PySimpleGUI
Shares rank 35 of 45 GUI frameworks by recommenders
People recommend it for quickly building compact GUIs in Python without learning GTK, win32 or Qt. It was relicensed commercial and later returned to open source under LGPL 3.0.
People recommend it for quickly building compact GUIs in Python without learning GTK, win32 or Qt. It was relicensed commercial and later returned to open source under LGPL 3.0.
14 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 6
- criticize it
- 8
- approval share
- 43%
Recommended in 1 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not 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: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 6 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 0.7 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 1 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, not 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
Simple way to build small GUIs
“It made writting compact GUIs for smaller projects manageable without going into the deeps of GTK, win32 or QT.”
Comment from 8 May 2026 in “PySimpleGUI 6” “This is why PySimpleGUI is nice...you can make a button!”
Comment from 7 May 2026 in “PySimpleGUI 6” Free again under LGPL 3.0
“A nice gesture of sorts to make it available to everyone after the updates made during the commercial phase.”
Comment from 7 May 2026 in “PySimpleGUI 6” “Great to see this back as Open Source (LGPL 3.0).”
Comment from 7 May 2026 in “PySimpleGUI 6”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Commercial phase made it fragile
“I stopped using this when the dev did their rugpull and won't go back.”
Comment from 7 May 2026 in “PySimpleGUI 6” “N E V E R Use code that can "stop working" until you pay ransom.”
Comment from 7 May 2026 in “PySimpleGUI 6” “it just stopped working! Pretty annoying.”
Comment from 8 May 2026 in “PySimpleGUI 6” Distrust of maintainer's motives
“I suspect that the owner had his mind on commercialization from the very beginning”
Comment from 7 May 2026 in “PySimpleGUI 6” “then somehow leverage their position as a FOSS maintainer transform it to non-FOSS”
Comment from 8 May 2026 in “PySimpleGUI 6” “starting out as a community project and then closing doors to make money from it”
Comment from 7 May 2026 in “PySimpleGUI 6” - Comment from 7 May 2026 in “PySimpleGUI 6”
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 | — |
| PySimpleGUIThis page | 6 | 8 | 43% | 1 | — | — |
What people said
14 of the 15 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“It made writting compact GUIs for smaller projects manageable without going into the deeps of GTK, win32 or QT.”
“then somehow leverage their position as a FOSS maintainer transform it to non-FOSS”
“We were just getting our feet wet, tho, and that's where it seemed burdensome”
“it just stopped working! Pretty annoying.”
“event == 'Cancel' condition seems like a strange and fragile way to check if a certain button was pressed”
“I suspect that the owner had his mind on commercialization from the very beginning”
“N E V E R Use code that can "stop working" until you pay ransom.”
“I stopped using this when the dev did their rugpull and won't go back.”
“This is why PySimpleGUI is nice...you can make a button!”
“Great to see this back as Open Source (LGPL 3.0).”
“A nice gesture of sorts to make it available to everyone after the updates made during the commercial phase.”
“starting out as a community project and then closing doors to make money from it”
“First they made it commercial.”
“more likely to introduce bugs or limitations you can't work around”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.