List of C++ software and tools

This is a list of notable software and programming tools for the C++ programming language, including libraries, web frameworks, programming language implementations, compilers, integrated development environments (IDEs), and other related software development utilities.

Compilers and IDEs

• AMD Optimizing C/C++ Compiler — proprietary fork of LLVM + Clang for Linux
• C++Builder — rapid application development (RAD) environment
• Clang – compiler front end for C, C++, and Objective-C, part of LLVM
• CLion — C++ IDE by JetBrains
• — open-source cross-platform IDE that supports multiple compilers including GCC, Clang and Visual C++
• CodeLite — cross-platform IDE for the C/C++ programming languages using the wxWidgets toolkit
• CodeSynthesis XSD – XML Data Binding compiler
• Dev-C++ — MinGW or TDM-GCC 64bit port of the GCC as its compiler
• GCC – GNU Compiler Collection
• Intel C++ Compiler – proprietary high-performance compiler by Intel
• KDevelop — IDE part of the KDE project and is based on KDE Frameworks and Qt, the C/C++ backend uses Clang.
• Microsoft Visual C++ – proprietary C++ compiler and IDE for Windows
• Oracle Developer Studio — Solaris, OpenSolaris, RHEL, and Oracle Linux operating systems.
• Qt Creator — part of the SDK for the Qt GUI application development framework and uses the Qt API
• SlickEdit — text editor and IDE
• Turbo C++ – legacy C++ IDE and compiler popular in the 1990s
• Understand — IDE that enables static code analysis through an array of visuals, documentation, and metric tools.
• Visual Studio — integrated development environment by Microsoft that supports C++
• Visual Studio Code — integrated development environment by Microsoft that supports C++
• Xcode — Apple IDE to develop macOS, iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, tvOS, and visionOS that supports C++ source code.

Debuggers

• Allinea DDT – a graphical debugger
• dbx — a proprietary source-level debugger
• GNU Debugger – portable debugger that runs on many Unix-like systems
• Modular Debugger — a C/C++ source level debugger for Solaris and derivates
• Undo LiveRecorder — time travel debugger

Libraries

• Active Template Library – template-based C++ classes developed by Microsoft
• Apache MXNet — deep learning framework
• Apache Xerces – parsing, validating, and serializing and manipulating XML.
• Asio — networking and low-level I/O library
• Bitpit — scientific computing and mesh manipulation library
• Boost — collection of peer-reviewed libraries
• Botan — cryptography library
• C++ AMP – easy way to write programs that compile and execute on data-parallel hardware, such as graphics cards and GPUs
• C++ Standard Library — standard library for the language
• C++/WinRT — library for Microsoft's Windows Runtime platform, designed to provide access to modern Windows APIs.
• C3D Toolkit — geometric modeling kernel
• Caffe — deep learning framework
• CAPD — library for rigorous numerics and dynamical systems
• Cassowary — constraint-solving toolkit that efficiently solves systems of linear equalities and inequalities
• Cinder — library for creative coding
• ClanLib — cross-platform game SDK
• CMU Sphinx — speech recognition system
• Crypto++ — cryptographic algorithms library
• Dlib — general-purpose cross-platform library
• Dune — partial differential equations using grid-based methods
• fastText — text representation and text classification library
• FLTK — GUI toolkit
• Geospatial Data Abstraction Library — geospatial data access library
• GDCM — image library
• General Polygon Clipper — polygon clipping library
• GiNaC — computer algebra system that uses Class Library for Numbers for implementing arbitrary-precision arithmetic
• GLFW — OpenGL and window management library
• HarfBuzz — text rendering and typesetting library
• High Efficiency Image File Format — digital container format for storing individual digital images and image sequences
• ITK — image analysis library
• Integrated Performance Primitives — domain-specific functions that are highly optimized for diverse Intel architectures
• Jackets library — GPU computing library
• JSBSim — open-source flight dynamics model
• JUCE — framework for audio applications
• KDE Frameworks — collection of libraries from the KDE project
• KFRlib — digital signal processing framework
• LEMON — library for optimization and graph problems
• LevelDB — key–value database library
• Libdash — MPEG-DASH streaming library
• libLAS — reading and writing geospatial data encoded in the ASPRS laser (LAS) file format
• libsigc++ — typesafe callbacks
• LibRaw — free and open-source software library for reading raw files from digital cameras
• libSBML — application programming interface (API) for the SBML (Systems Biology Markup Language)
• LIBSVM — sequential minimal optimization (SMO) algorithm for kernelized support vector machines
• Libx — DirectX .X files graphics library
• Loki — collection of design patterns
• LIVE555 — multimedia streaming library
• Metakit — embedded database library
• Microsoft Cognitive Toolkit — deep learning toolkit
• Microsoft Foundation Class Library — object-oriented library for developing desktop applications for Windows
• Microsoft SEAL — homomorphic encryption library
• mlpack — machine learning and AI library
• Mobile Robot Programming Toolkit — robotics research library
• Object Windows Library — Object Windows Library, superseded by VCL
• Open Cascade — CAD and 3D modeling library
• Open Asset Import Library — 3D model import library to provide a common API for different 3D asset file formats
• OpenCV – computer vision and machine learning library
• OpenFOAM — computational fluid dynamics toolkit
• OpenH264 — real-time encoding and decoding video streams in the H.264/MPEG-4 AVC format
• OpenImageIO — image processing library
• Open Inventor — higher layer of programming for OpenGL
• OpenNN — neural networks library
• OpenVDB — sparse volume data library
• openFrameworks — creative coding toolkit
• OpenRTM-aist — robotics middleware library
• Oracle Template Library — database access that supports IBM Db2 and Open Database Connectivity
• Orfeo toolbox — remote sensing image processing library
• OR-Tools — operations research and optimization library
• Parallel Augmented Maps — ordered sets, ordered maps, and augmented maps.
• Parallel Patterns Library — Microsoft library that provides features for multicore programming
• PhysX — physics simulation engine
• POCO C++ Libraries — general-purpose libraries for software development
• Poppler — PDF rendering library
• Protocol Buffers — data serialization library
• Qt — cross-platform widget toolkit
• QuantLib — quantitative finance library
• RocksDB — key–value database library
• ROOT — data analysis framework from CERN
• ROS — robotics middleware
• Scintilla — source code editing component
• SDL – Simple DirectMedia Layer, cross-platform development library for multimedia applications
• SFML – Simple and Fast Multimedia Library
• Shark – open-source machine learning library
• Shogun — machine learning toolbox
• Skia — 2D graphics library
• Snappy — compression library
• Sound Object Library — music and audio development
• Standard Template Library — library of containers and algorithms
• Stapl — parallel computing library
• SymbolicC++ — symbolic computation library
• TerraLib — GIS library
• Tesseract OCR — optical character recognition engine
• Threading Building Blocks — parallel computing library
• ThreadWeaver — concurrency framework
• Tiny-dnn — lightweight deep learning library
• TinyXML — lightweight XML parser
• Tkrzw — key–value databases
• VTD-XML — XML processing library
• wxWidgets — cross-platform GUI toolkit
• x265 — video encoding library for HEVC
• XGBoost — gradient boosting library
• Windows Template Library — Win32 development

