Show HN: Proton – A Pure Go, Immediate-Mode GUI Library (Zero CGO)
2 comments
Zero CGO cross-compilation to Windows and macOS is a massive selling point for Go desktop apps. The immediate-mode approach also makes UI state management a breeze for quick internal tools.
Intresting Ive had a really hard time finding a good way of making UIs in Go any plans for linux gtk/qt support?
I’ve been building Proton to solve a specific pain point in the Go ecosystem: building native GUIs without the "web dev" trade-offs or CGO complexity.
If you’ve tried to build desktop apps in Go, you’ve likely dealt with the frustration of CGO dependencies, bloated build pipelines, or feeling like you’re just writing a thin wrapper around a browser.
Proton aims to fix this with a clean, pure-Go approach:
Zero CGO: Cross-compile to Windows and macOS seamlessly from any machine.
Immediate-Mode API: No setState, no complex component trees, and no XML. You just write your draw function, and it runs every frame.
API Immunity: The public API is shielded from the underlying rendering engine (built on top of Gio). If the backend changes, your code remains untouched.
Full Feature Set: Includes inputs, lists, overlays, alerts, and 46 built-in themes (or easy custom hex-code styling).
It’s currently in development for v0.4.0, but it’s stable enough for cross-platform apps and even supports Android deployment out of the box.
I’d love to hear what you think, especially if you’ve been looking for a more "Go-native" way to handle GUIs.
Repo: https://github.com/CzaxStudio/proton