# Motif

17 Hacker News commenters recommended Motif and 17 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 8 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** People recommend Motif for its clean, utilitarian look and its long-lived, stable APIs on Unix desktops. The most common caveat is that critics found it hard and tedious to develop with.

## Why people recommend it

- Clean, utilitarian look (3 comments): "I miss Motif. This is a portal to a time when men were men and UNIX(R)—or in this case, VMS—desktops were utilitarian and did exactly what you needed and nothing more." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46806414)) "I really enjoyed Motif and the general flat clean look that came with eg TWM and co." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49050845)) "UI design peaked with Motif Window Manager and has gone downhill ever since." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50111316))
- Fondly remembered from its era (2 comments): "I miss Motif. This is a portal to a time when men were men and UNIX(R)—or in this case, VMS—desktops were utilitarian and did exactly what you needed and nothing more." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46806414)) "Motif was ugly, but I look at it fondly now." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46291368))
- Stable APIs that worked well (2 comments): "Motif was something of a nightmare to work with" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46807633)) "Xlib and Motif are stable APIs." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46569712))
- Established Unix GUI standard (2 comments): "Motif and CDE were already established as the Unix GUI API" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48526973)) "If it uses Motif and IrisGL" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46367183))

## What people warn about

- Hard and painful to develop with (5 comments): "Motif did have a reputation for being a total drag to develop with" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49795318)) "I better not dwell to long or I'll have flashbacks t coding X/Motif UI's." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46815296)) "Motif was something of a nightmare to work with" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46807633))
- Dated, ugly or unremarkable look (3 comments): "Motif did not jump out as "wow that looks good" IMHO" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47202218)) "a lot like a monochrome Windows 3.1 that used too many pixels" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46291394)) "Motif was ugly, but I look at it fondly now." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46291368))
- Poor standardization across versions (2 comments): "I would've hoped that Motif being in use by more people than just the devs of one homebrew Unix desktop would mean that we wouldn't have suffered through that much versionitis" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46807035)) "it wasn't like, meaningfully standardized. just no one ever updated anything." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46807687))

## 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, "Motif", https://hackerapproved.com/p/motif/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).