Awesome C/C++

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

• Awesome C/C++
  • Standard Libraries
  • Frameworks
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Asynchronous Event Loop
  • Audio
  • Compression
  • Concurrency
  • Containers
  • Cryptography
  • Database
  • Debug
  • Game Engine
  • GUI
  • Graphics
  • Imaging
  • Internationalization
  • JSON
  • Logging
  • Machine Learning
  • Math
  • Mocking
  • Multimedia
  • Networking
  • Physics
  • Scripting
  • Serialization
  • Web Application Framework
  • XML
  • Miscellaneous
• Software
  • Compiler
  • Online Compiler
  • Debugger
  • Integrated Development Environment
  • Buildsystem
  • Static Code Analysis
• Resources
  • Articles
  • Books
  • Coding Style
  • Videos
  • Websites
• Other Awesome Lists
• Contributing

Standard Libraries

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

• C++ Standard Library - A collection of classes and functions, which are written in the core language and part of the C++ ISO Standard itself.
• Standard Template Library - The Standard Template Library (STL).
• C POSIX library - A specification of a C standard library for POSIX systems.
• ISO C++ Standards Committee - ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG21 - The C++ Standards Committee. - website

Frameworks

C++ generic frameworks and libraries.

• Apache C++ Standard Library - A collection of algorithms, containers, iterators, and other fundamental components.
• ASL - Adobe Source Libraries provides peer-reviewed and portable C++ source libraries.
• Boost - A large collection of generic C++ libraries. - website
• BDE - The BDE Development Environment from Bloomberg Labs.
• Cinder - A community-developed, free and open source library for professional-quality creative coding.
• Cxxomfort - A small, header-only library that backports to C++03 some of the nifty C++11 goodies.
• Dlib - A general purpose cross-platform C++ library designed using contract programming and modern C++ techniques.
• EASTL - Public part of EA-STL.
• ffead-cpp - Framework for Enterprise Application Development.
• Folly - An open-source C++ library developed and used at Facebook.
• JUCE - An all-encompassing C++ class library for developing cross-platform software.
• libPhenom - libPhenom is an eventing framework for building high performance and high scalability systems in C.
• LibSourcey - C++11 evented IO for real-time video streaming and high performance networking applications.
• LibU - A multiplatform utility library written in C.
• Loki - A C++ library of designs, containing flexible implementations of common design patterns and idioms.
• MiLi - Minimal headers-only C++ Library.
• openFrameworks - An open source C++ toolkit for creative coding.
• Qt - A cross-platform application and UI framework.
• 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++.
• STXXL - Standard Template Library for Extra Large Data Sets.
• Ultimate++ - A C++ cross-platform rapid application development framework.
• Windows Template Library - A C++ library for developing Windows applications and UI components.
• Yomm11 - Open multi-methods for C++11.

Artificial Intelligence

• btsk - Game Behavior Tree Starter Kit.
• Evolving Objects - A template-based, ANSI-C++ evolutionary computation library which helps you to write your own stochastic optimization algorithms insanely fast.
• Neu - A C++ 11 framework, collection of programming languages, and multipurpose software system designed for: the creation of artificial intelligence applications.

Asynchronous Event Loop

• Boost.Asio - A cross-platform C++ library for network and low-level I/O programming.
• libev - A full-featured and high-performance event loop that is loosely modelled after libevent, but without its limitations and bugs.
• libevent - An event notification library.
• libuv - Cross-platform asychronous I/O.

Audio

Audio, Sound, Music, Digitized Voice Libraries

• FMOD - An easy to use crossplatform audio engine and audio content creation tool for games.
• Maximilian - C++ Audio and Music DSP Library.
• OpenAL - Open Audio Library - A crossplatform audio API.
• Tonic - Easy and efficient audio synthesis in C++.

