head to head · open source
imgui vs ggez
imgui has 76,505 GitHub stars, 12,074 forks, 1,227 open issues and last shipped yesterday. ggez has 4,699 stars, 441 forks, 71 open issues and last shipped 1 months ago. imgui leads on adoption by 1,528% (76,505 vs 4,699 stars). imgui is written in C++ under MIT; ggez is written in Rust under MIT. imgui has attracted 16% as many forks as stars, ggez 9%. imgui was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (game-development, 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 | ggez | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 77K | ★ 4.7K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | C++ | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-10-06 | 2026-08-24 |
| Forks | ⑂ 12K | ⑂ 441 |
| 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 ggez if
- You want the ggez feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and ggez 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 ggez
ggez is a MIT licensed Rust game framework that gives developers a lightweight, cross platform base for building 2D and 3D games with a LÖVE inspired API.
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Frequently asked questions
Is imgui or ggez more popular?
imgui has 76,505 GitHub stars and ggez has 4,699. imgui has the larger community by that measure.
Are imgui and ggez free?
Both are open source. imgui is licensed under MIT and ggez under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between imgui and ggez?
imgui is written in C++ and ggez in Rust. 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 ggez?
Choose imgui if you want the larger community (76,505 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose ggez if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.