head to head · open source
imgui vs engo
imgui has 77,094 GitHub stars, 12,108 forks, 1,227 open issues and last shipped yesterday. engo has 1,822 stars, 132 forks, 54 open issues and last shipped 8 months ago. imgui leads on adoption by 4,131% (77,094 vs 1,822 stars). imgui is written in C++ under MIT; engo is written in Go under MIT. imgui has attracted 16% as many forks as stars, engo 7%. imgui was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (game-engine), 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 | engo | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 77K | ★ 1.8K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | C++ | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-13 | 2026-03-30 |
| Forks | ⑂ 12K | ⑂ 132 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick imgui if
- You weight community size — 77K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches C++
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick engo if
- You want the engo feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and engo fits your workflow better
About imgui
Dear ImGui ===== "Give someone state and they'll have a bug one day, but teach them how to represent state in two separate locations that have to be kept in sync and they'll have bugs for a lifetime." ryg (This library is available under a free and permissive license, but needs financial support to sustain its continued improvements. In addition to maintenance and stability there are many desirable features yet to be added. If your company is using Dear ImGui, please consider reaching out.) Businesses: support continued development and maintenance via invoiced sponsoring/support contracts: E mail: contact @…
read the full imgui overview →
About engo
Engo A cross platform game engine written in Go following an interpretation of the Entity Component System paradigm. Engo is currently compilable for Mac OSX, Linux and Windows. With the release of Go 1.4, supporting Android and the inception of iOS compatibility, mobile has been be added as a release target. Web support (wasm) is also available. v1.0 is now available! To celebrate, there will be a game jam coming soon to celebrate the release, start actually building things and hopefully find any issues. Updates for this will come soon. Getting in touch / Contributing We have a gitter chat for people to join…
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Frequently asked questions
Is imgui or engo more popular?
imgui has 77,094 GitHub stars and engo has 1,822. imgui has the larger community by that measure.
Are imgui and engo free?
Both are open source. imgui is licensed under MIT and engo under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between imgui and engo?
imgui is written in C++ and engo 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 engo?
Choose imgui if you want the larger community (77,094 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose engo if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.