Compression

Compression and Archiving Libraries

• bzip2 - A freely available, patent free, high-quality data compressor.
• doboz - Compression library with very fast decompression.
• LZ4 - Extremely Fast Compression algorithm.
• LZHAM - Lossless data compression library with a compression ratio similar to LZMA but with much faster decompression.
• LZMA - The default and general compression method of 7z format.
• LZMAT - An extremely fast real-time lossless data compression library.
• miniz - Single C source file Deflate/Inflate compression library with zlib-compatible API, ZIP archive reading/writing, PNG writing.
• Minizip - Zlib with latest bug fixes that supports PKWARE disk spanning, AES encryption, and IO buffering.
• Snappy - A fast compressor/decompressor.
• ZLib - A very compact compression library for data streams.
• ZZIPlib - Provides read access on ZIP-archives.

Concurrency

Concurrency and Multithreading

• Boost.Compute - A C++ GPU Computing Library for OpenCL.
• Bolt - A C++ template library optimized for GPUs.
• Intel TBB - Intel® Threading Building Blocks.
• Libclsph - An OpenCL based GPU accelerated SPH fluid simulation library.
• OpenCL - The open standard for parallel programming of heterogeneous systems.
• OpenMP - The OpenMP API.
• Thrust - A parallel algorithms library which resembles the C++ Standard Template Library (STL).
• HPX - A general purpose C++ runtime system for parallel and distributed applications of any scale.
• VexCL - A C++ vector expression template library for OpenCL/CUDA.

Containers

• C++ B-tree - A template library that implements ordered in-memory containers based on a B-tree data structure.

Cryptography

Cryptography and Encryption Libraries

• Crypto++ - A free C++ class library of cryptographic schemes.
• LibTomCrypt - A fairly comprehensive, modular and portable cryptographic toolkit.
• libsodium - P(ortable|ackageable) NaCl-based crypto library, opinionated and easy to use.
• OpenSSL - A robust, commercial-grade, full-featured, and Open Source cryptography library.

Database

Database Libraries, SQL Servers, ODBC Drivers, and Tools

• hiberlite - C++ Object-relational mapping for sqlite3.
• Hiredis - A minimalistic C client library for the Redis database.
• LMDB - Very fast embedded key/value store with full ACID semantics.
• RocksDB - Embedded key-value store for fast storage from facebook.
• SQLite - A completely embedded, full-featured relational database in a few 100k that you can include right into your project.

Debug

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

• Catch - A modern, C++-native, header-only, framework for unit-tests, TDD and BDD.
• CppUnit - C++ port of JUnit.
• googletest - Google C++ Testing Framework.
• ig-debugheap - Multiplatform debug heap useful for tracking down memory errors.
• libtap - Write tests in C.
• microprofile - Profiler with web-view for multiple platforms.
• Remotery - Single C File Profiler with Web Viewer.

Game Engine

• Cocos2d-x - A multi-platform framework for building 2d games, interactive books, demos and other graphical applications.
• Grit - Community project to build a free game engine for implementing open world 3D games.
• Irrlicht - An open source high performance realtime 3D engine written in C++.
• Polycode - Open-Source Framework for creating games in C++ (with Lua bindings)..

GUI

Graphic User Interface

• GTK+ - A multi-platform toolkit for creating graphical user interfaces.
• gtkmm - The official C++ interface for the popular GUI library GTK+.
• imgui - Immediate Mode Graphical User Interface with minimal dependencies.
• libRocket - libRocket is a C++ HTML/CSS game interface middleware.
• Ncurses - A terminal user interfaces.
• Qwt - Qt Widgets for Technical Applications.
• QwtPlot3D - A feature-rich Qt/OpenGL-based C++ programming library, providing essentially a bunch of 3D-widgets.
• OtterUI - OtterUI is a User Interface development solution for embedded systems and interactive entertainment software.
• wxWidgets - A C++ library that lets developers create applications for Windows, Mac OS X, Linux and other platforms with a single code base.

