List.community

Awesome C++ Awesome

A curated list of awesome C++ (or C) frameworks, libraries, resources, and shiny things. Inspired by awesome-... stuff.

Standard Libraries

C++ Standard Library - including STL Containers, STL Aglorithm, STL Functional, etc.

Frameworks

C++ generic frameworks and libraries.

  • abseil-cpp1k 226 - Abseil C++ Common Libraries. [Apache2]
  • Apache C++ Standard Library - STDCXX, A collection of algorithms, containers, iterators, and other fundamental components. [retired] [Apache2]
  • APR - Apache Portable Runtime. Another library of cross-platform utility functions. [Apache2]
  • ASL - Adobe Source Libraries provides peer-reviewed and portable C++ source libraries. [MIT]
  • Boost ⚡️ - A large collection of generic C++ libraries. [Boost] website
  • BDE810 212 - The BDE Development Environment from Bloomberg Labs. [Apache2]
  • Cinder - A community-developed, free and open source library for professional-quality creative coding. [BSD]
  • Cxxomfort - A small, header-only library that backports to C++03 some of the nifty C++11 goodies. [MIT]
  • Dlib3k 993 ⚡️ - A general purpose cross-platform C++ library designed using contract programming and modern C++ techniques. [Boost] website
  • EASTL3k 393 - Electronic Arts Standard Template Library. [BSD]
  • ffead-cpp234 88 - Framework for Enterprise Application Development. [Apache2]
  • Folly11k 3k - An open-source C++ library developed and used at Facebook. [Apache2]
  • FunctionalPlus596 57 - Functional Programming Library for C++. Write concise and readable C++ code. [MIT]
  • GLib - GLib provides the core application building blocks for libraries and applications written in C. [LGPL]
  • JUCE2k 629 - An all-encompassing C++ class library for developing cross-platform software. [Core-Module: ISC, Rest: GPL2/GPL3/Commercial] website
  • libPhenom1k 213 - libPhenom is an eventing framework for building high performance and high scalability systems in C. [Apache2]
  • LibSourcey494 175 - C++11 evented IO for real-time video streaming and high performance networking applications. [LGPL]
  • LibU55 11 - A multiplatform utility library written in C. [BSD]
  • Loki - A C++ library of designs, containing flexible implementations of common design patterns and idioms. [MIT]
  • MiLi - Minimal headers-only C++ Library. [Boost]
  • OpenFrameworks6k 2k - A cross platform open source toolkit for creative coding in C++. [MIT] website
  • Qt ⚡️ - A cross-platform application and UI framework. [GPL/LGPL/Commercial]
  • Reason - A cross platform framework designed to bring the ease of use of Java, .Net, or Python to developers who require the performance and strength of C++. [GPL2]
  • ROOT - A set of OO frameworks with all the functionality needed to handle and analyze large amounts of data in a very efficient way. Used at CERN. [LGPL]
  • STLport - An exemplary version of STL. [Free]
  • STXXL - Standard Template Library for Extra Large Data Sets. [Boost]
  • tbox101 25 - A glib-like multi-platform c library. [Apache2] website
  • Ultimate++ - A C++ cross-platform rapid application development framework. [BSD]
  • uSTL - The small STL library. [MIT]
  • Windows Template Library - A C++ library for developing Windows applications and UI components. [Public]
  • Yomm2 - Fast, Orthogonal, Open multi-methods. Supersedes Yomm11102 17 [Boost]

Artificial Intelligence

  • ANNetGPGPU44 11 - A GPU (CUDA) based Artificial Neural Network library. [LGPL]
  • btsk65 25 - Game Behavior Tree Starter Kit. [zlib]
  • Evolving Objects - A template-based, ANSI-C++ evolutionary computation library which helps you to write your own stochastic optimization algorithms insanely fast. [LGPL]
  • frugally-deep26 3 - Header-only library for using Keras models in C++. [MIT]
  • Recast/Detour647 230 - (3D) Navigation mesh generator and pathfinder, mostly for games. [zlib]
  • TensorFlow100k 52k - An open source software library for numerical computation using data flow graphs [Apache]
  • CNTK16k 5k - Microsoft Cognitive Toolkit (CNTK), an open source deep-learning toolkit. [Boost]
  • tiny-dnn2k 593 - A header only, dependency-free deep learning framework in C++11. [BSD]
  • Veles872 199 - Distributed platform for rapid Deep learning application development. [Apache]
  • Kaldi5k 3k - Toolkit for speech recognition. [Apache]

Asynchronous Event Loop

  • Asio1k 447 - A cross-platform C++ library for network and low-level I/O programming that provides developers with a consistent asynchronous model using a modern C++ approach. [Boost] website
  • Boost.Asio - A cross-platform C++ library for network and low-level I/O programming. [Boost]
  • C++ Actor Framework2k 362 - An Open Source Implementation of the Actor Model in C++. [BSD-3-Clause] website
  • libev - A full-featured and high-performance event loop that is loosely modelled after libevent, but without its limitations and bugs. [BSD and GPL]
  • libevent - An event notification library. [BSD]
  • libuv9k 2k - Cross-platform asychronous I/O. [BSD]
  • uvw237 47 - C++ wrapper for libuv. [MIT]

Audio

Audio, Sound, Music, Digitized Voice Libraries

  • FMOD - An easy to use crossplatform audio engine and audio content creation tool for games. [Free for non-commercial/Commercial]
  • KFR - Fast, modern C++ DSP framework, FFT, FIR/IIR filters, Sample Rate Conversion. [GPL/Commercial]
  • Maximilian546 151 - C++ Audio and Music DSP Library. [MIT]
  • OpenAL - Open Audio Library - A crossplatform audio API. [BSD/LGPL/Commercial]
  • Opus - A totally open, royalty-free, highly versatile audio codec. [BSD]
  • SELA192 19 - SimplE Lossless Audio. [MIT]
  • Speex - A free codec for free speech. Obsoleted by Opus. [BSD]
  • Tonic307 48 - Easy and efficient audio synthesis in C++. [Unlicense]
  • Vorbis - Ogg Vorbis is a fully open, non-proprietary, patent-and-royalty-free, general-purpose compressed audio format. [BSD]
  • minimp399 8 - Public domain, header-only MP3 decoder with clean-room implementation. [CC0]

Biology

Bioinformatics, Genomics, Biotech

  • libsequence - A C++ library for representing and analyzing population genetics data. [GPL]
  • SeqAn - Algorithms and data structures for the analysis of sequences with the focus on biological data. [BSD/3-clause]
  • Vcflib197 112 - A C++ library for parsing and manipulating VCF files. [MIT]
  • Wham16 9 - Structural variants (SVs) in Genomes by directly applying association tests to BAM files. [MIT]

BitTorrent

  • jech/dht364 109 - BitTorrent DHT library in C. [MIT]
  • libtorrent1k 449 (a.k.a. libtorrent-rasterbar) - An efficient feature complete C++ bittorrent implementation. [BSD]
  • LibTorrent712 207 (a.k.a. libtorrent-rakshasa) - BitTorrent library. [GPL]
  • libutp595 154 - uTorrent Transport Protocol library. [MIT]

