head to head · open source
imgui vs zinx
imgui has 76,246 GitHub stars, 12,044 forks, 1,227 open issues and last shipped yesterday. zinx has 7,764 stars, 1,262 forks, 96 open issues and last shipped 4 months ago. imgui leads on adoption by 882% (76,246 vs 7,764 stars). imgui is written in C++ under MIT; zinx is written in Go under MIT. imgui has attracted 16% as many forks as stars, zinx 16%. imgui was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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 | zinx | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 76K | ★ 7.8K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | C++ | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-06-06 |
| Forks | ⑂ 12K | ⑂ 1.3K |
| 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 zinx if
- You want the zinx feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and zinx 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 zinx
Zinx is a lightweight concurrent server framework written in Go, aimed at developers who want a small, readable TCP server skeleton they can study and customise rather than adopt a large opaque application framework.
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Frequently asked questions
Is imgui or zinx more popular?
imgui has 76,246 GitHub stars and zinx has 7,764. imgui has the larger community by that measure.
Are imgui and zinx free?
Both are open source. imgui is licensed under MIT and zinx under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between imgui and zinx?
imgui is written in C++ and zinx in Go. 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 zinx?
Choose imgui if you want the larger community (76,246 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose zinx if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.