Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

wxWidgets VS OpenGL

Compare wxWidgets VS OpenGL and see what are their differences

Note: These products don't have any matching categories. If you think this is a mistake, please edit the details of one of the products and suggest appropriate categories.

wxWidgets logo wxWidgets

wxWidgets: Cross-Platform GUI Library

OpenGL logo OpenGL

OpenGL is the premier environment for developing portable, interactive 2D and 3D graphics...
  • wxWidgets Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-07-21
  • OpenGL Landing page
    Landing page //
    2021-09-25

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.

OpenGL features and specs

  • Cross-platform Compatibility
    OpenGL is platform-independent, allowing developers to write code that can run on multiple platforms such as Windows, macOS, Linux, and others without modification.
  • Wide Hardware Support
    Extensive support across a broad range of graphics hardware, making it a reliable choice for ensuring that applications will work on various devices.
  • Open Source
    As an open-source graphics API, OpenGL allows for extensive collaboration and contributions from the community, improving its features and performance over time.
  • Industry Standard
    Used widely in the industry for professional applications in areas like CAD, virtual reality, and video games, providing good community support and documentation.
  • Rich Feature Set
    Provides a comprehensive set of features for rendering 2D and 3D vector graphics, offering flexibility for developers to create complex visual effects.

Possible disadvantages of OpenGL

  • Complexity
    OpenGL's vast array of features and options can lead to a steep learning curve for new developers who may find it challenging to implement even basic tasks.
  • Obsolete Features
    Some parts of OpenGL are considered outdated, with legacy functionality that may complicate development and require additional effort to modernize older codebases.
  • Performance Overhead
    While generally efficient, OpenGL can introduce overhead compared to lower-level APIs like Vulkan or Direct3D, which offer more direct control of graphics hardware resources.
  • Fragmented Support
    Different platforms and graphics card vendors may implement OpenGL features inconsistently, requiring extra testing and potentially platform-specific workarounds.
  • Low Abstraction
    Despite its flexibility, OpenGL provides a lower level of abstraction compared to some newer APIs, meaning that developers must manage more of the graphics pipeline manually.

wxWidgets videos

Cross Platform Graphical User Interfaces in C++

More videos:

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

OpenGL videos

OSBUDDY 3.0 OPENGL REVIEW - Not as promised??

More videos:

  • Review - Latest OpenGL and Vulkan GPU drivers Pubg gaming Review Poco F1 | 0.18 Mad Miramar Update
  • Review - OpenGL Basic (Fastest Review)

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to wxWidgets and OpenGL)
Development Tools
100 100%
0% 0
Game Development
0 0%
100% 100
Rapid Application Development
Game Engine
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

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

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, wxWidgets seems to be more popular. 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

OpenGL mentions (0)

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

What are some alternatives?

When comparing wxWidgets and OpenGL, 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.

SDL - Simple DirectMedia Layer is a cross-platform multimedia library designed to provide low level...

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

Unreal Engine - Unreal Engine 4 is a suite of integrated tools for game developers to design and build games, simulations, and visualizations.

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

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.