CLI

Console/Terminal User Interface, Command Line Interface

  • Argh!125 6 - A minimalist, frustration-free, header-only argument handler. [BSD]
  • Taywee/args - A simple header-only C++ argument parser library. [MIT]
  • Boost.Program_options - A library to obtain program options via conventional methods such as command line and config file. [Boost]
  • jarro2783/cxxopts863 193 - Lightweight C++ command line option parser. [MIT]
  • docopt.cpp552 95 - A library to generate option parser from docstring. [MIT/Boost]
  • gflags - Commandline flags module for C++. [BSD]
  • Ncurses - A terminal user interfaces. [MIT]
  • PDCurses8 3 - Public domain curses library with both source code and pre-compiled library available. [PublicDomain]
  • replxx - A readline and libedit replacement that supports UTF-8, syntax highlighting, hints, works on Unix and Windows. [BSD]
  • TCLAP - A mature, stable and feature-rich library for defining and accessing command line arguments in ANSI C++. [MIT]
  • termbox1k 114 - A C library for writing text-based user interfaces. [BSD]

Compression

Compression and Archiving Libraries

  • Brotli6k 736 - Brotli compression format. Developed by Google. [MIT]
  • bzip2 - A freely available, patent free, high-quality data compressor. [BSD]
  • FiniteStateEntropy588 64 - New generation entropy codecs : Finite State Entropy and Huff0.
  • PhysicsFS - A library to provide abstract access to various archives. It is intended for use in video games, and the design was somewhat inspired by Quake 3's file subsystem. [zlib]
  • KArchive - A library for creating, reading, writing and manipulating file archives like zip and tar. It also provides transparent compression and decompression of data, using formats like gzip, via a subclass of QIODevice. [LGPL]
  • LZ42k 341 - Extremely Fast Compression algorithm. [BSD]
  • LZFSE1k 135 - LZFSE compression library and command line tool. Developed by Apple.
  • LZHAM - Lossless data compression library with a compression ratio similar to LZMA but with much faster decompression. [BSD]
  • LZMA ⚡️ - The default and general compression method of 7z format. [PublicDomain]
  • LZMAT - An extremely fast real-time lossless data compression library. [GPL]
  • miniz - Single C source file Deflate/Inflate compression library with zlib-compatible API, ZIP archive reading/writing, PNG writing. [Unlicense]
  • Minizip251 130 - Zlib with latest bug fixes that supports PKWARE disk spanning, AES encryption, and IO buffering. [zlib]
  • smaz328 43 - Small strings compression library. [BSD]
  • Snappy - A fast compressor/decompressor. [BSD]
  • ZLib - A very compact compression library for data streams. [zlib]
  • zlib-ng373 52 - zlib for the "next generation" systems. Drop-In replacement with some serious optimizations. [zlib]
  • zstd6k 558 - Zstandard - Fast real-time compression algorithm. Developed by Facebook. [BSD]
  • ZZIPlib - Provides read access on ZIP-archives. [MPL/LGPL]

Concurrency

Concurrency and Multithreading

  • alpaka27 17 - Abstraction library for parallel kernel acceleration. [LGPLv3+]
  • ArrayFire2k 348 - A general purpose GPU library. [BSD]
  • Boost.Compute442 135 - A C++ GPU Computing Library for OpenCL. [Boost]
  • Bolt138 30 - A C++ template library optimized for GPUs. [Apache2]
  • ck1k 177 - Concurrency primitives, safe memory reclamation mechanisms and non-blocking data structures. [BSD]
  • concurrentqueue2k 288 - A fast multi-producer, multi-consumer lock-free concurrent queue for C++11. [BSD,Boost]
  • CUB322 117 - CUB provides state-of-the-art, reusable software components for every layer of the CUDA programming mode. [New BSD]
  • cupla5 4 - C++ API to run CUDA/C++ on OpenMP, Threads, TBB, ... through Alpaka. [LGPLv3+]
  • C++React403 24 - A reactive programming library for C++11. [Boost]
  • Intel TBB - Intel® Threading Building Blocks. [Apache2]
  • junction757 77 - A library of concurrent data structures in C++. [BSD]
  • libcds648 125 - A C++ library of Concurrent Data Structures. [BSD]
  • Libclsph32 9 - An OpenCL based GPU accelerated SPH fluid simulation library. [MIT]
  • libdill657 49 - Introduces structured concurrency in C. [MIT]
  • libmill2k 145 - Introduces Go-style concurrency in C. [MIT]
  • moderngpu147 40 - moderngpu is a productivity library for general-purpose computing on GPUs. It is a header-only C++ library written for CUDA. The unique value of the library is in its accelerated primitives for solving irregularly parallel problems. [FreeBSD & Copyright, Sean Baxter]
  • NCCL331 104 - Optimized primitives for collective multi-GPU communication. [BSD]
  • OpenCL - The open standard for parallel programming of heterogeneous systems.
  • OpenMP - The OpenMP API.
  • RaftLib - The RaftLib C++ library, streaming/dataflow concurrency via C++ iostream-like operators [Apache2]
  • readerwriterqueue692 201 - A fast single-producer, single-consumer lock-free queue for C++. [BSD]
  • Thrust - A parallel algorithms library which resembles the C++ Standard Template Library (STL). [Apache2]
  • HPX909 294 - A general purpose C++ runtime system for parallel and distributed applications of any scale. [Boost]
  • VexCL423 77 - A C++ vector expression template library for OpenCL/CUDA. [MIT]

Containers

  • C++ B-tree - A template library that implements ordered in-memory containers based on a B-tree data structure. [Apache2]
  • Hashmaps25 11 - Implementation of open addressing hash table algorithms in C++. [MIT]
  • Hopscotch map115 10 - A fast header-only hash map which uses hopscotch hashing for collisions resolution. [MIT]
  • LSHBOX7 5 - A c++ toolbox of locality-sensitive hashing (LSH), provides several popular LSH algorithms, also support Python and MATLAB. [GPL]
  • sparsepp481 39 - A fast, memory efficient hash map for C++. [BSD 3-clause]

Cryptography

Cryptography and Encryption Libraries

  • Bcrypt - A cross platform file encryption utility. Encrypted files are portable across all supported operating systems and processors. [BSD]
  • BeeCrypt - A portable and fast cryptography library. [LGPLv2.1+]
  • Botan - A crypto library for C++. [BSD-2]
  • Crypto++664 294 - A free C++ class library of cryptographic schemes. [Boost] website
  • digestpp18 1 - C++11 header-only message digest (hash) library. [PublicDomain]
  • GnuPG - A complete and free implementation of the OpenPGP standard. [GPL]
  • GnuTLS - A secure communications library implementing the SSL, TLS and DTLS protocols. [LGPL2.1]
  • Libgcrypt - A general purpose cryptographic library originally based on code from GnuPG. [LGPLv2.1+]
  • libhydrogen64 2 - A lightweight, secure, easy-to-use crypto library for constrained environments. [ISC]
  • LibreSSL - A free version of the SSL/TLS protocol forked from OpenSSL in 2014. [?]
  • libsodium5k 829 - P(ortable|ackageable) NaCl-based crypto library, opinionated and easy to use. [ISC]
  • LibTomCrypt681 266 - A fairly comprehensive, modular and portable cryptographic toolkit. [WTFPL]
  • mbedTLS939 584 - An open source, portable, easy to use, readable and flexible SSL library, previously known as PolarSSL. [Apache2] website
  • Nettle - A low-level cryptographic library. [LGPL]
  • OpenSSL6k 3k - A robust, commercial-grade, full-featured, and Open Source cryptography library. [Apache] website
  • retter1k 136 - A collection of hash functions, ciphers, tools, libraries, and materials related to cryptography.
  • s2n4k 339 - An implementation of the TLS/SSL protocols. [Apache]
  • Tiny AES in C - Small portable AES128/192/256 in C. [PublicDomain]
  • Themis485 45 - crypto library for painless data security, providing symmetric and asymmetric encryption, secure sockets with forward secrecy, for mobile and server platforms. [Apache2]

