Makepad
Shares rank 42 of 45 GUI frameworks by recommenders
Free Rust framework praised for fast compile times, performance and a hot-reloadable DSL; main caveat is very thin documentation.
Free Rust framework praised for fast compile times, performance and a hot-reloadable DSL; main caveat is very thin documentation.
6 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 5
- criticize it
- 1
- approval share
- 83%
Recommended in 4 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 5 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 5 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 4 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
Fast compile times and performance
“they achieved outstanding compilation times in rust for makepad”
Comment from 1 Oct 2026 in “How to speed up the Rust compiler in September 2026” “I was amazed to see makepad.nl's performances.”
Comment from 30 Jan 2026 in “Nannou – A Creative Coding Framework for Rust”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Little or no documentation
“it has basically no documentation so don't bother yet”
Comment from 13 Feb 2026 in “Zed editor switching graphics lib from blade to wgpu”
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 | — |
| MakepadThis page | 5 | 1 | 83% | 4 | — | — |
What people said
All 6 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“they achieved outstanding compilation times in rust for makepad”
“the best example of a team making a dedicated DSL that can be hot-reloaded”
“They're in the process of rewriting the entire thing with AI”
“it has basically no documentation so don't bother yet”
“Their cross-platform approach is extremely ambitious.”
“I was amazed to see makepad.nl's performances.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.