head to head · open source
imgui vs ebiten
imgui has 76,337 GitHub stars, 12,054 forks, 1,227 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. ebiten has 13,501 stars, 791 forks, 296 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. imgui leads on adoption by 465% (76,337 vs 13,501 stars). imgui is written in C++ under MIT; ebiten is written in Go under Apache-2.0. imgui has attracted 16% as many forks as stars, ebiten 6%. ebiten was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (game-development, game-engine, gamedev), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| imgui | ebiten | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 76K | ★ 14K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | C++ | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-23 | 2026-09-23 |
| Forks | ⑂ 12K | ⑂ 791 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick imgui if
- You weight community size — 76K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches C++
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick ebiten if
- You want the ebiten feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and ebiten fits your workflow better
About imgui
Dear ImGui is a bloat free, MIT licensed graphical user interface library for C++ that outputs optimized vertex buffers for rendering inside 3D pipeline enabled applications, and it is aimed at programmers building content creation, visualization, and debug tools rather than at developers shipping consumer facing UI.
read the full imgui overview →
About ebiten
Ebitengine (v2) is an open source, Apache 2.0 licensed 2D game engine for the Go programming language, built for developers who want a simple API for writing 2D games that deploy across desktop, mobile, web and console platforms.
read the full ebiten overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is imgui or ebiten more popular?
imgui has 76,337 GitHub stars and ebiten has 13,501. imgui has the larger community by that measure.
Are imgui and ebiten free?
Both are open source. imgui is licensed under MIT and ebiten under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between imgui and ebiten?
imgui is written in C++ and ebiten in Go. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, imgui or ebiten?
Choose imgui if you want the larger community (76,337 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose ebiten if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.