# Qt 191 Hacker News commenters recommended Qt and 133 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 12 of 13 months; owners who said how long report a median of 15 years (7 owners). **Verdict:** A mature C++ GUI framework for building fast, cross-platform desktop apps from one codebase, though licensing can be restrictive or costly and controls don't always look native. ## Why people recommend it - One codebase, every platform (7 comments): "for my app I run tests across a wide range of laptops, platforms and distros, across nvidia / intel / amd / llvmpipe / ... and it all works fine" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49564260)) "Give me QT to make cross-platform applications that properly manage resources, have low latency, and barely register in memory usage." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46479269)) "I can write one using Qt, EGUI, etc (Or many other options), and it will just work on Windows, Mac, Linux/Wayland, and Linux/X." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49400167)) - Mature, long-lived, high quality (5 comments): "There's software written today in Qt that traces back all the way to the mid 90s and are still top-of-the-line for their business." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49558644)) "I have no complaints using Qt for cross-platform development, it has been paying my bills for the last 15+ years." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47484512)) "none of the Rust toolkits is half as good as the surviving frameworks, like C++ Builder, Qt, wxWidgets" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46741793)) - Good theming and native affordances (3 comments): "They are rather thorough though, making sure their OS-specific theme matches the look and behavior of the native OS" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49508926)) "They did a better job of maintaining a coherent visual theme that says "Windows" and fits the design patterns" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48169646)) "Qt6 can look quite nice with QSS/QStyle themes, these days, and its native affordances are fairly good." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45971783)) - Rich built-in widgets and tooling (4 comments): "promote already existing huge toolkits that do have lots of functionalities built-in, including accessibility, like Qt for example" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46360220)) "Major GUI frameworks such as Qt have hotkey schemas and conventions that are used by default in every program built with them" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49493600)) "we are already using QT which has a tool for the job, and the QT tool works with the rest of the QT ecosystem" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48630015)) ## What people warn about - Licensing restrictions and commercial cost (5 comments): "I think Qt would yield better results than Wine for most things. But since your comment suggests that you're making proprietary software, I think you would have to take special care with linking or else submit to the Qt Group's commercial license terms." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46673389)) "It forces one to build the entire app in C++, and that's because, although open-source, its design revolves around the needs of the paying customers of Trolltech" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46655864)) "Not all components are LGPL, so when you're doing LGPL and you suddenly need some must-have-but-not-LGPL component,you're in trouble." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47806212)) - Doesn't look or feel native (4 comments): "even "native" cross-platform applications hardly go through the trouble to target the platform-native UI framework (and instead they go through non-native frameworks like Qt)" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48545591)) "it's just that not enough effort was put into making the built-in components behave and look like those on the platforms it runs" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46267601)) "Qt apps have to draw a simplistic makeshift titlebar which doesn't match anything when running under GNOME" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46603641)) - Bugs and maintenance burden (3 comments): "Qt is fully of bugs on Wayland, some of which are unfixable because the API makes guarantees that are impossible to uphold." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49406963)) "professional toolkit and properly implemented accessibility features (with a lot of bugs and horrible API because Qt)" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49666413)) "Qt5/Qt6 frameworks sooner or later cause more problems than they solve, and require a lot more maintenance/support." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47465193)) - Accessibility historically weak (2 comments): "professional toolkit and properly implemented accessibility features (with a lot of bugs and horrible API because Qt)" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49666413)) "QT used to be completely inaccessible, although they've significantly improved in the last couple years" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46067207)) ## Alternatives hackers 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 - [Avalonia UI](https://hackerapproved.com/p/avalonia.md): 51 recommend ## Cite as Hacker Approved, "Qt", https://hackerapproved.com/p/qt/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).