Database

Database Libraries, SQL Servers, ODBC Drivers, and Tools

  • hiberlite340 96 - C++ Object-relational mapping for sqlite3. [BSD]
  • Hiredis3k 1k - A minimalistic C client library for the Redis database. [BSD]
  • LevelDB10k 3k - A fast key-value storage library written at Google that provides an ordered mapping from string keys to string values. [BSD]
  • LMDB - Very fast embedded key/value store with full ACID semantics. [OpenLDAP]
  • LMDB++103 33 - C++11 wrapper for the LMDB embedded database library. [PublicDomain]
  • MongoDB C Driver415 306 - MongoDB client library for C. [Apache2]
  • MongoDB C++ Driver478 406 - C++ driver for MongoDB. [Apache2]
  • MongoDB Libbson289 214 - A BSON utility library. [Apache2]
  • MySQL++ - A C++ wrapper for MySQL's C API. [LGPL]
  • redis3m128 62 - Wrapper of hiredis with clean C++ interface, supporting sentinel and ready to use patterns. [Apache2]
  • RocksDB10k 2k - Embedded key-value store for fast storage from facebook. [BSD]
  • SimDB158 11 - High performance, shared memory, lock free, cross platform, single file, minimal dependencies, C++11 key-value store [Apache2]
  • SQLite - A completely embedded, full-featured relational database in a few 100k that you can include right into your project. [PublicDomain]
  • SQLiteC++463 205 - SQLiteC++ (SQLiteCpp) is a smart and easy to use C++ SQLite3 wrapper. [MIT]
  • sqlite_modern_cpp - Header only C++14 wrapper around sqlite library. [MIT]
  • sqlite_orm84 13 - SQLite ORM light header only library for modern C++. [BSD-3-Clause]
  • TileDB249 19 - Fast Dense and Sparse Multidimensional Array DBMS. [MIT] website
  • upscaledb - An embedded "typed" key/value store with a built-in query interface. [GPLv3]

Debug

Debugging Libraries, Memory Leak and Resource Leak Detection, Unit Testing

  • backward-cpp728 105 - A beautiful stack trace pretty printer for C++. [MIT]
  • benchmark2k 502 - Google provided small microbenchmark support library. [Apache2]
  • Boost.Test - Boost Test Library. [Boost]
  • doctest1k 71 - The lightest feature rich C++ single header testing framework. [MIT]
  • Catch6k 1k - A modern, C++-native, header-only, framework for unit-tests, TDD and BDD. [Boost]
  • Catch2515 105 - A modern, C++-native, header-only, test framework for unit-tests, TDD and BDD. [BSL-1.0]
  • Celero358 86 - C++ Benchmarking Framework. [Apache2]
  • CppUTest726 461 - Unit testing and mocking framework for C/C++. [BSD-3-clause]
  • CUTE - C++ Unit Testing Easier. [LGPL3]
  • CMocka - unit testing framework for C with support for mock objects. [Apache2]
  • CppUnit - C++ port of JUnit. [LGPL2]
  • CTest - The CMake test driver program. [BSD]
  • Deleaker - A tool for resource leak detection, including memory, GDI and handle leaks.
  • fff63 6 - A micro-framework for creating fake C functions. [MIT]
  • Google Mock6k 3k - A library for writing and using C++ mock classes. [BSD]
  • Google Test6k 3k - Google C++ Testing Framework. [BSD]
  • ig-debugheap55 4 - Multiplatform debug heap useful for tracking down memory errors. [BSD]
  • libtap132 39 - Write tests in C. [GPL2]
  • MemTrack - Tracking memory allocations in C++.
  • microprofile - Profiler with web-view for multiple platforms. [PublicDomain]
  • MinUnit61 17 - A minimal unit testing framework for C self-contained in a single header file. [MIT]
  • Mockator - Eclipse CDT plug-in for C++ Seams and Mock Objects.
  • Remotery115 13 - Single C File Profiler with Web Viewer. [Apache2]
  • UnitTest++293 119 - A lightweight unit testing framework for C++. [MIT/X Consortium license]
  • utest.h25 2 - Single header unit testing framework for C and C++. [Unlicense]
  • VLD - Visual Leak Detector. A free, robust, open-source memory leak detection system for Visual C++.

Game Engine

  • Allegro - A cross-platform library mainly aimed for video games and multimedia programming. [zlib]
  • Cocos2d-x - A multi-platform framework for building 2d games, interactive books, demos and other graphical applications. [MIT]
  • delta3d - A robust simulation platform. [LGPL2]
  • GamePlay2k 1k - A cross-platform native C++ game framework for creating 2D/3D mobile and desktop games. [Apache2]
  • Godot9k 3k - A fully featured, open source, MIT licensed, game engine. [MIT]
  • Grit - Community project to build a free game engine for implementing open world 3D games. [MIT]
  • KlayGE934 256 - a cross-platform open source game engine with plugin-based architecture. [GPLv2] website
  • Oxygine - A cross-platform 2D C++ game engine. [MIT]
  • Panda3D995 385 - A game engine, a framework for 3D rendering and game development for Python and C++ programs. [Modified BSD] website
  • Polycode3k 497 - A cross-platform framework for creative code in C++ (with Lua bindings). [MIT] website
  • Torque2D1k 2k - An open-source and cross-platform C++ engine built for 2D game development. [MIT] website
  • Torque3D3k 1k - An open-source C++ engine built for 3D game development. [MIT] website
  • Urho3D - A free lightweight, cross-platform 2D and 3D game engine implemented in C++. Greatly inspired by OGRE and Horde3D. [MIT]

GUI

Graphic User Interface

  • CEGUI - Flexible, cross-platform GUI library.
  • FLTK - Fast, light, cross-platform C++ GUI toolkit. [GPL2]
  • GacUI905 235 - GPU Accelerated C++ User Interface, with WYSIWYG developing tools, XML supports, built-in data binding and MVVM features. [Ms-PL]
  • GTK+ - A multi-platform toolkit for creating graphical user interfaces. [LGPL]
  • gtkmm - The official C++ interface for the popular GUI library GTK+. [LGPL]
  • imgui9k 1k - Immediate Mode Graphical User Interface with minimal dependencies. [MIT]
  • libRocket - libRocket is a C++ HTML/CSS game interface middleware. [MIT]
  • libui5k 281 - Simple and portable (but not inflexible) GUI library in C that uses the native GUI technologies of each platform it supports. [MIT]
  • MyGUI - Fast, flexible and simple GUI. [MIT]
  • nana - Nana is a cross-platform library for GUI programming in modern C++ style. [Boost]
  • NanoGui1k 267 - A minimalistic cross-platform widget library for OpenGL 3.x or higher. [BSD]
  • nuklear - A single-header ANSI C gui library. [PublicDomain]
  • QCustomPlot - Qt plotting widget without further dependencies. [GPLv3]
  • Qwt - Qt Widgets for Technical Applications. [Own based on LGPL]
  • QwtPlot3D - A feature-rich Qt/OpenGL-based C++ programming library, providing essentially a bunch of 3D-widgets. [zlib]
  • Sciter - Sciter is an embeddable HTML/CSS/scripting engine aimed to be used as an UI layer of modern desktop applications. [Free/Commercial]
  • wxWidgets - A C++ library that lets developers create applications for Windows, Mac OS X, Linux and other platforms with a single code base. [Own LGPL]
  • Yue795 35 - A library for creating native cross-platform GUI apps. [LGPLv2]

