head to head · open source
imgui vs flame
imgui has 76,421 GitHub stars, 12,064 forks, 1,227 open issues and last shipped yesterday. flame has 10,773 stars, 1,043 forks, 90 open issues and last shipped yesterday. imgui leads on adoption by 609% (76,421 vs 10,773 stars). imgui is written in C++ under MIT; flame is written in Dart under MIT. imgui has attracted 16% as many forks as stars, flame 10%. flame 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.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| imgui | flame | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 76K | ★ 11K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | C++ | Dart |
| Last push | 2026-09-28 | 2026-09-28 |
| Forks | ⑂ 12K | ⑂ 1.0K |
| 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 flame if
- You want the flame feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Dart
- You evaluated both and flame 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 flame
Flame is a Flutter based game engine distributed as an MIT licensed Dart package, built for Flutter developers who want to write 2D games in Dart without hand rolling a game loop, component system, and rendering utilities themselves.
read the full flame overview →
More in Miscellaneous
Related comparisons
More Gaming projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Gaming field.
Frequently asked questions
Is imgui or flame more popular?
imgui has 76,421 GitHub stars and flame has 10,773. imgui has the larger community by that measure.
Are imgui and flame free?
Both are open source. imgui is licensed under MIT and flame under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between imgui and flame?
imgui is written in C++ and flame in Dart. 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 flame?
Choose imgui if you want the larger community (76,421 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose flame if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.