AppKit
Hacker ApprovedShares rank 15 of 45 GUI frameworks by recommenders
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.
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.
32 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 24
- criticize it
- 8
- approval share
- 75%
Recommended in 11 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 24 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 3 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 11 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Wide set of accessible, ready widgets
“AppKit has an expansive set of well implemented, accessible, flexible, efficient, and ready to use widgets”
Comment from 3 Jan 2026 in “2026 will be my year of the Linux desktop” “nearly all needs are pretty well covered”
Comment from 24 Nov 2025 in “Shai-Hulud Returns: Over 300 NPM Packages Infected” “one can pretty easily wire up their entire UI for proper keyboard navigation entirely visually”
Comment from 28 Aug 2026 in “GUIs should be fully keyboard-driven” Frameworks handle hard desktop UI work
“making a power-user-friendly desktop app is actually less work if you go native, because the frameworks already handle the hard parts”
Comment from 6 Apr 2026 in “Microsoft Hasn't Had a Coherent GUI Strategy Since Petzold” “I'll take AppKit and autolayout any day over CSS”
Comment from 3 Mar 2026 in “Claude is an Electron App because we've lost native” Stable, mature, well-designed API
“the quality of the api is the best i've seen by a long mile”
Comment from 3 Mar 2026 in “Why Objective-C” “AppKit was still a rock solid foundation.”
Comment from 29 Dec 2025 in “Last Year on My Mac: Look Back in Disbelief” “Apple had a real winner with ObjC and AppKit.”
Comment from 2 Aug 2026 in “SwiftUI After 7 Years: A Story of Mediocrity” - Comment from 3 Jan 2026 in “2026 will be my year of the Linux desktop”
Fast and resource-efficient
“AppKit still runs circles around both, in performance and resource consumption.”
Comment from 17 May 2026 in “Native all the way, until you need text” “AppKit, especially with manual layoutSubviews math easily hits 60fps too.”
Comment from 6 Apr 2026 in “Microsoft Hasn't Had a Coherent GUI Strategy Since Petzold”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Weak text rendering and rich interactions
“SwiftUI / AppKit / TextKit still do not give you a clean, modern, composable path”
Comment from 17 May 2026 in “Native all the way, until you need text” “Neither SwiftUI nor AppKit makes handling those rich interactions easy.”
Comment from 25 Sep 2026 in “What About Rails?” “AppKit and SwiftUI and WinUI are all meh for rendering lots of text.”
Comment from 9 Jul 2026 in “ChatGPT Work” Complex and rigid for simple things
“AppKit, which enforces a ton. You can't change the height of a native button”
Comment from 12 Apr 2026 in “Bring Back Idiomatic Design” “it is horrendously complicated for simple things.”
Comment from 2 Aug 2026 in “SwiftUI After 7 Years: A Story of Mediocrity” Apple moving away toward SwiftUI
“the outdated Appkit framework and iOS based Mac Catalyst.”
Comment from 7 Jul 2026 in “Anthropic's Method to Losing Goodwill in a Few Easy Steps” “the dual replacement of UIKit and AppKit with SwiftUI”
Comment from 16 Jul 2026 in “If you want to create a button from scratch, you must first create the universe”
Other GUI frameworks people recommend
The four most recommended other GUI frameworks, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Qt | 191 | 133 | 59% | 12 | 15 yrs7 owners | — |
| GTK | 85 | 118 | 42% | 12 | — | — |
| Windows Forms | 76 | 33 | 70% | 12 | 15 yrs3 owners | Approved |
| SwiftUI | 75 | 121 | 38% | 11 | 4 yrs8 owners | — |
| AppKitThis page | 24 | 8 | 75% | 11 | — | Approved |
What people said
37 of the 40 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Neither SwiftUI nor AppKit makes handling those rich interactions easy.”
“it used the same (mostly) well-honed api as AppK”
“one can pretty easily wire up their entire UI for proper keyboard navigation entirely visually”
“what NeXT/Apple AppKit was offering around the turn of the millennium already”
“Once understood, IOC in AppKit and Interface Builder was incredibly efficient.”
“I can always fallback to AppKit”
“it is horrendously complicated for simple things.”
“Apple had a real winner with ObjC and AppKit.”
“I still see WPF and AppKit as both being superior UI technologies to web+react”
“the dual replacement of UIKit and AppKit with SwiftUI”
“AppKit and SwiftUI and WinUI are all meh for rendering lots of text.”
“the outdated Appkit framework and iOS based Mac Catalyst.”
“I never had issues doing any design thrown at me using AppKit, UIKit or SwiftUI.”
“AppKit was doing correctly in the late 90s (undo/redo)”
“The gulf between AppKit and SwiftUI in macos desktop I'm not as sure about.”
“The problems with AppKit integration are real and should not be dismissed out of hand.”
“AppKit still runs circles around both, in performance and resource consumption.”
“SwiftUI / AppKit / TextKit still do not give you a clean, modern, composable path”
“AppKit is still better in this regard.”
“more and more AppKit standard feature get lost”
“AppKit, which enforces a ton. You can't change the height of a native button”
“AppKit and SwiftUI are both viable”
“AppKit, especially with manual layoutSubviews math easily hits 60fps too.”
“making a power-user-friendly desktop app is actually less work if you go native, because the frameworks already handle the hard parts”
“I'll take AppKit and autolayout any day over CSS”
“the quality of the api is the best i've seen by a long mile”
“you're better off with something like AppKit”
“old school desktop UI frameworks (AppKit, win32, GTK, Qt, etc)”
“it's easy to write Swift/Appkit apps”
“AppKit works well on all macOS versions.”
“AppKit has an expansive set of well implemented, accessible, flexible, efficient, and ready to use widgets”
“the "bones" of the app are imperative AppKit/UIKit”
“AppKit was still a rock solid foundation.”
“made the deep and robust AppKit/Cocoa the foundation of its primary kit”
“nearly all needs are pretty well covered”
“I'm personally a fan of AppKit and Win32”
“still using AppKit, which I deeply love”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.