Graphics

  • bgfx3k 738 - A cross-platform rendering library. [BSD]
  • Cairo - A 2D graphics library with support for multiple output devices. [LGPL2 or Mozilla MPL]
  • DirectXTK942 291 - A collection of helper classes for writing DirectX 11.x code in C++. [MIT]
  • GLFW4k 1k - A simple, cross-platform OpenGL wrangling library. [zlib/libpng]
  • herebedragons - A basic 3D scene implemented with various engines, frameworks or APIs. [MIT] website
  • Horde3D299 93 - A small 3D rendering and animation engine. [EPL]
  • Ion1k 91 - A small and efficient set of libraries for building cross-platform client or server applications that use 3D graphics. [Apache2] website
  • Irrlicht - A high performance realtime 3D engine written in C++. [zlib]
  • magnum2k 204 - Lightweight and modular C++11/C++14 graphics middleware for games and data visualization. [MIT] website
  • Ogre 3D ⚡️ - A scene-oriented, real-time, flexible 3D rendering engine (as opposed to a game engine) written in C++. [MIT]
  • OpenSceneGraph - An open source high performance 3D graphics toolkit. [OSGPL]
  • OpenSubdiv2k 457 - Pixar's library for evaluating and rendering subdivision surfaces on CPU and GPU. [Modified Apache2]
  • OpenVDB - Library and tools for storing, editing, and rendering volumetric datasets. [MPL2]
  • Panda3D - A framework for 3D rendering and game development for Python and C++. [BSD]
  • Partio215 85 - Library for wrangling particle data, with support for most common file formats. [Modified BSD]
  • Skia2k 522 - A complete 2D graphic library for drawing Text, Geometries, and Images. [BSD] webpage
  • urho3d2k 1k - Cross-platform rendering and game engine. [Many different, mostly MIT]

Image Processing

  • Boost.GIL - Generic Image Library.
  • CImg - A small, open source, C++ toolkit for image processing. [Own LGPL or GPL]
  • CxImage - An image processing and conversion library to load, save, display, transform BMP, JPEG, GIF, PNG, TIFF, MNG, ICO, PCX, TGA, WMF, WBMP, JBG, J2K images. [zlib]
  • FreeImage - An open source library that supports popular graphics image formats and others as needed by today's multimedia applications. [GPL2 or GPL3]
  • GD291 122 - GD Graphics Library, famously used in PHP for image loading/manipulation & thumbnail generation. [custom permissive license, requires mention in user docs] website
  • DCMTK - DICOM Toolkit.
  • GDCM - Grassroots DICOM library.
  • ITK - An open-source, cross-platform system for image analysis. [Apache2 from ITK 4.0]
  • libvips2k 172 - A fast image processing library with low memory needs. [LGPL] website
  • Magick++ - ImageMagick program interfaces for C++. [Apache2]
  • MagickWnd - ImageMagick program interfaces for C. [Apache2]
  • OpenCV ⚡️ - Open source computer vision. [BSD]
  • OpenEXR - Cross-platform library for high dynamic range imaging. [Modified BSDF]
  • OpenImageIO742 365 - Powerful image and texture wrangling library with support for a wide number of common lossy and RAW formats. [Modified BSD]
  • tesseract-ocr - An OCR engine. [Apache2]
  • Video++413 58 - A C++14 high performance video and image processing library. [MIT]
  • VIGRA261 161 - A generic C++ computer vision library for image analysis. [MIT X11]
  • VTK - Open-source, freely available software system for 3D computer graphics, image processing and visualization. [BSD]

Internationalization

  • gettext - GNU `gettext'. [GPL2]
  • IBM ICU - A set of C/C++ and Java libraries providing Unicode and Globalization support. [ICU]
  • libiconv - An encoding conversion library between different character encodings. [GPL]
  • utf8.h202 28 - Single header utf8 string functions for C and C++. [Unlicense]

Inter-process communication

  • Apache Thrift - Efficient cross-language IPC/RPC, works between C++, Java, Python, PHP, C#, and many more other languages. Originally developed by Facebook. [Apache2]
  • Cap'n Proto - Fast data interchange format and capability-based RPC system. [MIT]
  • gRPC15k 4k - A high performance, open source, general-purpose RPC framework. [BSD] website
  • libjson-rpc-cpp345 167 - JSON-RPC framework for C++ servers and clients. [MIT]
  • nanomsg4k 751 - A simple high-performance implementation of several "scalability protocols". [MIT] website
  • simple-rpc-cpp15 7 - A simple RPC wrapper generator to C/C++ functions. [BSD]
  • WAMP - Provides RPC and pub/sub messaging patterns. (various implementations, various languages)
  • xmlrpc-c - A lightweight RPC library based on XML and HTTP. [BSD]
  • ZeroMQ - High-speed, modular asynchronous communication library. [LGPL]

JSON

  • Boost.PropertyTree - A property tree parser/generator that can be used to parse XML/JSON/INI/Info files. [Boost]
  • frozen203 77 - JSON parser and generator for C/C++. [GPL & GPL2]
  • Jansson1k 455 - C library for encoding, decoding and manipulating JSON data. [MIT]
  • jbson13 1 - jbson is a library for building & iterating BSON data, and JSON documents in C++14. [Boost]
  • JeayeSON101 16 - A very sane (header only) C++ JSON library. [BSD]
  • json9k 2k ⚡️ - JSON for Modern C++. [MIT]
  • JSON++279 100 - A JSON parser in C++. [MIT]
  • json.h145 18 - A simple one header/one source solution to parsing JSON in C and C++. [Unlicense]
  • json-c1k 604 - A JSON implementation in C. [MIT]
  • JsonCpp3k 1k - A C++ library for interacting with JSON. [MIT]
  • json-parser484 97 - Very low footprint JSON parser written in portable ANSI C. [BSD]
  • json111k 344 - A tiny JSON library for C++11. [MIT]
  • json-voorhees114 19 - JSON library for C++. Support for C++11. No dependencies, fast and dev-friendly. [Apache2]
  • jute - Very simple C++ JSON Parser. [PublicDomain]
  • libjson117 40 - A JSON parser and printer library in C. easy to integrate with any model. [LGPL]
  • libjson - Lightweight JSON library. [?]
  • LIBUCL845 71 ⚡️ - Universal configuration library parser [?]
  • PicoJSON561 152 - A header-file-only, JSON parser serializer in C++. [BSD]
  • qt-json138 48 - A simple class for parsing JSON data into a QVariant hierarchy and vice versa. [GPLv3]
  • QJson167 125 - A qt-based library that maps JSON data to QVariant objects. [LGPL2]
  • RapidJSON5k 2k ⚡️ - A fast JSON parser/generator for C++ with both SAX/DOM style API. [MIT]
  • ujson - µjson is a a small, C++11, UTF-8, JSON library. [MIT]
  • YAJL2k 368 - A fast streaming JSON parsing library in C. [ISC]

