GUI Programming in Python
Python has a huge number of GUI frameworks (or toolkits) available for it, from TkInter (traditionally bundled with Python, using Tk) to a number of other cross-platform solutions, as well as bindings to platform-specific (also known as "native") technologies.
Cross-Browser Frameworks
Package |
Target |
Latest version |
Latest update date |
Notes |
All major Web Browsers |
|
2023-5-11 |
Build forms as Python scripts. |
|
All major Web Browsers |
1.7.0 |
2022-5-30 |
Full-stack web apps using only Python and a free online drag-and-drop GUI builder, with built-in (freemium) hosting for your apps. |
|
All major Web Browsers |
0.13.3 |
2023-09-11 |
World's lightest toolkit to quickly and easily add a GUI to your Python programs and bring them online. |
|
All major Web Browsers |
0.1.5 |
2020-10-14 |
An object oriented high-level Python Web Framework that requires no frontend programming. |
|
All major Web Browsers |
1.1.3 |
2022-07-12 |
Mercury converts Python code in Jupyter Notebook into web applications. The interactive widgets are added based on YAML header. The end-user can tweak widgets values and execute notebook with new parameters. It allows to hide code, export executed notebook to PDF, schedule notebook, add authentication. |
|
All major Web Browsers |
1.2.15 |
2023-05-27 |
NiceGUI provides a unique combination of gentle learning curve and advanced customization capabilites. Operating as a webserver or Electron-like in a native window, it's also designed for hardware integration like USB cameras and GPIO pins, making it ideal for home automation and robotics. |
|
All major Web Browsers |
3.5.4 |
2024-03-22 |
Trame seamlessly exposes vue.js templates to Python. Many widget libraries are available for complex visualizations and interactive graphical user interfaces. Created applications can be deployed in the cloud, in a native window (Tauri), on HPC or within Jupyter Lab. |
Cross-Platform Frameworks
The major cross-platform technologies upon which Python frameworks are based include GTK, Qt, Tk and wxWidgets, although many other technologies provide actively maintained Python bindings.
Package |
Target |
Latest version |
Latest update |
Notes |
Windows, macOS, Linux |
0.94 |
2019-05-26 |
Simple & intuitive wrapper for Tkinter. In active development, designed for educational purposes, heavily documented & feature rich! |
|
Linux / many |
0.11.0 |
2016-02-16 |
Fully automatic, live connection among graphical interface widgets and application variables. |
|
Windows, macOS, Linux |
66.1 |
2021-02-16 |
Python bindings for the CEF Framework. CEF is based on Google Chromium and focuses on facilitating embedded browser use cases in third-party applications. With CEF you can create a light-weight native “shell” application that hosts a user interface developed primarily using Web technologies. Examples of embedding CEF browser control are available for many popular GUI toolkits such as PyQt, PySide, wxPython, PyGTK, PyGObject, Kivy and PyGame/PyOpenGL. |
|
0.9.16 |
2016-08-16 |
Dabo is a 3-tier, cross-platform application development framework, written in Python atop the wxPython GUI toolkit |
||
Windows, macOS, Linux, Raspberry Pi 4 |
1.7.3 |
2022-10-22 |
A fast and powerful Graphical User Interface Toolkit for Python with minimal dependencies. At its’ core it is a Python implementation of Dear ImGui. Docs are located at Read The Docs. |
|
Windows, MacOSX, Linux, Android, iOS |
0.21.2 |
2024-03-18 |
An easy to learn Python framework for building realtime web, mobile and desktop apps with a beautiful Flutter UI. |
|
Qt |
1.2.0 |
2020-08-10 |
A tiny Python module for creating form dialogs/widgets to edit various type of parameters with having to write any GUI code |
|
0.9.5 |
2016-08-17 |
