# MicroUI by rxi

13 Hacker News commenters recommended MicroUI by rxi and 2 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 2 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** A tiny, portable immediate-mode UI library in ANSI C that people praise for its minimal size, and it suits things like Raylib debug menus. Critics say it lacks window system integration and seems limited and possibly abandoned.

## Why people recommend it

- Tiny, minimal, lightweight code (5 comments): "The whole thing's less than 2kLoCs. If it needs ongoing maintenance, something's gone wrong IMO." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48578199)) "it's really interesting in how minimal it is" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48572044)) "It's supposed to be a _tiny_ library." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48576660))
- Respected author, well-written code (2 comments): "I'm a fan of rxi's work, including this one." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48571659)) "It helps to read code from the masters, too" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48261551))

## What people warn about

- Limited and possibly abandoned (2 comments): "IIRC the library was quite nice, even if a bit limited." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48573594)) "it's kinda abandonware at this point" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48570737))
- No window system or external access (2 comments): "Nice, except the hard part seems to be missing: interfacing with an actual window system" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48570022)) "no ability for an outside process to enumerate or interact with the controls" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48570931))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Bonsai by Jane Street](https://hackerapproved.com/p/bonsai.md): 27 recommend
- [Reagent](https://hackerapproved.com/p/reagent.md): 5 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "MicroUI by rxi", https://hackerapproved.com/p/microui/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).