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wxWidgets VS FLTK

Compare wxWidgets VS FLTK and see what are their differences

wxWidgets logo wxWidgets

wxWidgets: Cross-Platform GUI Library

FLTK logo FLTK

Fast Light Toolkit - Fast Light Toolkit (FLTK)
  • wxWidgets Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-07-21
  • FLTK Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-01-18

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.

FLTK features and specs

  • Lightweight
    FLTK is designed to be small and simple, making it easy to compile and port across different platforms without consuming significant system resources.
  • Cross-Platform
    FLTK supports major operating systems like Windows, macOS, and Linux, making it a versatile choice for applications that need to operate across these platforms with minimal changes.
  • Fast Performance
    FLTK's lightweight nature ensures rapid execution and responsiveness, which is crucial for graphical applications that require quick updates and fluid interactions.
  • Open Source
    As an open-source toolkit, FLTK allows developers to modify the source code to suit specific needs and contribute to its development, fostering a collaborative community.
  • Easy to Learn
    FLTK's API is considered straightforward and easy to learn for developers familiar with C++, reducing the learning curve for new users.

Possible disadvantages of FLTK

  • Limited Features
    Compared to other modern GUI toolkits, FLTK provides fewer built-in widgets and lacks certain advanced features, which may require additional development effort.
  • Old-Style Look and Feel
    The user interface components of FLTK can appear outdated compared to more modern GUI frameworks, potentially affecting the visual appeal of applications.
  • Less Community Support
    FLTK has a smaller community and less frequently updated documentation compared to more popular frameworks, which can make finding help and resources more challenging.
  • Limited Third-Party Libraries
    There are fewer third-party libraries and extensions available for FLTK, which might limit the ease of extending functionality or integrating with other tools and technologies.
  • Single Thread Limitation
    FLTK predominantly works within a single-threaded context for GUI operations, requiring careful management when incorporating multi-threading in applications.

wxWidgets videos

Cross Platform Graphical User Interfaces in C++

More videos:

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

FLTK videos

P3D Core2 'Frosting' , More FLTK GUI goodies

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to wxWidgets and FLTK)
Development Tools
75 75%
25% 25
Rapid Application Development
Cross-Platform Development
Developer Tools
100 100%
0% 0

User comments

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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, wxWidgets should be more popular than FLTK. It has been mentiond 8 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.

wxWidgets mentions (8)

  • 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 / 8 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
  • The Decline and Fall of Java on the Desktop Part 1 (1999-2005)
    > Java Swing still lets you make native-looking-and-feeling apps (with some care). I don't know of any new GUI frameworks that let you do the same. That's the whole raison d'être of the (C++) wxWidgets toolkit. [0] It fully commits to using native GUI widgets, rather than impersonating them. (That is, it wraps various other toolkits.) As others have pointed out, the other major cross-platform toolkits (Qt, GTK)... - Source: Hacker News / about 3 years ago
View more

FLTK mentions (2)

  • declarative GUI libraries
    It’s not declarative, but small, cross platform, old school C++, and has a graphical UI designer that writes the C++ code for you. Since you mentioned Rust, it has Rust bindings too: http://fltk.org . It has different schemes that make it look more modern than the default scheme…. Source: almost 2 years ago
  • not sure about a file i found in my \AppData\Roaming folder (fltk.org)
    Hello, I was recently looking through my \AppData\Roaming and found a folder called fltk.org and I am not sure of why it is there or where it has come from. Does this folder come from any games that can be downloaded or something? Source: about 4 years ago

What are some alternatives?

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

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.

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

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

Avalonia - A multi-platform .NET UI framework

OutSystems - Build Enterprise-Grade Apps Fast.

Uno Platform - Build Mobile, Desktop and WebAssembly apps with C# and XAML.