I created few tools with some rust GUI frameworks recently, wanna share with you guys about my experiences and opinions.

My requirement is:

1. Small package size, better be zero dependency.
2. Cross platform support.
3. Cross build support (use macOS to build for windows in my case).
4. Cross platform IME integration and unicode character support.

dioxus (https://github.com/DioxusLabs/dioxus)

It's my main framework at this point. I really like the react style architecture.

The major reason to choose it rather than tauri is, I don't have to write html + js + css, all UI creation could be done in pure rust, and the code is very short and clear.

My tech combination is dioxus + fermi + tailwindcss + daisyui. Could create very good look-and-feel application in a short time.

Overall experience:

• Good

Pros:

• Small package size, usually 2MB
• Mature frontend technology and ecosystem
• Fermi provides a good global state management solution, I don't have to deal with complex life time issue

Cons:

• Depend on webview2 component, some old system might not has it by default
• Cannot cross build from macos to windows, it has to be built with msvc toolchain, otherwise I have to ship the package with webview2loader.dll with it
• Kind of in-active development, author seems slowed down

slint (https://github.com/slint-ui/slint)

It creates a new UI declarative language called "slint", and provides LSP for it, creating UI with it is very joyful.

It is not mature at this point, but it has a commercial company with very active development, I will keep tracking it, but will not use it as my main framework right now.

Overall experience:

• Will be good in future

Pros:

• Very small package size, 1MB with zero dependency
• Cross platform and cross build support
• Good IME integration and unicode character support
• Declarative UI creation with \slint\\ language, simple and effective
• Good default look and feel (I prefer fluent dark theme)
• Active development

Cons:

• Layout mechanism is immature, like Grid Layout doesn't support for loop, doesn't has flex layout
• Some controls are not product ready, like TextEdit has poor performance with large amount of text

egui (https://github.com/emilk/egui)

I will use it to create very simple tool.

Overall experience:

• Medium

Pros:

• Medium package size, 3MB with zero dependency
• Cross platform and cross build support
• Good IME integration
• Good default look and feel

Cons:

• Has to manual load font to support unicode
• Code could become verbose for complex UI and life time management will be hard
• In-active development