Platform-Specific Bugs
    Since wxWidgets aims to provide native components for each platform, sometimes this leads to platform-specific bugs that can complicate cross-platform consistency.
  • Limited Modern Features
    While wxWidgets is robust, it might lack some of the modern, cutting-edge features found in newer libraries and frameworks in terms of design and ease of use.
  • Dependency Management
    Managing dependencies for different platforms can be cumbersome, requiring additional effort in the build and deployment processes.

PySide videos

python tutorials - A More Practical PySide Example

More videos:

  • Review - Pyside2 Introduction & Installation | Qt For Python | Python GUI Development | Pyside2 Vs PyQt5

wxWidgets videos

Cross Platform Graphical User Interfaces in C++

More videos:

  • Demo - More Cross Platform Graphical User Interfaces in C++: Custom Controls

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to PySide and wxWidgets)
Development Tools
21 21%
79% 79
Rapid Application Development
Developer Tools
32 32%
68% 68
Cross-Platform Development

User comments

Share your experience with using PySide and wxWidgets. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
Log in or Post with

Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare PySide and wxWidgets

PySide Reviews

25 Python Frameworks to Master
It’s a great option for creating simple and easy-to-use graphical user interfaces in Python and allows you to add a GUI to your already working scripts pretty easily. PySimpleGUI wraps the power of 4 different GUI libraries, PySide, Tkinter, wxPython, and Remi.
Source: kinsta.com
Which Python GUI library should you use? Comparing the Python GUI libraries available in 2023
Before the Qt Company (under Nokia) released the officially supported PySide library in 2009, Riverbank Computing had released PyQt in 1998. The main difference between these two libraries is in licensing. The free-to-use version of PyQt is licensed under GNU General Public License (GPL) v3 but PySide is licensed under GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL). This means...
Top 10 Python GUI Frameworks for Developers
PySide2 is built by the same company that gave us the widely popular application development framework Qt. Upon looking closely, you’ll come across the term “Qt for Python Project”, which is nothing but the task of porting PySide to support Qt5, whereas the framework itself is now being called PySide2.

wxWidgets Reviews

We have no reviews of wxWidgets yet.
Be the first one to post

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, wxWidgets seems to be more popular. It has been mentiond 9 times since March 2021. 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.

PySide mentions (0)

We have not tracked any mentions of PySide yet. Tracking of PySide recommendations started around Mar 2021.

wxWidgets mentions (9)

  • Lazarus Release 4.0
    > produce relatively small binaries for simple applications The problem is that you need to have a huge Java runtime installed or use something like Jlink which still produces very large binaries for GUI apps. I think wxWidgets is the Lazarus alternative that is the closest to what grandparent was asking for. https://wxwidgets.org/. - Source: Hacker News / 16 days ago
  • What do you think about using a game engine for UI?
    In general, people must make a choice between portability, and the breadth of optimizations. For multi-platform builds, there are single code-base frameworks available: https://quasar.dev/ For MacOS, Linux Gtk, and Windows native builds there are mature free libraries that allow both FOSS and commercial static linking: https://wxwidgets.org/ Game engines are designed to solve a single set of use-cases for... - Source: Hacker News / 4 months ago
  • Understanding the Layout Process in Qt Widgets
    Why do your prefer it over https://wxwidgets.org given the licenses? Personally, I was keen on Qt right up to the 5.x change over. =3. - Source: Hacker News / 9 months ago
  • Building KiCad 6.0.11 from source - wxWidgets problem
    I decided to compile from scratch the latest wxWidgets from wxwidgets.org. And I compiled and installed successfully for both X11 and GTK. Source: over 1 year ago
  • Tic tac toe ine c++ ?
    Some say qt, others wxwidgets, u++, sfml, here is a video from quick search on wxwidgets and c++ for beginners https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOIbK4bJKS8 Choosethem depending on learning curve and where they will take you, you might learn something harder because it takes you farther to where you want to go. Source: over 2 years ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing PySide and wxWidgets, you can also consider the following products

PyQt - Riverbank | Software | PyQt | What is PyQt?

Qt - Powerful, flexible and easy to use, Qt will help you not only meet your tight deadline, but also reduce the maintainable code by an astonishing percentage.

PySimpleGUI - A simple to use GUI that can create custom GUIs

GTK - GTK+ is a multi-platform toolkit for creating graphical user interfaces.

Tkinter - Tkinter is a Python wrapper for Tcl/Tk that offers classes to create various graphical user interfaces.

Flutter - Build beautiful native apps in record time 🚀