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wxWidgets VS Tkinter

Compare wxWidgets VS Tkinter and see what are their differences

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LibHunt tracks mentions of software libraries on relevant social networks. Based on that data, you can find the most popular projects and their alternatives. featured
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wxWidgets logo wxWidgets

wxWidgets: Cross-Platform GUI Library

Tkinter logo Tkinter

Tkinter is a Python wrapper for Tcl/Tk that offers classes to create various graphical user interfaces.
  • wxWidgets Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-07-21
  • Tkinter Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-08-28

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.

Tkinter features and specs

  • Built-in Standard Library
    Tkinter comes bundled with Python, so there is no need for additional installations. This makes it highly accessible and quick to set up for projects.
  • Ease of Use
    Tkinter provides a simple syntax and an easy-to-understand system for building GUI applications, making it ideal for beginners who are just starting with programming.
  • Cross-Platform Compatibility
    Tkinter applications can run on multiple operating systems like Windows, macOS, and Linux without modification, which ensures broader audience reach.
  • Strong Community Support
    Being part of Python's standard library means that Tkinter benefits from Python's extensive community support, with plenty of tutorials and resources available online.
  • Object-Oriented Approach
    Tkinter supports an object-oriented programming model, which allows for structuring code in a manageable way, especially for larger applications.

Possible disadvantages of Tkinter

  • Limited Widget Set
    Compared to more modern GUI frameworks, Tkinter has a limited set of widgets and may not support advanced user interface features that newer applications might require.
  • Outdated Look and Feel
    The default Tkinter themes and styles may look outdated by modern standards, which might not be suitable for applications where a contemporary design is important.
  • Performance Limitations
    Tkinter may not perform well with applications requiring high-performance graphics or real-time updates, as it is not optimized for these tasks.
  • Learning Curve for Complex Applications
    While simple to use for basic applications, building more complex UI components can become challenging and might require a deeper understanding of the Tkinter framework.
  • Lack of Advanced Features
    Some advanced features like drag-and-drop, custom widgets, or native look and feel on different platforms might be either missing or require additional work to implement.

wxWidgets videos

+ Add

Cross Platform Graphical User Interfaces in C++

More videos:

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

Tkinter videos

+ Add

Which is Better Kivy Or Tkinter? - Python Kivy GUI Tutorial #42

More videos:

  • Review - Python Programming 93 - Review of Tkinter
  • Tutorial - Tkinter Course - Create Graphic User Interfaces in Python Tutorial

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to wxWidgets and Tkinter)

wxWidgets

Tkinter

Development Tools
75 75%
Development Tools
25% 25
Developer Tools
46 46%
Developer Tools
54% 54
Rapid Application Development
69 69%
Rapid Application Development
31% 31
Cross-Platform Development
100 100%
Cross-Platform Development
0% 0

User comments

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Reviews

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

wxWidgets Reviews

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Tkinter 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
Tkinter is a simple library with support for standard layouts and widgets, as well as more complex widgets such as tabbed views & progressbars. Tkinter is a pure GUI library, not a framework. There is no built-in support for GUIs driven from data sources, databases, or for displaying or manipulating multimedia or hardware. However, if you need to make something simple that...
Source: www.pythonguis.com
10 Best Python Libraries for GUI
Another top Python library for GUI is Tkinter, which is an open-source Python Graphic User Interface library. It is well known for its simplicity and comes pre-installed in Python, meaning there is no work on your part. These features make it a great choice for beginners and intermediates, but it is not capable of carrying out larger-scale projects.
Source: www.unite.ai
Top 10 Python GUI Frameworks for Developers
Often referred to as the go-to GUI toolkit by a majority of Python developers, Tkinter was created to equip modern developers with a standard interface to the Tk GUI toolkit with its Python bindings. In Tkinter’s world, most of the visual elements that we’re familiar with are called widgets, and each of these widgets offers a different level of customizability.
Source: towardsdatascience.com

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Tkinter should be more popular than wxWidgets. It has been mentiond 37 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

Tkinter mentions (37)

  • Building a Lightweight OCR-Powered Receipt Parser
    Tkinter Documentation – Official Python Tkinter library documentation. - Source: dev.to / 2 months ago
  • The Adventures of Blink S2e7: A GUI Screen in Python
    For our hangman, I've elected to use Tkinter. It has a pre-built collection of little widgets that make dialog-based apps work, and I think it will be useful for Hangman, which doesn't require a great deal of animation and image management but does require us to have an easy-to-use interface for the user to make changes. - Source: dev.to / 6 months ago
  • Ask HN: How popular is Tcl in 2024?
    >> So it's hard for me to recommend tk for GUI development. Tcl/Tk is widely used in lightweight legacy GUIs. Python distributions will typically include tkinter (https://docs.python.org/3/library/tkinter.html) which is just a Python wrapper for Tk. Git usually includes the gitk graphical utility which is written in Tcl/TK: - Source: Hacker News / 9 months ago
  • A brief interview with Tcl creator John Ousterhout
    Lots of people care about it, and it's alive and kicking in-industry and being developed (Tcl 9 is imminent[0]). I've had fun w Guile over the years (though actually never considered its "heaviness"); fun. I'm constantly amazed at the professional love for Python; its got it's network effect in full-effect: lots of people, lots of software - there's just no denying that. But for Joy of Development, Tcl (and C) is... - Source: Hacker News / 10 months ago
  • Essential Deep Learning Checklist: Best Practices Unveiled
    How to Accomplish: Create a simple interface (CLI or GUI) where users can input an image, and the script processes and displays the model's prediction. For a CLI, use argparse to handle input arguments. For a GUI, consider libraries like Tkinter or web-based interfaces using FastAPI or Flask. The script should perform necessary preprocessing, invoke the model prediction, and present the results clearly, such as... - Source: dev.to / 11 months ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing wxWidgets and Tkinter, 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.

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

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

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

MD Python Designer - A drag and drop GUI Designer that uses a combination of Tkinter and its own code.

OutSystems - Build Enterprise-Grade Apps Fast.

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