FLTK
Ranked 28 of 45 GUI frameworks by recommenders
Small, fast, statically linked C++ GUI library that is cross-platform and still maintained; critics say its theming needs work and it is hard to bind from other languages.
Small, fast, statically linked C++ GUI library that is cross-platform and still maintained; critics say its theming needs work and it is hard to bind from other languages.
22 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 13
- criticize it
- 9
- approval share
- 59%
Recommended in 7 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 13 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 1.4 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 7 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
Small, fast and lightweight
“Fltk even goes lower to single digits. Crazy what fltk can manage to do even if creating simple utility apps like notepad or calculator.”
Comment from 23 Sep 2026 in “Native apps written in TypeScript and CSS” “FLTK is great at being fast and light, that’s about it.”
Comment from 22 Mar 2026 in “Windows native app development is a mess” “small, dependable and cross-platform”
Comment from 1 Mar 2026 in “PureBasic: The Quiet Survivor” Statically linked and easy to vendor
“it's also small enough to where you can vendor it and build it alongside your program”
Comment from 25 Jan 2026 in “Banned C++ Features in Chromium” “FLTK is also designed to be statically linked with your program”
Comment from 19 Jan 2026 in “Wine 11.0” Wayland support and active maintenance
“Version 1.4 is really nice, with Wayland support, and they even draw custom window decorations on GNOME”
Comment from 31 Jul 2026 in “A GTK4 SSH-askpass in Zig” “Unlike GTK 1.x it is still maintained.”
Comment from 19 Mar 2026 in “Stdwin: Standard window interface by Guido Van Rossum [pdf]” “And yes it supports Wayland now.”
Comment from 14 Nov 2025 in “EDE: Small and Fast Desktop Environment (2014)” Charming retro desktop feel
“FLTK in 2025? Why not? It does have its charm!”
Comment from 6 Dec 2025 in “Tiny Core Linux: a 23 MB Linux distro with graphical desktop” “The 90s Linux desktop vibes hit like a hammer.”
Comment from 14 May 2026 in “What's in a GGUF, besides the weights – and what's still missing?”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
C++ hampers language bindings
“fltk is c++ based which makes language bindings significantly harder in general”
Comment from 31 Jul 2026 in “A GTK4 SSH-askpass in Zig” “If fltk had C bindings it would have been a thing long ago”
Comment from 6 Nov 2025 in “Dillo, a multi-platform graphical web browser”
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 | — |
| FLTKThis page | 13 | 9 | 59% | 7 | — | — |
What people said
19 of the 23 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Fltk even goes lower to single digits. Crazy what fltk can manage to do even if creating simple utility apps like notepad or calculator.”
“fltk is c++ based which makes language bindings significantly harder in general”
“Version 1.4 is really nice, with Wayland support, and they even draw custom window decorations on GNOME”
“The 90s Linux desktop vibes hit like a hammer.”
“turns out to be a PITA under Linux if you are not g++”
“FLTK is great at being fast and light, that’s about it.”
“Unlike GTK 1.x it is still maintained.”
“small, dependable and cross-platform”
“looks nice with the default style (rules out GTK, FLTK, etc.)”
“QT and FLTK programs need to be restarted in order to render with the new screen scaling ratio”
“FLTK could be an option, though it'd probably need to improve its theming support.”
“it's also small enough to where you can vendor it and build it alongside your program”
“FLTK is also designed to be statically linked with your program”
“you end up having to roll your own system”
“FLTK in 2025? Why not? It does have its charm!”
“And yes it supports Wayland now.”
“The change from FLTK 1.3.X to 1.4.X breaks many things in Dillo.”
“If fltk had C bindings it would have been a thing long ago”
“FLTK was a pleasure to use (for uncomplicated software)”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.