# tkinter

15 Hacker News commenters recommended tkinter and 4 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 8 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** Ships with Python so there is nothing extra to install and basic GUIs are quick to build, though modern-looking interfaces, dark mode and accessibility are hard.

## Why people recommend it

- Ships with Python, nothing to install (3 comments): "I love how you stuck with pure Python libraries - tkinter, numpy, and sounddevice." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47028413)) "it's as available as vim and python and _that's_ the kind of thing I value" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49516945)) "loving, that I don't have to install an additional GUI framework" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46260317))
- Fine for basic GUIs (3 comments): "tkinter is perfectly fine but I don't think I would have cared for it at that age." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48392143)) "tkinter is perfectly fine for basic guis" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48268768)) ""good enough" like 99% of the time" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49516446))
- Easy to build GUIs (2 comments): "It's ridiculously easy to build GUIs." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45823582)) "tk.Button(text="Hello").pack()" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46711415))
- Impressive standard library module (2 comments): "The sqlite, tkinter, and shelve modules are the ones I find most impressive." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46259395)) "tkinter is the best kept secret in the Python std lib." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46262853))

## What people warn about

- Modern-looking UIs are tricky (2 comments): "trying to do modern kind of interfaces with Tkinter in python and ttk can be kind of tricky/impossible?" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49516587)) "Native GUI libs look like shit out of the box, and are terrible to work with" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47038361))

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