I always see new GTK apps popup on Flathub. I dont really care and think GTK looks fancy, although CSD suck a bit and they waste space and often functionality.

But they work, are solid, and do what they should.

Qt on the other hand may seem more like a complex job to code with. I dont actually think so, but I heard especially writing rust with GTK is way better than with Qt.

I like KDE a lot, and even though I am excited for Cosmic I think Qt is the better toolkit for many things and a lot of time. But Dolphin seems to suffer from memory safety issues all the time, as well as other projects.

Do you have experience in rust, using GTK or Qt? How do they compare?

  • Avid Amoeba
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    1 year ago

    Qt with C++ is a spectacular environment to develop UI apps in. Coupled with QtQuick it’s even better. It’s perhaps only outclassed by Flutter. As others have mentioned, there’s lots of inertia behind GTK+. There’s also past issues with licensing which made the OSS community prefer GTK+ to Qt.

    I’ve no idea what’s involved in using Qt in Rust but people starting new UI apps in C and GTK+ today are likely doing a disservice to themselves and the larger OSS community that could contribute to development and maintenance.