# WinUI 24 Hacker News commenters recommended WinUI and 59 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 9 of 13 months. **Verdict:** Microsoft's free framework for native-looking Windows apps, praised for keyboard support and ease of learning. Critics cite frequent bugs and shifting strategy. ## Why people recommend it - Native Windows look and performance (3 comments): "They are slowly starting to go native again with WinUI3" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49287593)) "WinUI does it more modernly (and ticks all the boxes)" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48626780)) "Microsoft is bringing back native performance" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47464079)) - Keyboard and accessibility support (2 comments): "Tons of built in winui3 stuff is still very accessible by the keyboard" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49486480)) "Support for accessibility." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48141491)) - Decent and easier to learn (2 comments): "pretty decent even back in 2021, and much easier to learn" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46570761)) "WinUI 3 is pretty decent." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48120545)) - Quality and fixes improving (2 comments): "Unlike the DirectX redistributables of old it's not even backwards compatible" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46817587)) "they are actually starting to care about quality" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48140639)) ## What people warn about - Shifting strategy and repeated reboots (4 comments): "only Microsoft employees on the Windows team, and fools that aren't aware of all the WinRT tooling reboots since Windows 8 was introduced, buying into WinUI marketing" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45963454)) "fools that aren't aware of all the WinRT tooling reboots since Windows 8 was introduced, buying into WinUI marketing of how great it is" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45965433)) "the glaring problem would be that Microsoft can't get their head straight on which UI to support in the first place" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45963417)) - Buggy and understaffed framework (3 comments): "WinUI3 is so buggy that not even their UI controls samples app can run for more than 5 minutes without crashing." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47489287)) "Management apparently doesn't care they actually understand Windows, or get the required trainings to meet the quality of their predecessors." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49342570)) "it is troubling that Friday's blog post announced "moving core Windows experiences to the WinUI3 framework" as a measure to improve the quality of said experiences" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47480517)) - Extra steps and poor tooling (3 comments): "the pipeline for developing UWP/WinUI3 apps requires extra steps to register and install the application just to run it inside a debugger" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47684185)) "the WindowsAppSDK is entirely separate from the OS and requires the installation of a separate runtime on the user's machine" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46810058)) "Microsoft talks about using C++ to develop WinUI applications, as if the tooling was at the same level" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46809590)) - Not native feeling, Electron wins (3 comments): "WinUI feels weirdly non-native in ways that sort of uncomfortably result in Electron apps feeling more like real Windows applications" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47654924)) "I remember I complained about WinUI performance years ago, and they told me at the time that "performance" was not the focus..." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48142993)) "We've lost things like ubiquitous accelerator keys and even basics like "being able to tell where the edges of controls are"" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48146643)) ## 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, "WinUI", https://hackerapproved.com/p/winui-3/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).