Graphics

• bgfx - A cross-platform rendering library.
• Cairo - A 2D graphics library with support for multiple output devices.
• CImg - A small, open source, C++ toolkit for image processing.
• Horde3D - A small 3D rendering and animation engine.
• Ogre 3D - A scene-oriented, real-time, flexible 3D rendering engine (as opposed to a game engine) written in C++.
• Panda3D - A framework for 3D rendering and game development for Python and C++ .
• Skia - A complete 2D graphic library for drawing Text, Geometries, and Images. - webpage
• urho3d - Cross-platform rendering and game engine.

Internationalization

• IBM ICU - A set of C/C++ and Java libraries providing Unicode and Globalization support.
• gettext - GNU `gettext'.

JSON

• frozen - ⭐ 20+ - JSON parser and generator for C/C++.
• Jansson - ⭐ 650+ - C library for encoding, decoding and manipulating JSON data.
• jbson - ⭐ <10 - jbson is a library for building & iterating BSON data, and JSON documents in C++14.
• JeayeSON - ⭐ 10+ - A very sane (header only) C++ JSON library.
• JSON++ - ⭐ 130+ - A JSON parser in C++.
• json11 - ⭐ 290+ - A tiny JSON library for C++11.
• PicoJSON - ⭐ 170+ - A header-file-only, JSON parser serializer in C++.
• qt-json - ⭐ 120+ - A simple class for parsing JSON data into a QVariant hierarchy and vice versa.
• RapidJSON - ⭐ 170+ - A fast JSON parser/generator for C++ with both SAX/DOM style API.
• YAJL - ⭐ 1,100+ - A fast streaming JSON parsing library in C.

Logging

• Log4cpp - A library of C++ classes for flexible logging to files, syslog, IDSA and other destinations.
• templog - A very small and lightweight C++ library which you can use to add logging to your C++ applications.

Machine Learning

• Caffe - A fast framework for neural networks.
• CCV - C-based/Cached/Core Computer Vision Library, A Modern Computer Vision Library.
• mlpack - A scalable c++ machine learning library.
• OpenCV - Open Source Computer Vision Library. - website
• Recommender - C library for product recommendations/suggestions using collaborative filtering (CF).
• SHOGUN - The Shogun Machine Learning Toolbox.
• sofia-ml - The suite of fast incremental algorithms for machine learning.

Math

• blaze - high-performance C++ math library for dense and sparse arithmetic.
• ceres-solver - C++ library for modeling and solving large complicated nonlinear least squares problems from google.
• cml - free C++ math library for games and graphics.
• Eigen - C++ template library for linear algebra: matrices, vectors, numerical solvers, and related algorithms.

Mocking

• googlemock - A library for writing and using C++ mock classes.

Multimedia

• GStreamer - A library for constructing graphs of media-handling components.
• libVLC - libVLC (VLC SDK) media framework.
• SFML - Simple and Fast Multimedia Library.
• SDL - Simple DirectMedia Layer.

Networking

• ACE - An OO Network Programming Toolkit in C++.
• Boost.Asio - A cross-platform C++ library for network and low-level I/O programming.
• Casablanca - C++ REST SDK.
• cpp-netlib - A collection of open-source libraries for high level network programming.
• Muduo - A C++ non-blocking network library for multi-threaded server in Linux.
• net_skeleton - TCP client/server library for C/C++.
• nope.c - A C language-based ultra-light software platform for scalable server-side and networking applications. Think node.js for C programmers.
• Onion - HTTP server library in C designed to be lightweight and easy to use.
• POCO - C++ class libraries and frameworks for building network- and internet-based applications that run on desktop, server, mobile and embedded systems.
• Tufão - An asynchronous web framework for C++ built on top of Qt.
• WebSocket++ - C++/Boost Asio based websocket client/server library.
• ZeroMQ - High-speed, modular asynchronous communication library.

