# wjakob/nanogui

Minimalistic GUI library for OpenGL

Repository: https://github.com/wjakob/nanogui
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/nanogui
Language: C++
License: NOASSERTION
License Family: other
Last push: 2023-04-28T13:40:49+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 32/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-02T17:46:02.011165+00:00)
- activity 0, release rhythm 35, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 4231, "days_push": 1223, "days_rel": null, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 0}
- flags: no_releases, no_license
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 4871, forks 612 (observed 2026-08-28T04:09:01.650168+00:00)

## What it is
NanoGUI is a minimalistic cross-platform C++ widget library for building GUIs on top of OpenGL 3.x, built on GLFW, GLAD, Eigen, and NanoVG. It provides automatic layout generation, lambda-based callbacks, and Python bindings via pybind11.

## Use cases
- build a small desktop GUI for an OpenGL application
- add sliders and buttons to a graphics demo or renderer
- create a cross-platform C++ tool with a lightweight UI
- prototype GUIs from Python with OpenGL rendering
- add a settings panel to a 3D visualization tool

## When to choose
- you need a lightweight OpenGL-based widget toolkit in C++
- you want Python bindings for a native GUI
- your app already renders with OpenGL 3.x and needs overlay controls

## When to avoid
- you need Metal, GLES, or WebAssembly support (use the modernized mitsuba-renderer/nanogui fork)
- you need a fully featured native-look desktop toolkit
- you need long-term active maintenance or new features

## Facets
- artifact type: library
- maturity: maintenance
- function: gui, ui-components, graphics
- domain: desktop-applications, graphics, cross-platform, developer-tools
- platform: cpp, windows, cross-platform, python
- tags: opengl, widget-toolkit, glfw, pybind11, retina, cmake, macos, linux

## Member repositories
- wjakob/nanogui (main) score 32

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:09:01.650168+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-29T18:18:19.183612+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/wjakob/nanogui (fetched 2026-08-28T04:09:01.650168+00:00, sha f873a361eecc)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.