Slint
Dev tools
gui toolkit
SHOW HN2023
291points
148comments
#156of 3,109 in 2023
Top 6%of 2023 by points
How HN took it
MixedNo clear lean
14 positive, 34 neutral or asking, 6 mixed, 20 critical, out of 74 comments about the project. Thread score -0.07.
Design: 2 for, 9 againstPricing: 2 for, 7 againstPerformance: 4 for, 0 againstDocs: 1 for, 3 againstIdea: 2 for, 0 against
The thread, comment by comment
Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.
positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker
What HN said
What people liked
Clean, fast, small runtime footprint
From 3 comments
"Achieve low footprint and minimal resource consumption. The Slint runtime fits in less than 300KiB RAM..." Well done! This is exactly what we should be better at, ship less…
Alifatisk on HNThe examples start up promisingly fast. Faster than Uno, IMHO, and waaay faster than Qt (on WebAssembly I mean). Great to see competition in this space; I'm sure they'll all…
orra on HNThe in-browser demos (using WebAssembly) are surprisingly fast and responsive (very different from the Flutter demos that I remember). Very cool! Also, I just realized I had…
codethief on HN
DSL and live preview in VS Code praised
From 2 comments
I just spent the last two weeks choosing an embedded ui framework and then building out a little demo to test out its capabilities. I settled on Slint and have been very…
davidhyde on HNSlint is already a viable alternative to Qt, as evidenced by users actively choosing us over Qt. While Qt is more mature in many areas with its two decades of development and…
ogoffart on HN
Licensing options welcomed
From 1 comment
I'm a total laymen on the embedded side, and as such I think this looks great and the GPL and permissive licensing options are a very welcome and (IMO) fair way to engage and…
nazgulsenpai on HN
Objections
Custom DSL adds learning burden
From 1 comment
Ignoring for a second that "Slint" is only slightly better than "60fps" as a name for a GUI library, I think using a custom domain specific language for configuration is a giant…
CyberDildonics on HN
Comparison pages are thin
From 3 comments
The comparison sections are very confusing. It says you will compare your UI toolkit with, for example, Flutter and then there is no comparison there at all. I thought the site…
serial_dev on HNNice! I have been using libQt since the last millennium for different projects, this looks more like how I use it as I never really liked QML. But the comparison page vs qt is a…
tyfon on HNThe GUI space is crying out for more workable approaches so fresh takes are more than welcome. But going through the website the comparison with other existing options (Qt,…
nologic01 on HN
Attribution requirement in royalty-free license deters users
From 2 comments
>Attribution to Slint Mmmm no thanks, I'll pass. While I'm looking for a Flutter alternative, this seems like a trap.
TobyTheDog123 on HN> Create your application under MIT, BSD, Apache 2.0 or any of the other GPLv3 compatible licenses, provided that the complete work is made available under the GPLv3. > Create…
n8henrie on HN
Website layout and broken links
From 2 comments
Funny how they claim the toolkit is responsive, but then their website isn't. The "Used by" section overflows and basically breaks the whole website.
denysvitali on HNThe link to Javascript at the bottom of this page is broken: https://slint.dev/releases/1.0.2/docs/slint/. It goes to https://slint.dev/releases/1.0.2/docs/nodejs/ which gives a…
aembleton on HN
Requests
Menu bar support for desktop
From 1 comment
The toolkit still seems quite incomplete for desktop use (as opposed to embedded/appliance UIs), as it doesn't support menu bars in an issue open since 2020:…
nyanpasu64 on HN
Python bindings
From 1 comment
The GUI space is crying out for more workable approaches so fresh takes are more than welcome. But going through the website the comparison with other existing options (Qt,…
nologic01 on HN
Clearer per-appliance pricing
From 1 comment
Looks nice, but actually the per/appliance pricing could be a bit clearer, I hate the Call Us type pricing pages, that is usually where I rather look for the competition... (Just…
fodkodrasz on HN
Free license for educators
From 1 comment
You should give us educators a free license :) I'd use this in my classes if I could. I'm keen to use it with c++ and rust
monk_e_boy on HN
Questions
Multi-line text, non-Latin scripts and RTL support
From 1 comment
Correct and complete text handling is hard. Does Slint handle (did a cursory search in the docs but couldn't find anything that hints at an answer): * multi-line text * languages…
andsoitis on HN
Binary size on small microcontrollers
From 1 comment
I just spent the last two weeks choosing an embedded ui framework and then building out a little demo to test out its capabilities. I settled on Slint and have been very…
davidhyde on HN
License compatibility with MIT
From 1 comment
> Create your application under MIT, BSD, Apache 2.0 or any of the other GPLv3 compatible licenses, provided that the complete work is made available under the GPLv3. > Create…
n8henrie on HN
Alternatives named
Flutter
From 1 comment
The comparison sections are very confusing. It says you will compare your UI toolkit with, for example, Flutter and then there is no comparison there at all. I thought the site…
serial_dev on HN
Qt
From 2 comments
Nice to see that Qt finally gets some competition! The pricing alone is a no-brainer. Now the only thing I'm missing from the demos is smooth scrolling :)
Kelteseth on HNNice! I have been using libQt since the last millennium for different projects, this looks more like how I use it as I never really liked QML. But the comparison page vs qt is a…
tyfon on HN
LVGL
From 1 comment
If you need something written in C and very tiny, I recommend LVGL https://lvgl.io/ Fits easily in 128kb boards
WhereIsTheTruth on HN
Electron
From 1 comment
The GUI space is crying out for more workable approaches so fresh takes are more than welcome. But going through the website the comparison with other existing options (Qt,…
nologic01 on HN