A multi-platform library for OpenGL, OpenGL ES, Vulkan, window and input
A multi-platform library for OpenGL, OpenGL ES, Vulkan, window and input
GLFW is an Open Source, multi-platform library for OpenGL, OpenGL ES and Vulkan application development. It provides a simple, platform-independent API for creating windows, contexts and surfaces, reading input, handling events, etc.
GLFW is written primarily in C99, with parts of macOS support being written in Objective-C.
GLFW supports Windows, macOS and Linux, and also works on many other Unix-like systems. On Linux both Wayland and X11 are supported.
GLFW is licensed under the zlib/libpng license.
You can download the latest stable release as source or Windows and macOS binaries. There are release tags with source and binary archives attached for every version since 3.0.
The documentation is available online and is also included in source and binary archives, except those generated automatically by Github. The documentation contains guides, a tutorial and the API reference. The release notes list the new features, caveats and deprecations in the latest release. The version history lists every user-visible change for every release.
GLFW exists because of the contributions of many people around the world, whether by reporting bugs, providing community support, adding features, reviewing or testing code, debugging, proofreading docs, suggesting features or fixing bugs.
GLFW supports Windows 7 and later and macOS 10.11 and later. On GNOME Wayland, window decorations will be very basic unless the libdecor package is installed. Linux and other Unix-like systems running X11 are supported even without a desktop environment or modern extensions, although some features require a clipboard manager or a modern window manager.
See the compatibility guide for more detailed information.
GLFW supports compilation with Visual C++ (2013 and later), GCC and Clang. Both Clang-CL and MinGW-w64 are supported. Other C99 compilers will likely also work, but this is not regularly tested.
There are pre-compiled binaries available for Windows and macOS.
GLFW itself needs only CMake and the headers and libraries for your operating system and window system. No other SDKs are required.
See the compilation guide for more information about compiling GLFW and the exact dependencies required for each window system.
The examples and test programs depend on a number of tiny libraries. These are
bundled in the deps/ directory. The repository has no submodules.
The documentation is generated with Doxygen when the library is built, provided CMake could find a sufficiently new version of it during configuration.
See the HTML documentation for a tutorial, guides and the API reference.
See the contribution guide for more information.
The master branch is the stable integration branch and should always compile
and run on all supported platforms. Details of a newly added feature,
including the public API, may change until it has been included in a release.
The latest branch is equivalent to the highest numbered
release, although it may not always point to the same commit as the tag for that
release.
The ci branch is used to trigger continuous integration jobs for code under
testing and should never be relied on for any purpose.
Bugs are reported to our issue tracker. Please check the contribution guide for information on what to include when reporting a bug.
None.
On glfw.org you can find the latest version of GLFW, as well as news, documentation and other information about the project.
If you have questions related to the use of GLFW, we have a forum.
If you have a bug to report, a patch to submit or a feature you'd like to request, please file it in the issue tracker on GitHub.
Finally, if you're interested in helping out with the development of GLFW or porting it to your favorite platform, join us on the forum or GitHub.