Both a framework and visual tools: GUI Designer, Inspector and Property Editor. Supports Python 2.5 to Python 3.2; wxPython 2.8 "stable", 2.9 "classic" and "phoenix" (py3k). Features advanced pythonic MVC controls (ListView, GridView, TreeView) using list- and dict-like objects; masked and date picker controls; common dialogs; fluid layout using sizers & basic HTML; simplified event model (similar to JavaScript). Can include wxPython code in apps. Modern PythonCard "fork" hugely enhanced. |
||
Qt |
2.2.1 |
2022-06-05 |
Based on the Qt library, guidata is a Python library generating graphical user interfaces for easy dataset editing and display. It also provides helpers and application development tools for Qt (PyQt5, PySide2, PyQt6, PySide6). |
|
Qt |
1.4.0 |
2022-03-31 |
A Qt wrapper that makes it extremely easy to create simple graphical interfaces. |
|
wxPython |
1.0.8.1 |
2021-06-12 |
Converts most argparse based CLI programs into wxPython GUI programs with a single import and decorator. |
|
Windows, macOS, Linux (Tkinter based) |
1.3.0 |
2022-01-01 |
guizero is a Python 3 library for creating simple GUIs. The aim of guizero is to make the process of creating simple GUIs quick, accessible and understandable for new learners. |
|
.NET/Mono |
3.4.0-beta1 |
2022-04-30 |
Python for .NET platform. See IronPython for more info. |
|
Java |
2.7.2 |
2020-03-21 |
Jython is an implementation of Python seamlessly integrated with the Java platform. See Jython |
|
Windows, MacOSX, Linux, Android, iOS |
2.1.0 |
2022-03-06 |
OpenGL ES 2 accelerated framework for creating innovative user interfaces. Kivy have a native multitouch support for every platform, mouse simulator, widgets multitouch ready, integrated virtual keyboard, rst renderer... |
|
JUCE (Windows, MacOSX, Linux) |
0.9.6 |
2024-02-21 |
Python 3 bindings for the JUCE application framework. |
|
Windows, macOS, Linux, Raspberry Pi OS (Wraps C++ FLTK) |
1.3.9 |
2024-01-07 |
Fast and Easy to learn. OOP extensible widgets. Provides access to OpenGL features. Stands for Fast, Light Toolkit.(Python 3) |
|
Qt & OpenGL |
|
2016-12-20 |
A Python framework to develop GUI application, which promotes modular software design and code reusability with minimal effort. |
|
2.1.2 |
2021-12-27 |
Pygame is a set of Python modules designed for making multimedia applications like games built on top of the SDL library. |
||
Windows, macOS, Linux |
1.5.24 |
2022-06-12 |
pyglet is a cross-platform windowing and multimedia library for Python, for developing games and other visually rich applications. |
|
GTK |
3.42.1 |
2022-04-17 |
PyGObject is a Python package which provides bindings for GObject based libraries such as GTK, GStreamer, WebKitGTK, GLib, GIO and many more. See PyGobject. Replacement for PyGtk. |
|
Qt |
6.3.1 |
2022-06-17 |
Python 3 bindings for the Qt application framework. |
|
Windows, macOS, Linux (via Sciter) |
4.4.7.0 |
2021-04-27 |
Python bindings for the Sciter (embeddable HTML/CSS/JavaScript engine). |
|
Qt |
6.3.0 |
2022-04-13 |
Qt for Python (formerly known as PySide) offers the official Python bindings for the Qt cross-platform application and UI framework. |
|
tkinter, Qt, wxPython,Browser, Win, Mac, Linux, Pi, PyDroid3, Trinket, replit |
5.0.7 |
2024-10-20 |
Python GUIs for Humans! PySimpleGUI is the top-rated Python application development environment. Launched in 2018 and actively developed, maintained, and supported in 2024. Transforms tkinter, Qt (pyside2 & pyside6), WxPython, and Remi into a simple, intuitive, and fun experience for both hobbyists and expert users. Extensive 5.0 Documentation |
|
Cocoa / Win32 / Qt / GTK |
3.6.3 |
2022-04-05 |
pywebview is a lightweight cross-platform wrapper around a webview component that allows to display HTML content in its own native GUI window. |
|
Windows, macOS, Linux (GTK), Android, iOS |
0.4.8 |
2024-10-16 |
Cross platform, Python native GUI toolkit that uses native system widgets. Part of the BeeWare project. |
|
Tk |
Included in Python standard library |
Python's "standard" GUI library (Documentation) |
||
