Immediate-Mode-UI/Nuklear

Health v2 · maintenance only

Flags: no_license

Adoption not part of the score

11453 stars · 689 forks observed · 2026-10-17

What it is AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, 2026-08-29, confidence not recorded

Nuklear is a minimal-state, immediate-mode graphical user interface toolkit written in ANSI C (C89) and distributed as a single-header library under public domain. It has no dependencies, no default render backend, and no OS window/input handling, instead outputting primitive draw commands and accepting simple input state so developers can plug in their own platform and rendering layers.

Use cases

• add a debug or tool UI to a C or C++ game or engine
• build an embeddable GUI with minimal dependencies and small memory footprint
• render immediate-mode widgets with a custom renderer like OpenGL, SDL, or DirectX
• create cross-platform tools that need a lightweight skinnable interface
• integrate a UI into embedded or constrained environments with full memory control
• prototype editor panels and node graphs inside native applications

When to choose

• you need a dependency-free, single-header GUI in C or C++
• you want full control over rendering, memory, and platform integration
• you need maximum portability including ANSI C89 compilers
• you prefer immediate-mode UI semantics with no hidden or global state

When to avoid

• you need a full-featured retained-mode GUI with built-in widgets, theming tools, and accessibility
• you want a library that handles windowing, input, and rendering out of the box
• you are building a polished end-user desktop application and prefer a high-level framework
• you need rich text layout, complex animations, or native platform look-and-feel

Facets

library · maturity stable

ui-components gui cross-platform developer-tools cross-platform cpp c immediate-mode single-header c89 header-only imgui embeddable no-dependencies public-domain game-development

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