introducing nanoui: desktop apps in Zig, drawn on the GPU. Natively. super low latency 0.06 ms frames a SUPER nano 0.7 MB binaries AND a 0% CPU when idle WITH zero dependencies AND no webview every frame of this video was drawn by nanoui itself(without a window).

The app in the video is nanomon, an activity monitor built on nanoui, with a graff bubble that suggests what to quit. There's also nanoterm, a Warp-style terminal with coding agents. Both have notarized DMGs: and the terminal is very experimental at: (these are just a few examples of how to work with nanoui!)

And small. The same benchmark app is 0.7 MB on nanoui and 11.8 MB on mygo. nanomon is 1.1 MB and nanoterm is 1.8 MB. Electron's runtime alone is 224+ MB before you write a line.

Another benefit with Zig that I have had over the past few months has been that a single machine builds for every platform: macOS (AppKit and Metal), Linux (GTK 3, loaded at runtime) and Windows (Win32). Off macOS it uses its own TrueType reader and a CPU renderer that's tested to match the Metal one pixel for pixel.

AND everything is testable without a window: click, type, scroll and screenshot views in-process. That's how this video was made. A script drives the real nanomon UI headlessly, frame by frame, straight into ffmpeg. (which is great for agents!)

Huge thanks to mygo by @localhost_5173 , which nanoui started as a port of, and to GPUI from the @zeddotdev team for the element model and shadow math 🙏 MIT licensed. Try it: nanoui: nanomon, the activity monitor:

This is really cool, congratulations! Btw, I have a fork of Zig with a working self-hosted AArch64 backend. It compiles in seconds instead of the minutes LLVM takes. Maybe it can help you.

0% cpu when idle is the whole pitch

How does it compare to gpui?

its in the benchmarks!

copying from mygo？

0.06 ms frames while electron apps take a sabbatical to open settings

i am building a retained ui library lately. gpui is 5x slower than dear imgui. the cpu usage is poorer on the ceiling. after being in retained ui hell though i can see why immediate mode is so appealing. it is hard to do complex layouts without multiple passes also.

This looking great chef

shipping a UI framework with zero dependencies could change the game for performance

Looks good!

Using tahoe 26.4

We badly needed this in the zig ecosystem.

looking at this gave me a burst of dopamine that has to be a good sign

this is awesome!

What’s the difference with ?

@grok what’s the difference between native and

native (vercel-labs) uses TypeScript + declarative .native markup that compiles via Zig to a native binary with a custom renderer (no WebView by default). It offers a polished CLI and hot reload for web/TS developers. nanoui is pure Zig: immediate-mode GPU UI (Metal on macOS), optional webview, ~0.7 MB binaries, 0% idle CPU, and headless testing. Built for Zig users wanting max minimalism and speed. Both deliver lightweight native desktop apps without Electron.

Wicled all of otter shell and all apps are zig and my entire de is now zig its a great lang

what about compile time ?

what model did you use for this?

6.1 sol with codegraff

>zero dependency >0.7 Mb binaries Something does not add up.

两者有什么区别？

ew zig

arent the zig folks anti ai?

rendering the demo video from a script driving the real ui is such a flex. no display server, no screen recorder, and an agent gets the same click, type, screenshot loop for free

how does this compare to Can Buluk's Tern? are you using webgpu