Logging

  • Blackhole106 39 - Attribute-based logging framework, which is designed to be fast, modular and highly customizable. [MIT]
  • Boost.Log - Designed to be very modular and extensible. [Boost]
  • Easylogging++1k 390 - Single header only, extremely light-weight high performance logging library for C++11 (or higher) applications. [MIT] website
  • G3log282 142 - Asynchronous logger with Dynamic Sinks. [PublicDomain]
  • glog2k 774 - C++ implementation of the Google logging module.
  • Log4cpp - A library of C++ classes for flexible logging to files, syslog, IDSA and other destinations. [LGPL]
  • log4cplus416 233 - A simple to use C++ logging API providing thread-safe, flexible, and arbitrarily granular control over log management and configuration. [BSD & Apache2]
  • loguru336 44 - A lightweight C++ logging library. [PublicDomain]
  • plog355 90 - Portable and simple C++ logging library. [MPL2]
  • reckless156 23 - Low-latency, high-throughput, asynchronous logging library for C++. [MIT]
  • spdlog3k 713 - Super fast, header only, C++ logging library.
  • templog - A very small and lightweight C++ library which you can use to add logging to your C++ applications. [Boost]

Machine Learning

  • Caffe21k 12k - A fast framework for neural networks. [BSD]
  • Caffe210k 2k - A lightweight, modular, and scalable deep learning framework. [Apache2] website
  • CCV6k 1k - C-based/Cached/Core Computer Vision Library, A Modern Computer Vision Library. [BSD]
  • Fido369 80 - A highly-modular C++ machine learning library for embedded electronics and robotics. [MIT] website
  • MeTA377 161 - A modern C++ data sciences toolkit. [MIT] website
  • Minerva444 128 - A fast and flexible system for deep learning. [Apache2]
  • mlpack2k 816 - A scalable c++ machine learning library. [LGPLv3] website
  • OpenCV11k 10k ⚡️ - Open Source Computer Vision Library. [BSD] website
  • Recommender41 9 - C library for product recommendations/suggestions using collaborative filtering (CF). [BSD]
  • RNNLIB474 142 - RNNLIB is a recurrent neural network library for sequence learning problems. [GPLv3]
  • SHOGUN2k 1k - The Shogun Machine Learning Toolbox. [GPLv3]
  • sofia-ml - The suite of fast incremental algorithms for machine learning. [Apache2]
  • xgboost9k 5k - Scalable, Portable and Distributed Gradient Boosting (GBDT, GBRT or GBM) Library, for Python, R, Java, Scala, C++ and more. Runs on single machine, Hadoop, Spark, Flink and DataFlow. [Apache2]

Math

  • Apophenia116 20 - A C library for statistical and scientific computing [GPL2]
  • Armadillo123 55 - A high quality linear algebra library (matrix maths) for the C++ language, aiming towards a good balance between speed and ease of use. The syntax (API) is deliberately similar to Matlab. [MPL2] website
  • blaze - high-performance C++ math library for dense and sparse arithmetic. [BSD]
  • Boost.Multiprecision - provides higher-range/precision integer, rational and floating-point types in C++, header-only or with GMP/MPFR/LibTomMath backends. [Boost]
  • ceres-solver - C++ library for modeling and solving large complicated nonlinear least squares problems from google. [BSD]
  • CGAL730 364 - Collection of efficient and reliable geometric algorithms. [LGPL&GPL] website
  • cml - free C++ math library for games and graphics. [Boost]
  • Eigen - A high-level C++ library of template headers for linear algebra, matrix and vector operations, numerical solvers and related algorithms. [MPL2]
  • ExprTK - The C++ Mathematical Expression Toolkit Library (ExprTk) is a simple to use, easy to integrate and extremely efficient run-time mathematical expression parser and evaluation engine. [MIT]
  • GLM2k 569 - Header-only C++ math library that matches and inter-operates with OpenGL's GLSL math. [MIT]
  • GMTL - Graphics Math Template Library is a collection of tools implementing Graphics primitives in generalized ways. [GPL2]
  • GMP - A C library for arbitrary precision arithmetic, operating on signed integers, rational numbers, and floating-point numbers. [LGPL3 & GPL2]
  • MIRACL43 18 - A Multiprecision Integer and Rational Arithmetic Cryptographic Library. [AGPL]
  • muparser - muParser is an extensible high performance math expression parser library written in C++. [MIT]
  • NT2 - A SIMD-optimized numerical template library that provides an interface with MATLAB-like syntax. [Boost]
  • LibTomMath228 97 - A free open source portable number theoretic multiple-precision integer library written entirely in C. [PublicDomain & WTFPL] website
  • linmath.h72 18 - A lean linear math library, aimed at graphics programming. [WTFPL]
  • OpenBLAS2k 678 - An optimized BLAS library based on GotoBLAS2 1.13 BSD version. [BSD 3-clause] website
  • QuantLib585 611 - A free/open-source library for quantitative finance. [Modified BSD] website
  • Vc367 63 - SIMD Vector Classes for C++. [BSD]
  • Versor - A (fast) Generic C++ library for Geometric Algebras, including Euclidean, Projective, Conformal, Spacetime (etc).
  • Wykobi - A C++ library of efficient, robust and simple to use C++ 2D/3D oriented computational geometry routines. [MIT]

Multimedia

  • GStreamer - A library for constructing graphs of media-handling components. [LGPL]
  • LIVE555 Streaming Media - Multimedia streaming library using open standard protocols (RTP/RTCP, RTSP, SIP). [LGPL]
  • libVLC - libVLC (VLC SDK) media framework. [GPL]
  • MediaInfoLib84 71 - Convenient unified display of the most relevant technical and tag data for video and audio files. [BSD]
  • QtAv1k 744 - A multimedia playback framework based on Qt and FFmpeg to write a player easily. [LGPL] website
  • SDL ⚡️ - Simple DirectMedia Layer. [zlib]
  • SFML2k 936 ⚡️ - Simple and Fast Multimedia Library. [zlib] website

