head to head · open source
imgui vs murder
imgui has 76,671 GitHub stars, 12,081 forks, 1,227 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. murder has 3,343 stars, 97 forks, 16 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. imgui leads on adoption by 2,193% (76,671 vs 3,343 stars). imgui is written in C++ under MIT; murder is written in C# under MIT. imgui has attracted 16% as many forks as stars, murder 3%. murder was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (game-engine, gamedev, multi-platform), 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 | murder | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 77K | ★ 3.3K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | C++ | C# |
| Last push | 2026-10-15 | 2026-10-15 |
| Forks | ⑂ 12K | ⑂ 97 |
| 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 murder if
- You want the murder feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches C#
- You evaluated both and murder 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 murder
Murder is a pixel art ECS game engine built on top of FNA, written in C and licensed under MIT, intended for developers who want to build 2D games around worlds, entities and components while keeping full control of their own project.
read the full murder overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is imgui or murder more popular?
imgui has 76,671 GitHub stars and murder has 3,343. imgui has the larger community by that measure.
Are imgui and murder free?
Both are open source. imgui is licensed under MIT and murder under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between imgui and murder?
imgui is written in C++ and murder in C#. 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 murder?
Choose imgui if you want the larger community (76,671 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose murder if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.