gpui-kit

rojects (IMHO) is anything that lets you still use web languages for styling; obviously this stretches the sense of "GUI", but it's also wildly popular and is still far better than a full Electron monstrosity. Namely: `tauri`(/`yew`/`leptos`) automatically ties into a separate WebView impl per OS, `dioxus` made their own impl to afford React-like rendering goodies, and `ply` seems like a really promising minimalist option. All actively maintained & growing. 3. It seems the default for not-technically-native-but-feels-native apps (i.e. most apps) is `egui`, which does WASM magic for you across platforms and web (!), or `iced` which seems far too Java-y for my tastes. Neither are at v1.0.0, but I blame the abandonment of semver for that goofiness -- both have sizable teams developing in them full time, with ~30k stars each. `slint` is more mature but seems targeted at IoT/embedded. 4. I'll be honest: I was really just hinting at "whatever Zed uses", since the thread's about text editors! It turns out to be `gpui`, their own custom (yet OSS) engine with a popular external metaframework: https://github.com/longbridge/gpui-kit . As above, does WASM wizardry. More niche options that similarly implement their own languages: `xilem`, `freya`, `floem`, and `ribir` are popular growing options with ~beta vibes (i.e. pre-v1.0.0 but, like, for real this time); `vizia` and `cushy` are more alpha vibes. 5. There's a crowd of "GPU-heavy" (?) frameworks that go beyond my capability to really assess in the first place, but `makepad` is the only one that seems definitely cross-platform. `kas`, `blinc`, `tessera`, `azul`, `pax`, `rosin`, and `rui` (nice snag, that) came up too, but are (pre-)alpha vibes. Game-focused ones also exist, somewhat bafflingly (people make games in Rust??): `imgui-rs`, SDL3 via `yakui`, and Bevy via `bevy_egui` all seem mature. 6. As a bonus there's options to just build a Flutter GUI and attach a rust process to its backside via `flutter_rust_bridge` (genius!) and/or (?) `Rinf`. I've never touched Flutter at all, so uhh take that as you will, I suppose. 7. Finally, to your Swift suggestion: I think you're privileging your OSX and/or Swift preference a lot, there. I'm not sure how that even gets to be cross platform based on what I'm seeing right now, but even if it it's possible, all the OSX-specific apps I see these days (RIP Orion...) put fear into the depths of my heart. What Swift would work for is the megacorp strategy: just implementing three separate apps! Via `UniFFI` or `cacao` for Mac, `windows-rs` for DOS, and any of the open ones above for Linux. Sorry for a long response -- procrastinating my life for sure, though I have been meaning to do this research for a long time. So thanks for the excuse! Shoutout https://blog.wybxc.cc/blog/rust-gui-survey-2026/ and https://areweguiyet.com/ TL;DR: I'd go with `tauri` for something tame, and `gpui` for a text editor in particular; regardless of what you choose, I think it's a lot, lot more tractable than you expect! ______________________________________________________________________ [1]: After the `bun` debacle turned out shockingly well, I don't think there are "language wars" anymore, just the right tool for the job for the center ~95% of the capabilities/adventerousness bellcurve, so-to-speak. Absent some necessary integration planned in another language and/or extensive experience that you don't want to waste, I think it's just straight up incorrect to pick any "general" systems language (so C, C++, Java?) over rust. Certainly there are specialized languages that rule in their own arenas --Golang for piping data around, Haskell/LISP/Racket for cool people, Zig for Whatever Zig Does, TS for the web and cloud, Python for science, etc.-- but none of those seem necessary to tie into the GUI.

t egui.

- looks nice and seemed to work fairly well. No virtualised lists though. * Slint (though in some ways it is weird and it requires quite a lot of boilerplate setup). All the others will cause you pain in some way. I think the "ones to watch" are: * Makepad - from the demos I've seen this looks really cool, especially for arty GUI projects like synthesizers and car UIs. However it has basically no documentation so don't bother yet. * Xilem - this is an attempt to make an 100% perfect Rust GUI library, which is cool and all but I imagine it also will never be finished.