Networking

  • ACE - An OO Network Programming Toolkit in C++. [?MIT?]
  • Boost.Asio ⚡️ - A cross-platform C++ library for network and low-level I/O programming. [Boost]
  • Breep - Event based, high-level C++14 peer-to-peer library. [EUPL-1.1 (OSI approved)]
  • C++ REST SDK2k 596 - C++ REST SDK (previously named Casablanca). [Apache2]
  • Restbed - C++11 Asynchronous RESTful framework. [AGPL]
  • cpp-netlib - A collection of open-source libraries for high level network programming. [Boost]
  • cpr1k 208 - A modern C++ HTTP requests library with a simple but powerful interface. Modeled after the Python Requests module. [MIT] website
  • curlcpp97 53 - An object oriented C++ wrapper for CURL(libcurl). [MIT]
  • Dyad.c645 37 - Asynchronous networking for C. [MIT]
  • evpp700 191 - C++ high performance networking with TCP/UDP/HTTP protocols. [BSD]
  • HTTP Parser1k 413 ⚡️ - A http request/response parser for C. [MIT]
  • libcurl - Multiprotocol file transfer library. [MIT/X derivate license]
  • libjingle - Google talk voice and P2P interoperability library. [BSD]
  • libquic776 149 - A QUIC protocol library extracted from Chromium's QUIC Implementation. [BSD]
  • libwebsockets1k 638 - A lightweight pure C WebSocket implementation that provides both client and server libraries. [LGPL2.1 + static link exception] website
  • Mongoose4k 1k - Extremely lightweight webserver. [GPL2]
  • Muduo4k 2k - A C++ non-blocking network library for multi-threaded server in Linux. [BSD]
  • nghttp21k 278 - HTTP/2 C Library. [MIT] website
  • nope.c432 43 - A C language-based ultra-light software platform for scalable server-side and networking applications. Think node.js for C programmers. [GPL2]
  • Onion1k 193 - HTTP server library in C designed to be lightweight and easy to use. [Apache2/GPL2]
  • POCO ⚡️ - C++ class libraries and frameworks for building network- and internet-based applications that run on desktop, server, mobile and embedded systems. [Boost] website
  • Proxygen6k 1k - Facebook's collection of C++ HTTP libraries including an easy to use HTTP server. [BSD]
  • RakNet1k 256 - A cross platform, open source, C++ networking engine for game programmers. [BSD]
  • Seasocks226 41 - Simple, small, C++ embeddable webserver with WebSockets support. [BSD]
  • Silicon - A high performance, middleware oriented C++14 http web framework. [MIT]
  • Tufão362 102 - An asynchronous web framework for C++ built on top of Qt. [LGPL2]
  • uWebSockets541 83 - µWS is one of the most lightweight, efficient & scalable WebSocket & HTTP server implementations available. [Zlib]
  • wdt2k 310 - An embeddedable library (and command line tool) aiming to transfer data between 2 systems as fast as possible over multiple TCP paths. [BSD-3-Clause]
  • WebSocket++2k 698 - C++/Boost Asio based websocket client/server library. [BSD]

PDF

Libraries for parsing and manipulating PDF documents.

  • libharu626 248 - A free, cross platform, open-sourced software library for generating PDF. [zlib]
  • MuPDF - A lightweight PDF, XPS, and E-book viewer. [AGPL/Commercial]
  • Poppler - Open-source multi-backend PDF rendering library based on the xpdf-3.0 code base. [GPLv2/GPLv3]

Physics

Dynamics simulation engines

  • Box2D2k 488 - A 2D physics engine for games. [BSD-like]
  • Bullet3k 933 - A 3D physics engine for games. [zlib] website
  • Chipmunk1k 259 - A fast and lightweight 2D game physics library. [MIT] website
  • LiquidFun2k 206 - A 2D physics engine for games. [BSD-like]
  • Newton Dynamics303 117 - An integrated solution for real time simulation of physics environments. [zlib]
  • ODE - Open Dynamics Engine - An open source, high performance library for simulating rigid body dynamics. [BSD&LGPL]
  • ofxBox2d230 112 - openFrameworks wrapper for Box2D. [BSD-like]
  • Simbody1k 401 - High-performance C++ multibody dynamics/physics library for simulating articulated biomechanical and mechanical systems like vehicles, robots, and the human skeleton. [Apache2]

Regular Expression

  • CppVerbalExpressions350 46 - C++ regular expressions made easy. [MIT]
  • PCRE - A regular expression C library inspired by the regular expression capabilities in Perl. [BSD]
  • RE22k 426 - A software library for regular expressions via a finite-state machine using automata theory. [BSD-3-Clause]
  • SLRE108 20 - Super Light Regexp engine for C/C++. [GPLv2/Commercial]

Robotics

  • MOOS-IvP - A set of open source C++ modules for providing autonomy on robotic platforms, in particular autonomous marine vehicles.
  • MRPT - Mobile Robot Programming Toolkit. [BSD]
  • PCL2k 2k - Point Cloud Library is a standalone, large scale, open project for 2D/3D image and point cloud processing [BSD] website
  • Robotics Library (RL) - A self-contained C++ library for robot kinematics, motion planning and control. [BSD]
  • RobWork - A collection of C++ libraries for simulation and control of robot systems. [Apache2]
  • ROS - Robot Operating System provides libraries and tools to help software developers create robot applications. [BSD]

Scientific Computing

  • FFTW - A C library for computing the DFT in one or more dimensions. [GPL]
  • GSL - GNU scientific library. [GPL]
  • TileDB249 19 - Fast Dense and Sparse Multidimensional Array DBMS. [MIT] website
  • Trilinos272 236 - High performance PDE solvers. [BSD]
  • Torch8k 3k - A scientific computing framework with wide support for machine learning algorithms that puts GPUs first. [BSD-3-Clause] website

Scripting

  • Boost.Python - A C++ library which enables seamless interoperability between C++ and the Python programming language. [Boost]
  • cppimport690 38 - Import C++ files directly from Python! [MIT]
  • CppSharp1k 270 - Tools and libraries to glue C/C++ APIs to high-level languages. [MIT]
  • ChaiScript1k 215 - An easy to use embedded scripting language for C++. [BSD] website
  • ctypes.sh1k 60 - A foreign function interface for bash. [MIT]
  • Cython3k 734 - Cython is an optimising static compiler for both the Python programming language and the extended Cython programming language (based on Pyrex). It makes writing C extensions for Python as easy as Python itself. [Apache] website
  • djinni2k 297 - A tool for generating cross-language type declarations and interface bindings. [Apache2]
  • Duktape3k 371 - An embeddable Javascript engine with compact footprint. [MIT] website
  • JavaCpp2k 314 - The missing bridge between Java and native C++. [Apache2]
  • libffi260 63 - A portable foreign-function interface library. [MIT] website
  • Lua - A minimal and fast scripting engine for configuration files and basic application scripting. [MIT]
  • luacxx28 3 - C++11 API for creating Lua bindings. [MIT]
  • nbind1k 65 - Magical headers that make your C++ library accessible from JavaScript. [MIT]
  • pybind112k 273 - Seamless operability between C++11 and Python. [BSD]
  • SIP - C or C++ Bindings Generator for Python v2 and v3. [GPL]
  • SWIG2k 568 - A wrapper/interface Generator that let you link your c++ code to Javascript, Perl, PHP, Python, Tcl and Ruby. [GPL/Output not licensed] website
  • V71k 169 - An embedded JavaScript engine. [GPL2]
  • V8 - A fast JavaScript engine by Google that can be embedded into any C++ application. [BSD]
  • ChakraCore7k 1k -A JavaScript engine by Microsoft that can be embedded into nodejs. [MIT]

Serialization

  • cereal1k 290 - A C++11 library for serialization. [BSD]
  • cppcodec53 16 - Header-only C++11 library to encode/decode base64, base32 and hex with consistent, flexible API. [MIT]
  • FlatBuffers9k 1k - A Memory efficient serialization library. [Apache2]
  • MessagePack1k 518 - Efficient binary serialization format "like JSON" for C and C++. [Apache2] website
  • protobuf26k 8k - Protocol Buffers - Google's data interchange format. [BSD]
  • protobuf-c726 266 - Protocol Buffers implementation in C. [BSD]
  • SimpleBinaryEncoding1k 264 - encoding and decoding application messages in binary format for low-latency applications. [Apache2]

