Nuklear by Immediate-Mode-UI

A single-header ANSI C immediate mode cross-platform GUI library

cguinuklearsingle-header-libsingle-headerc89imguimultiplatformheader-only
Verdict 65/100 health $4.13/mo cheapest, hetzner 2/5 setup difficulty Last release 2 days ago

Self-host Nuklear on hetzner CAX11 for $4.13/mo.

Health score
65 /100
6-dim composite
Self-hosts from
$4.13 /mo
hetzner · CAX11
Difficulty
2 /5
Docker + read README
GitHub stars
11k
676 forks

About Nuklear

From the project's README at github.com/Immediate-Mode-UI/Nuklear. Lightly cleaned for readability; for the full source see the upstream repo.

This is a minimal-state, immediate-mode graphical user interface toolkit written in ANSI C and licensed under public domain. It was designed as a simple embeddable user interface for application and does not have any dependencies, a default render backend or OS window/input handling but instead provides a highly modular, library-based approach, with simple input state for input and draw commands describing primitive shapes as output. So instead of providing a layered library that tries to abstract over a number of platform and render backends, it focuses only on the actual UI. Features Immediate-mode graphical user interface toolkit Single-header library Written in C89 (ANSI C) Small codebase (~18kLOC) Focus on portability, efficiency and simplicity No dependencies (not even the standard library if not wanted) Fully skinnable and customizable Low memory footprint with total control of memory usage if needed / wanted UTF-8 support No global or hidden state Customizable library modules (you can compile and use only what you need) Optional font baker and vertex buffer output Documentation Building

This library is self-contained in one single header file and can be used either in header-only mode or in implementation mode. The header-only mode is u

Health score breakdown

6-dimension composite. See methodology for formula and weights.

activity
86
maturity
64
community
75
security
70
sustainability
53
adoption
36

Adoption signals

Real-world usage data, pulled from each registry. The bigger the numbers, the more battle-tested the project.

SignalValueSource
GitHub stars 11k github.com/Immediate-Mode-UI/Nuklear
GitHub forks 676 github.com/Immediate-Mode-UI/Nuklear

Release & maintenance

Is this project actively maintained, or about to die? Check the recency of last commit and last release.

Project age6.4 yearssince Nov 2019
Last commit2 days agoMay 5, 2026
Releases shipped2last: 2 days ago

Self-hosting cost across providers

Detected requirements: 4GB RAM, 40GB disk minimum. Cheapest plan per provider that meets the requirement.

ProviderPlanSpecsMonthly
hetzner CAX11 2c · 4GB · 40GB $4.13 USD Deploy →
vultr VC2 1c · 1GB · 25GB $5 USD Deploy →
linode Nanode 1GB 1c · 1GB · 25GB $5.12 USD Deploy →
digitalocean Basic Regular 1GB 1c · 1GB · 25GB $6 USD Deploy →

What people say on Hacker News

Ready to self-host Nuklear?

Spin up a hetzner CAX11 (4GB RAM, 40GB disk) for $4.13/mo and follow the project's official install docs.

Data last refreshed May 7, 2026.

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