# egui 49 Hacker News commenters recommended egui and 18 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 12 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule. **Verdict:** Free Rust library for quickly building cross-platform desktop apps with simple state management. Common caveat: immediate mode makes layout harder, and it can use more CPU. ## Why people recommend it - Reliable for building desktop apps (4 comments): "egui is very neat indeed. With agentic coding, Rust UI dev is as easy as electron dev without the bloat." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49478329)) "egui is, however, one of the most reliable paths in Rust today for building and shipping a desktop app." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48517303)) "since it solves the widget problem well in an easy-to-use package" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46185947)) - Works across Windows, Mac, Linux (3 comments): "I can write one using Qt, EGUI, etc (Or many other options), and it will just work on Windows, Mac, Linux/Wayland, and Linux/X." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49400167)) "It's cross platform and excellent, and if you give it design constraints it will look beautiful." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49922904)) "I do not think we should put up barriers in our application between OSs" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50249727)) - Simple state management, rapid prototyping (3 comments): "egui is fantastic for rapid prototyping - immediate mode makes state management simple." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46574011)) "egui redraws every frame, which makes state management simpler (no callback hell)." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46579004)) "egui is great for rapid development but has limitations" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46574748)) - Lightweight, faster than Electron (3 comments): "it's written in Rust and only updates when you interact with it so in practice it's way more efficient than I would have expected" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49518891)) "I would strongly prefer something more lightweight like Slint, Iced or egui" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48102470)) "significantly faster and more lightweight than Electron" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48527909)) ## What people warn about - Uses CPU and battery when repainting (2 comments): "It's going to use more CPU (and battery power), there can be jitter and things shifting after the initial rendering" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48141861)) "Isn't egui really cpu inefficient though? It repaints at 60fps if e.g. you move the mouse over it" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50107008)) - Poor text and font rendering (2 comments): "doesn't render very nicely and some of the APIs are amateurish, but it's quick and it works" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47003586)) "it looks pretty terrible (poor font rendering especially), and immediate mode has serious downsides" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48517837)) - Canvas rendering hurts accessibility (2 comments): "This feels like it would be an accessibility nightmare?" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49519087)) "egui is a terrible choice for web. Everything is rendered in a canvas, so accessibility and extensibility is thrown out of the window." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49519185)) - Immediate mode layout limitations (2 comments): "it looks pretty terrible (poor font rendering especially), and immediate mode has serious downsides" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48517837)) "The performance story isn't great, layout options is terrible (largely due to being immediate mode)" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45843565)) ## 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, "egui", https://hackerapproved.com/p/egui/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).