Video

  • libvpx - VP8/VP9 Codec SDK. [BSD]
  • FFmpeg - A complete, cross-platform solution to record, convert and stream audio and video. [LGPL2/GPL2]
  • libde265594 211 - Open h.265 video codec implementation. [LGPL] website
  • OpenH2643k 835 - Open Source H.264 Codec. [BSD] website
  • Theora - A free and open video compression format. [BSD]
  • Vireo426 27 - A lightweight and versatile video processing library by Twitter. [MIT]

Virtual Machines

  • CarpVM829 69 - "interesting" VM in C. Let's see how this goes. [GPLv3]
  • MicroPython6k 2k - Aims to put an implementation of Python 3.x on a microcontroller. [MIT]
  • TinyVM856 76 - A small, fast, lightweight virtual machine written in pure ANSI C. [MIT]

Web Application Framework

  • Civetweb412 186 - Provides easy to use, powerful, C/C++ embeddable web server with optional CGI, SSL and Lua support. [MIT]
  • CppCMS - A Free High Performance Web Development Framework (not a CMS). [LGPLv3]
  • Crow1k 74 - Crow is C++ micro web framework (inspired by Python Flask). [BSD]
  • Cutelyst226 30 - A C++ Web Framework built on top of Qt, using the simple approach of Catalyst (Perl) framework. [LGPLv2.1+] website
  • Kore - ultra fast and flexible web server / framework for web applications developed in C. [ISC]
  • libOnion - lightweight library to help you create webservers in C programming language. [LGPLv3]
  • lwan4k 603 - Experimental, scalable, high performance HTTP server. [GPL2]
  • Pistache - Pistache is a C++ REST framework written in pure C++11 with no external dependency. [Apache2]
  • QDjango131 54 - A web framework written in C++ and built on top of the Qt library. Where possible it tries to follow django's API, hence its name. [LGPL]
  • TreeFrog Framework478 132 - High-speed and full-stack web application framework based on C++ and Qt, which supports HTTP and WebSocket protocol (with O/R mapping). [BSD] website
  • Wt - A C++ library for developing web applications. [GPL/Commercial]

XML

XML is crap. Really. There are no excuses. XML is nasty to parse for humans, and it's a disaster to parse even for computers. There's just no reason for that horrible crap to exist. - Linus Torvalds

  • Boost.PropertyTree - A property tree parser/generator that can be used to parse XML/JSON/INI/Info files. [Boost]
  • Expat - An XML parser library written in C. [MIT]
  • Libxml2 - The XML C parser and toolkit of Gnome. [MIT]
  • libxml++ - An XML Parser for C++. [LGPL2]
  • PugiXML - A light-weight, simple and fast XML parser for C++ with XPath support. [MIT]
  • RapidXml - An attempt to create the fastest XML parser possible, while retaining useability, portability and reasonable W3C compatibility. [Boost]
  • TinyXML - A simple, small, minimal, C++ XML parser that can be easily integrating into other programs. [zlib]
  • TinyXML22k 950 - A simple, small, efficient, C++ XML parser that can be easily integrating into other programs. [zlib]
  • TinyXML++19 16 - A completely new interface to TinyXML that uses MANY of the C++ strengths. Templates, exceptions, and much better error handling. [MIT]
  • Xerces-C++ - A validating XML parser written in a portable subset of C++. [Apache2]

Miscellaneous

Useful libraries or tools that don't fit in the categories above or maybe just not categorised yet

  • access_profiler38 1 - A tool to count accesses to member variables in c++ programs. [GPL3]
  • American fuzzy lop a.k.a. afl-fuzz - Crazy fuzzing tool that automatically discovers bugs given time and minimal example input. [Apache2]
  • Better Enums361 45 - Reflective enums (to string, iteration). Single header. [BSD] website
  • Better String - An alternative to the string library for C which is more functional and does not have buffer overflow overrun problems. Also includes a C++ wrapper. [BSD, GPL2]
  • Boost.Signals - An implementation of a managed signals and slots system. [Boost]
  • {fmt}2k 308 ⚡️ - Small, safe and fast formatting library for C++. [Simplified BSD]
  • FastFormat - Fast, Safe C++ Formatting inspired by log4j and Pantheios [Simplified BSD]
  • casacore - A set of c++ core libraries derived from aips++. [LGPL]
  • QtVerbalExpressions4 0 - This Qt lib is based off of the C++ VerbalExpressions library. [MIT]
  • c-smart-pointers149 27 - Smart pointers for the (GNU) C programming language. [MIT]
  • cxx-prettyprint115 20 - A pretty printing library for C++ containers. [Boost]
  • DynaPDF - An easy-to-use PDF generation library. [Commercial]
  • gcc-poison74 8 - A simple header file for developers to ban unsafe C/C++ functions from applications.
  • Kangaru51 13 - A dependency injection container for C++11 and C++14. [MIT]
  • Klib715 91 - Small and lightweight implementations of common algorithms and data structures. [MIT]
  • libsigc++ - A typesafe callback system for standard C++. [LGPL]
  • libcpuid105 38 - A small C library for x86 CPU detection and feature extraction. [BSD]
  • libevil5 4 - The Evil License Manager. [GPLv3]
  • libnih13 12 - A lightweight library of C functions and structures. [GPL2.1]
  • libusb - A universal USB library which allows for portable access to USB devices. [LGPL2]
  • Mach7871 81 - A Pattern-matching library for C++. [BSD]
  • pdqsort242 9 - Pattern-defeating quicksort. [zlib]
  • PHP-CPP874 261 - A library to build PHP extensions with C++. [Apache2] website
  • Remote Call Framework - Inter-process communication framework for C++. [GPL2/Commercial]
  • Scintilla - A free source code editing component. [MIT]
  • SDS2k 245 - Simple Dynamic Strings library for C. [BSD]
  • semver.c93 11 - A semver parser and render in ANSI C. [MIT]
  • Serial Communication Library409 262 - Cross-platform, Serial Port library written in C++. [MIT]
  • sigslot - C++ Signal/Slot Library. [PublicDomain]
  • Stage99 53 - Mobile robot simulator. [GPL2]
  • stdman328 36 Formatted C++11/14 stdlib man pages (from cppreference). [MIT]
  • stb6k 1k ⚡️ - A range of single-file libraries for C/C++. [PublicDomain]
  • StrTk - A C++ library consisting of high performance string processing routines. [MIT]
  • ub-canaries95 13 - A collection of C/C++ programs that try to get compilers to exploit undefined behavior.
  • value-category-cheatsheet A PDF cheatsheet for lvalues, rvalues, and the like. [Jank copyleft]
  • VarTypes - A feature-rich, object-oriented framework for managing variables in C++ / Qt4. [LGPL]
  • ZBar - A barcode scanner library, which allows to scan photos/images/video streams for barcodes and return their value. [LGPL2]
  • ZXing15k 8k - An open-source, multi-format 1D/2D barcode image processing library implemented in Java, with ports to other languages. [Apache]

Software

Software for creating a development environment.

