# AppKit

24 Hacker News commenters recommended AppKit and 8 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 11 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** Apple's native macOS UI framework, praised for its wide set of accessible, efficient widgets and mature API; critics note weak rich-text rendering and uncertain standing as SwiftUI spreads.

## Why people recommend it

- Wide set of accessible, ready widgets (3 comments): "AppKit has an expansive set of well implemented, accessible, flexible, efficient, and ready to use widgets" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46472042)) "nearly all needs are pretty well covered" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46034207)) "one can pretty easily wire up their entire UI for proper keyboard navigation entirely visually" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49480844))
- Frameworks handle hard desktop UI work (2 comments): "making a power-user-friendly desktop app is actually less work if you go native, because the frameworks already handle the hard parts" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47661566)) "I'll take AppKit and autolayout any day over CSS" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47236623))
- Stable, mature, well-designed API (4 comments): "the quality of the api is the best i've seen by a long mile" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47226395)) "AppKit was still a rock solid foundation." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46415822)) "Apple had a real winner with ObjC and AppKit." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49147868))
- Fast and resource-efficient (2 comments): "AppKit still runs circles around both, in performance and resource consumption." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48168824)) "AppKit, especially with manual layoutSubviews math easily hits 60fps too." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47662486))

## What people warn about

- Weak text rendering and rich interactions (3 comments): "SwiftUI / AppKit / TextKit still do not give you a clean, modern, composable path" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48168572)) "Neither SwiftUI nor AppKit makes handling those rich interactions easy." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49847808)) "AppKit and SwiftUI and WinUI are all meh for rendering lots of text." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48850955))
- Complex and rigid for simple things (2 comments): "AppKit, which enforces a ton. You can't change the height of a native button" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47740863)) "it is horrendously complicated for simple things." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49148569))
- Apple moving away toward SwiftUI (2 comments): "the outdated Appkit framework and iOS based Mac Catalyst." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48814391)) "the dual replacement of UIKit and AppKit with SwiftUI" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48932548))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Qt](https://hackerapproved.com/p/qt.md): 191 recommend
- [GTK](https://hackerapproved.com/p/gtk.md): 85 recommend
- [Windows Forms](https://hackerapproved.com/p/winforms.md): 76 recommend
- [SwiftUI](https://hackerapproved.com/p/swiftui.md): 75 recommend
- [Tcl/Tk](https://hackerapproved.com/p/tcl-tk.md): 61 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "AppKit", https://hackerapproved.com/p/appkit/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).