head to head · open source
imgui vs stride
imgui has 76,447 GitHub stars, 12,066 forks, 1,227 open issues and last shipped yesterday. stride has 7,838 stars, 1,169 forks, 683 open issues and last shipped yesterday. imgui leads on adoption by 875% (76,447 vs 7,838 stars). imgui is written in C++ under MIT; stride is written in C# under MIT. imgui has attracted 16% as many forks as stars, stride 15%. stride was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 4 topic tags (game-development, 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 | stride | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 76K | ★ 7.8K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | C++ | C# |
| Last push | 2026-09-30 | 2026-09-30 |
| Forks | ⑂ 12K | ⑂ 1.2K |
| 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 stride if
- You want the stride feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches C#
- You evaluated both and stride 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 stride
Stride (formerly Xenko) is a free and open source, cross platform C game engine with a built in visual editor, aimed at game developers who want realistic rendering and VR without buying a commercial engine licence.
read the full stride overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is imgui or stride more popular?
imgui has 76,447 GitHub stars and stride has 7,838. imgui has the larger community by that measure.
Are imgui and stride free?
Both are open source. imgui is licensed under MIT and stride under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between imgui and stride?
imgui is written in C++ and stride 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 stride?
Choose imgui if you want the larger community (76,447 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose stride if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.