Compiler

List of C or C++ compilers

  • 8cc220 27 - A Small C Compiler.
  • c2k 171 - Compile and execute C "scripts" in one go! [MIT]
  • Clang - A C compiler for LLVM. Supports C++11/14/1z C11. Developed by LLVM Team. [NCSA]
  • GCC - GNU Compiler Collection. Supports C++11/14/1z C11 and OpenMP. [GNU GPL3]
  • PCC - A very old C compiler. Supports C99.
  • Intel C++ Compiler - Developed by Intel.
  • LLVM - Collection of modular and reusable compiler and toolchain technologies.
  • Microsoft Visual C++ - MSVC, developed by Microsoft.
  • Open WatCom - Watcom C, C++, and Fortran cross compilers and tools. [Sybase Open Watcom Public License]
  • Oracle Solaris Studio - C, C++ and Fortran compiler for SPARC and x86. Supports C++11. Available on Linux and Solaris. [OTN Developer License]
  • TCC - Tiny C Compiler. [LGPL]

Online Compiler

List of online C or C++ compilers

  • codepad - An online compiler/interpreter, and a simple collaboration tool.
  • CodeTwist - A simple online compiler/interpreter, where you can paste your C, C++ or Java code and execute it online and see results.
  • coliru - Online compiler/shell with support for various C++ compilers.
  • Compiler Explorer - An interactive compiler with assembly output available.
  • CompileOnline - Compile and Execute C++ online on Linux.
  • Ideone - An online compiler and debugging tool which allows you to compile source code and execute it online in more than 60 programming languages.
  • Rextester - Online compiler which provides several compilers(Clang, GCC, MSVC) and several editors.
  • Rise4Fun - Online Visual C++ compiler.
  • Wandbox - An online Clang/GCC compiler with Boost available.

Debugger

List of C or C++ debuggers

  • Comparison of debuggers - A list of Debuggers from Wikipedia.
  • GDB - GNU Debugger.
  • LLDB - The LLDB Debugger.
  • Metashell - An interactive template metaprogramming shell which includes the MDB metadebugger.
  • Valgrind - A tool for memory debugging, memory leak detection, and profiling.
  • x64dbg - An open-source x64/x32 debugger for windows.

Integrated Development Environment

List of C or C++ nominal IDEs.

  • Anjuta DevStudio - The GNOME IDE. [GPL3]
  • AppCode - an IDE for Objective-C, C, C++, and JavaScript development built on JetBrains’ IntelliJ IDEA platform.
  • Cevelop - Cross-platform C and C++ IDE based on Eclipse CDT with additional plug-ins.
  • CLion - Cross-platform C and C++ IDE from JetBrains.
  • Code::Blocks - A free C, C++ and Fortran IDE.
  • CodeLite - Another cross-plaform, free C and C++ IDE. [GPL2 with an exception for plugins]
  • color_coded650 39 - A vim plugin for libclang-based highlighting. [MIT]
  • Dev-C++ - A portable C/C++/C++11 IDE.
  • Eclipse CDT - A fully functional C and C++ IDE based on the Eclipse platform.
  • Geany - Small, fast, cross-platform IDE. [GPL]
  • IBM VisualAge - A family of computer integrated development environments from IBM.
  • Irony-mode696 130 - A C/C++ minor mode for Emacs powered by libclang.
  • juCi++774 103 - Cross-platform, lightweight C++ IDE with libclang integration. [MIT]
  • KDevelop - A free, open source IDE.
  • Microsoft Visual Studio - An IDE from Microsoft.
  • NetBeans - An IDE for developing primarily with Java, but also with other languages, in particular PHP, C/C++, and HTML5.
  • Qt Creator ⚡️ - A cross-platform C++, JavaScript and QML IDE which is part of the SDK for Qt.
  • rtags1k 267 - A c/c++ client/server indexer with for integration with emacs based on clang.
  • Xcode - Developed by Apple.
  • YouCompleteMe - YouCompleteMe is a fast, as-you-type, fuzzy-search code completion engine for Vim.

Build Systems

  • Bazel - A multi-language, fast and scalable build system from Google. [Apache]
  • Bear572 85 - A tool to generate compilation database for clang tooling. [GPLv3]
  • cget189 7 - Cmake package retrieval used to download and install cmake packages. [Boost]
  • CMake - Cross-platform free and open-source software for managing the build process of software using a compiler-independent method. [BSD]
  • C++ Archive Network - Cross-platform C++ Dependency Manager with a lot of packages available.
  • Conan - C/C++ Package Manager, open sourced. [MIT]
  • CPM638 39 - A C++ Package Manager based on CMake and Git.
  • FASTBuild - High performance, open-source build system supporting highly scalable compilation, caching and network distribution.
  • Hunter - CMake driven cross-platform package manager for C++. [BSD-2]
  • MesonBuild - An open source build system meant to be both extremely fast, and, even more importantly, as user friendly as possible.
  • Ninja - A small build system with a focus on speed.
  • Scons - A software construction tool configured with a Python script.
  • Sconsolidator - Scons build system integration for Eclipse CDT.
  • Spack - A flexible package manager that supports multiple versions, configurations, platforms, and compilers. [LGPLv2.1]
  • tundra230 52 - High-performance code build system designed to give the best possible incremental build times even for very large software projects.
  • tup - File-based build system that monitors in the background for changed files.
  • Premake - A tool configured with a Lua script to generate project files for Visual Studio, GNU Make, Xcode, Code::Blocks, and more across Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.
  • Vcpkg - VC++ Packaging Tool for Windows.

Static Code Analysis

List of tools for improving quality and reducing defects by code analysis

  • Cppcheck - A tool for static C/C++ code analysis. - source2k 674
  • CppDepend - Simplifies managing a complex C/C++ code base by analyzing and visualizing code dependencies, by defining design rules, by doing impact analysis, and comparing different versions of the code.
  • PVS-Studio - A tool for bug detection in the source code of programs, written in C, C++ and C#.
  • cpp-dependencies268 25 - Tool to check C++ #include dependencies (dependency graphs created in .dot format). [Apache]
  • include-what-you-use871 78 - A tool for use with clang to analyze includes in C and C++ source files. website
  • Infer8k 1k - A static analyzer for Java, C and Objective-C. [BSD]
  • OCLint - A static source code analysis tool to improve quality and reduce defects for C, C++ and Objective-C. - source2k 312
  • Clang Static Analyzer - A source code analysis tool that finds bugs in C, C++, and Objective-C programs.
  • Linticator - Eclipse CDT integration of Pc-/FlexeLint.
  • List of tools for static code analysis - A list of tools for static code analysis from Wikipedia.

Coding Style Tools

Resources

Various resources, such as books, websites, and articles for improving your C++ development skills and knowledge.

API Design

Articles

Fantastic C++ related articles.

Books

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Websites

Useful C or C++ related websites.

  • Standard C++ ⚡️ - News, Status & Discussion about Standard C++.
  • CppCon - The C++ Conference.
  • C++ reference - C++98, C++03, C++11, C++14 reference.
  • cplusplus.com - The C++ Resources Network.
  • C FAQ - C frequently asked questions.
  • C++ FAQ - C++ frequently asked questions.
  • C++ FQA Lite - C++ frequently questioned answers.
  • Guru of the Week - A regular series of C++ programming problems created and written by Herb Sutter.
  • Meeting C++
  • C++ Quiz - C++ quiz in which you propose to find errors in code fragments of open source projects.
  • Udemy C++ Courses and Tutorials
  • C++ Hints - Every business day hints about most often C++ mistakes and ways to solve them from PVS-Studio Team.
  • C++ tutorial - A user ranked online tutorial bank site displaying multiple courses to learn C++ from.

Weblogs

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