head to head · open source
imgui vs macroquad
imgui has 76,531 GitHub stars, 12,076 forks, 1,227 open issues and last shipped yesterday. macroquad has 4,652 stars, 426 forks, 340 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. imgui leads on adoption by 1,545% (76,531 vs 4,652 stars). imgui is written in C++ under MIT; macroquad is written in Rust under Apache-2.0. imgui has attracted 16% as many forks as stars, macroquad 9%. 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 | macroquad | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 77K | ★ 4.7K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | C++ | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-10-07 | 2026-08-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 12K | ⑂ 426 |
| 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 macroquad if
- You want the macroquad feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and macroquad 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 macroquad
macroquad is a cross platform game library for Rust, aimed at developers who want to write one codebase and ship it to Windows, Linux, macOS, HTML5, Android, and iOS.
read the full macroquad overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is imgui or macroquad more popular?
imgui has 76,531 GitHub stars and macroquad has 4,652. imgui has the larger community by that measure.
Are imgui and macroquad free?
Both are open source. imgui is licensed under MIT and macroquad under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between imgui and macroquad?
imgui is written in C++ and macroquad 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 macroquad?
Choose imgui if you want the larger community (76,531 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose macroquad if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.