Qt or Wx on Windows, macOS, Linux |
7.3.1 |
2022-03-14 |
The Traits/TraitsUI package offers the ability to build scalable and cross-platforms GUIs simply by focusing on the model being viewed, and offering default widgets for various types of objects. It abstracts away the implementation, which can currently use PyQt, Pyside2 or WxPython. In the simplest case, it can automatically generate a user interface for editing a (Traits-based) object, with no additional coding on the part of the programmer-user. In more sophisticated uses, it can implement a Model-View-Controller (MVC) design pattern for Traits-based objects. |
|
many |
9.1.0 |
2021-11-04 |
The Visualization Toolkit (VTK) is open source software for manipulating and displaying scientific data. It comes with state-of-the-art tools for 3D rendering, a suite of widgets for 3D interaction, and extensive 2D plotting capability. |
|
4.1.1 |
2020-11-21 |
Supports Windows/Unix/Mac. See wxPython. Supports Python 2.7 and >=3.4, pip installable. Wraps & extends the wxWidgets toolchain. Permissive Licence. |
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Platform-specific Frameworks
Package |
Target |
Latest version |
Latest update |
Notes |
16.0.0 |
2024-10-15 |
A plugin for Android Studio’s standard Gradle build system. Provides complete APIs for calling Python code from Java/Kotlin and vice versa, and a wide range of third-party Python packages. |
||
MacOSX |
6.2.2 |
2020-07-08 |
Supports Cocoa Aqua GUIs on the Mac |
|
Windows |
304 |
2022-06-02 |
Previously called win32all. Also known by the names of its components: PythonWin (for the UI), Win32Com (for COM/ActiveX), Win32 (for some other parts of the API) |
GUI Design Tools and IDEs
IDE |
Target |
Latest version |
Latest update date |
Notes |
Web |
1.4.0 |
2023-04-14 |
GUI App Builder for Python |
|
Web |
|
2023-1-30 |
Free online drag-and-drop GUI builder for full-stack web apps all in Python, with built-in (freemium) hosting for apps. |
|
7 (22.6) |
2022-06-01 |
Eric is a full featured Python editor and IDE, written in Python. It is based on the cross platform Qt UI toolkit, integrating the highly flexible Scintilla editor control. |
||
0.9.6.1 |
2016-09-05 |
Visual GUI Designer, Inspector and Property Editor (embeddable). PythonCard "fork". LGPL3. |
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3.38.2 |
2020-11-20 |
Glade is a RAD tool to enable quick & easy development of user interfaces for the GTK toolkit and the GNOME desktop environment. |
||
12.0.1 |
2020-02-10 |
Komodo IDE is now FREE as part of the ActiveState Platform. |
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macOS, Win, Linux |
3.0.53 |
2022-02-18 |
Cross-platform, node-based GUI for efficient data visualizations and generative design. |
|
TkInter, ttk |
7.4 |
2022-05-04 |
PAGE is a cross-platform drag-and-drop GUI generator, bearing a resemblance to Visual Basic. It allows one to easily create Python GUI windows containing a selection of Tk and ttk widgets. |
|
0.21 |
2022-05-05 |
GPL TkInter GUI builder (exports XML ".ui" files) and RAD tool inspired by Glade. |
||
Windows |
4.0.0 |
2021-05-21 |
MIT Open Source IDE developed using Python and Delphi. See PyScripter. (Python 3) |
|
3.10.1 |
2021-10-22 |
GPL cross-platform WYSIWYG GUI builder. Can produce XRC/XML, wxWidgets/C++, or wxPython/python. |
||
1.0.0 |
2020-12-20 |
MIT License, wxGlade is a GUI designer written in Python with the popular GUI toolkit wxPython, that helps you create wxWidgets/wxPython user interfaces. See WxGlade supports Python >= 2.7 (recommended 3.5/3.6) and wxPython >=2.8 (recommended 4.0) |
Links
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_integrated_development_environments#Python - Wikipedia article describing several IDE's and GUI Builders.
Editorial Notes
The above lists should be arranged in ascending alphabetical order - please respect this when adding new frameworks or tools.