Mathematical and numerical libraries

Open-source

• Adept
• Advanced Simulation Library
• ALGLIB
• Armadillo
• Blitz++
• Boost uBLAS
• CGAL
• Class Library for Numbers
• deal.II
• Eigen
• GetFEM++
• IML++
• IT++
• LAPACK++
• Matrix Template Library
• MFEM
• Multiple Precision Integers and Rationals
• Number Theory Library
• SU2 code
• Template Numerical Toolkit
• Trilinos

Proprietary

• NAG Numerical Library
• IMSL Numerical Libraries
• Math Kernel Library
• MATLAB C++ Math Library

Tools

• Akonadi — a C++/Qt framework and storage service for personal information management
• BALL – framework and set of algorithms and data structures for molecular modelling and computational structural bioinformatics
• Boehm garbage collector – conservative garbage collector
• CEGUI — C++ GUI library
• ClanLib – video game SDK
• CMake — cross-platform build system for C++ projects
• Confidential Consortium Framework – blockchain infrastructure framework
• DaviX – WebDAV client
• Doxygen — documentation generator for C++ and other languages
• FLTK — Fast Light Toolkit, cross-platform GUI library
• Fox toolkit — C++ GUI toolkit
• GDB — GNU Project debugger, often used with C and C++
• gtkmm — official C++ interface for the popular GUI library GTK
• HOOPS Visualize — 3D computer graphics
• HPX — partitioned global address space Parallel programming Runtime System
• JUCE — cross-platform C++ audio and GUI framework
• LessTif — free clone of Motif GUI toolkit
• MFC — Microsoft Foundation Class library
• Nana — modern C++ GUI toolkit
• PTK Toolkit — 2D rendering engine and SDK, and portability options.
• Qt — cross-platform C++ GUI toolkit
• Rogue Wave — C++ GUI toolkit
• TnFOX — C++ GUI toolkit
• Ultimate++ — cross-platform C++ GUI framework
• Valgrind — tool suite for debugging and profiling C/C++ programs
• wxWidgets — cross-platform C++ GUI toolkit
• x265 — encoder for creating digital video streams in the High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC/H.265) video compression format
• Xcas — computer algebra system

Web tools

• ATL Server – web-based applications
• CppCMS – high-performance web development framework for C++
• Wt – C++ web application framework inspired by AJAX and Qt
• CppCMS – high-performance web development framework for C++
• Crow – microframework for building C++ web APIs
• Drogon – asynchronous C++ HTTP application framework
• Pistache – RESTful framework for lightweight C++ web servers
• TreeFrog Framework – full-stack MVC web framework for C++
• Wt – C++ web application framework inspired by AJAX and Qt

Unit testing frameworks

• Cantata++
• CppUnit
• Google Test
• Parasoft C/C++test
• TBrun
• TPT

Notable software written in C++

• Adobe Photoshop
• Blender
• ChromeOS
• Firefox
• MySQL
• Unreal Engine
• World of Warcraft

See also

• List of C# software
• List of C software and tools
• List of Java frameworks
• List of JavaScript libraries and Comparison of JavaScript-based web frameworks
• List of Python software
• List of Ruby software and tools
• List of Visual Basic .NET software and tools
• List of tools for static code analysis
• List of C++ computer books
• Outline of C++

Conferences and groups

• ACCU
• ESOP
• ETAPS
• CONCUR
• CppCon
• C++Now
• Meeting C++

References

• Awesome Modern C++
• fffaraz/awesome-cpp
• C++ Tools Ecosystem in 2026

External links

• Standard C++ – The C++ Foundation