Dear ImGui
Hacker ApprovedShares rank 8 of 45 GUI frameworks by recommenders
Fast, lightweight, cross-platform immediate-mode GUI library for tools, prototypes and debug UIs. Critics say it is not meant for end-user applications.
Fast, lightweight, cross-platform immediate-mode GUI library for tools, prototypes and debug UIs. Critics say it is not meant for end-user applications.
57 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 45
- criticize it
- 12
- approval share
- 79%
Recommended in 11 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 45 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 3.8 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
Standard for prototyping graphical tools
“Dear ImGui is designed to enable fast iterations and to empower programmers to create content creation tools”
Comment from 17 Jun 2026 in “MicroUI – A tiny, portable, immediate-mode UI library written in ANSI C” “Use an inmediate gui interface like dear imgui to prototype your tool.”
Comment from 15 Feb 2026 in “Ask HN: Why is my Claude experience so bad? What am I doing wrong?” “basically standard when prototyping any sort of graphical application”
Comment from 7 Mar 2026 in “macOS code injection for fun and no profit (2024)” - Comment from 1 Dec 2025 in “ImAnim: Modern animation capabilities to ImGui applications”
- Comment from 2 Jul 2026 in “What to Learn to Be a Graphics Programmer”
Bindings for many languages
“It also have bindings for a ton of languages, so for people who jump languages a lot, it's always nice to be able to reach for something more familiar”
Comment from 1 Dec 2025 in “ImAnim: Modern animation capabilities to ImGui applications” “Dear ImGui via the C bindings is actually quite nice and not much less convenient than the C++ API”
Comment from 24 Mar 2026 in “Testing the Swift C compatibility with Raylib (+WASM)” “I find it easier to use Dear Imgui from a "lower-level language"”
Comment from 18 Jan 2026 in “High-Level Is the Goal” - Comment from 4 Jun 2026 in “Gooey: A GPU-accelerated UI framework for Zig”
Stable and reliable in use
“Imgui is a rare mix of fast, lightweight, trivially cross-platform and stable”
Comment from 1 Dec 2025 in “ImAnim: Modern animation capabilities to ImGui applications” “is being used productively by many people and is stable”
Comment from 13 Oct 2026 in “A Modern Web App in C” “ImGui is reliable and Zig makes it trivial to use.”
Comment from 4 Jun 2026 in “Gooey: A GPU-accelerated UI framework for Zig” Fast, lightweight and easy to deploy
“trivial to deploy (there is nothing to deploy, including it is all that's needed)”
Comment from 27 Feb 2026 in “Smartphone Mkt to Decline 13% in '26, Largest Drop Ever Due to Memory Shortage” “Imgui is a rare mix of fast, lightweight, trivially cross-platform and stable”
Comment from 1 Dec 2025 in “ImAnim: Modern animation capabilities to ImGui applications” “the latter being as simple as can be while still being blazing fast”
Comment from 5 Nov 2025 in “Some software bloat is OK”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Not meant for end-user apps
“it's not meant to be used in actual applications aimed at end-users”
Comment from 1 Dec 2025 in “ImAnim: Modern animation capabilities to ImGui applications” “Any project that uses Dear Imgui for end-user applications has already made a bad design choice.”
Comment from 17 Jun 2026 in “MicroUI – A tiny, portable, immediate-mode UI library written in ANSI C” “Using it for local desktop app UI is also ridiculous, imho.”
Comment from 11 May 2026 in “Local AI needs to be the norm” - Comment from 13 Feb 2026 in “Zed editor switching graphics lib from blade to wgpu”
Too low level for general UIs
“For the intended use case it is quite good, but for more general applications it is just not a good UI library.”
Comment from 2 Dec 2025 in “ImAnim: Modern animation capabilities to ImGui applications” “It supports most of the fancy layout stuff of CSS afaik (flexbox etc), yet its almost as low level as it gets.”
Comment from 17 Jan 2026 in “High-Level Is the Goal” “I felt it was very low level and had to build a lot of systems”
Comment from 30 Sep 2026 in “Using any C++ library in Godot”
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 | — |
| Dear ImGuiThis page | 45 | 12 | 79% | 11 | — | Approved |
What people said
40 of the 65 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“I love Dear ImGUI and the people that build interfaces with it.”
“is being used productively by many people and is stable”
“I felt it was very low level and had to build a lot of systems”
“it's not quite there for me. Something is missing.”
“the magic is that you can tie rendering of the editor to the editables quite easily”
“UI tools development got much easier though thanks to Dear ImGui”
“Dear ImGui is designed to enable fast iterations and to empower programmers to create content creation tools”
“Any project that uses Dear Imgui for end-user applications has already made a bad design choice.”
“that hasn't stopped companies such as Intel, Meta, IKEA and Google from shipping products built upon it”
“ImGui is reliable and Zig makes it trivial to use.”
“an ImGUI process with a DRM back-end is enough for a launcher”
“Using it for local desktop app UI is also ridiculous, imho.”
“Dear ImGui via the C bindings is actually quite nice and not much less convenient than the C++ API”
“Otherwise, Qt, VCL, Firemonkey, Avalonia, Uno, ImGUI”
“imgui is a breeze of fresh air for internal stuff”
“while imgui is super-cool, this is wildly overstating its reach or significance”
“basically standard when prototyping any sort of graphical application”
“trivial to deploy (there is nothing to deploy, including it is all that's needed)”
“Game engines already render graphics, so it is just part of the same pipeline.”
“Use an inmediate gui interface like dear imgui to prototype your tool.”
“which was obviously a bad choice for consumer-facing UIs”
“they're still a good place to look, to get a general idea”
“I know the underlying C++ library is well-regarded”
“I find it easier to use Dear Imgui from a "lower-level language"”
“easier to use, easier to iterate in, and faster too”
“It supports most of the fancy layout stuff of CSS afaik (flexbox etc), yet its almost as low level as it gets.”
“It essentially delivered on all points I hoped it would.”
“For the intended use case it is quite good, but for more general applications it is just not a good UI library.”
“Imgui is a rare mix of fast, lightweight, trivially cross-platform and stable”
“It's the perfect use case for imgui to have a "blender" type product.”
“The fact that it's based on OpenGL or Vulkan or whatever backend you want is a big win for this kind of work.”
“It can be a bit wonky though, I regularly spot UI/UX decisions that seem to map more closely to what the developer is doing under the hood”
“It also have bindings for a ton of languages, so for people who jump languages a lot, it's always nice to be able to reach for something more familiar”
“it's great for building full standalone applications”
“animated data representations can be really valuable”
“imgui success is a silent protest from tons of C++ developers”
“it's not meant to be used in actual applications aimed at end-users”
“imgui is the best damn thing to happen to UI coding ever”
“as much as I would love to use an Immediate Mode UI to solve a problem... it sounds like a great idea... until it isn't.”
“the latter being as simple as can be while still being blazing fast”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.