Physics

Dynamics simulation engines

• Box2D - A 2D physics engine for games.
• Bullet - A 3D physics engine for games. - website
• Chipmunk - A fast and lightweight 2D game physics library. - website
• LiquidFun - A 2D physics engine for games.
• ODE - Open Dynamics Engine - An open source, high performance library for simulating rigid body dynamics.
• ofxBox2d - openFrameworks wrapper for Box2D.
• Simbody - High-performance C++ multibody dynamics/physics library for simulating articulated biomechanical and mechanical systems like vehicles, robots, and the human skeleton.

Scripting

• ChaiScript - An easy to use embedded scripting language for C++. - website
• Lua - A minimal and fast scripting engine for configuration files and basic application scripting.
• luacxx - C++11 API for creating Lua bindings.
• SWIG - a wrapper/interface Generator that let you link your c++ code to Javascript, Perl, PHP, Python, Tcl and Ruby.
• V7 - An embedded JavaScript engine.
• V8 - A fast JavaScript engine by Google that can be embedded into any C++ application.

Serialization

• Cap'n Proto - Fast data interchange format and capability-based RPC system. [MIT]
• cereal - A C++11 library for serialization. [BSD]
• FlatBuffers - A Memory efficient serialization library. [Apache2]
• MessagePack - Efficient binary serialization format "like JSON" for C/C++. - website [Apache2]
• protobuf - Protocol Buffers - Google's data interchange format. [BSD]
• SimpleBinaryEncoding - encoding and decoding application messages in binary format for low-latency applications. [Apache2]

Web Application Framework

• CppCMS - A Free High Performance Web Development Framework (not a CMS). [LGPLv3]
• Crow - Crow is C++ micro web framework (inspired by Python Flask). [BSD]
• 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]
• 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

• Expat - An XML parser library written in C.
• Libxml2 - The XML C parser and toolkit of Gnome.
• libxml++ - An XML Parser for C++.
• PugiXML - A light-weight, simple and fast XML parser for C++ with XPath support.
• RapidXml - An attempt to create the fastest XML parser possible, while retaining useability, portability and reasonable W3C compatibility.
• TinyXML - A simple, small, minimal, C++ XML parser that can be easily integrating into other programs.
• TinyXML2 - A simple, small, efficient, C++ XML parser that can be easily integrating into other programs.
• TinyXML++ - A completely new interface to TinyXML that uses MANY of the C++ strengths. Templates, exceptions, and much better error handling.
• Xerces-C++ - A validating XML parser written in a portable subset of C++.

Miscellaneous

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

• C++ Format - Small, safe and fast formatting library for C++.
• casacore - A set of c++ core libraries derived from aips++.
• cxx-prettyprint - A pretty printing library for C++ containers.
• DynaPDF - An easy-to-use PDF generation library.
• HTTP Parser - A http request/response parser for C.
• libcpuid - A small C library for x86 CPU detection and feature extraction.
• libusb - A universal USB library which allows for portable access to USB devices.
• Remote Call Framework - Inter-process communication framework for C++.
• Serial Communication Library - Cross-platform, Serial Port library written in C++.
• SDS - Simple Dynamic Strings library for C.
• SLDR - Super Light DNS Resolver.
• SLRE - Super Light Regular Expression library.
• Stage - Mobile robot simulator.
• VarTypes - A feature-rich, object-oriented framework for managing variables in C++ / Qt4.
• ZBar - A barcode scanner library, which allows to scan photos/images/video streams for barcodes and return their value.
• CppVerbalExpressions - C++ regular expressions made easy.
• QtVerbalExpressions - This Qt lib is based off of the C++ VerbalExpressions library.
• TinyVM - A small, fast, lightweight virtual machine written in pure ANSI C.
• CarpVM - "interesting" VM in C. Let's see how this goes.
• PHP-CPP - A library to build PHP extensions with C++. - website

Software

Software for creating a development environment.

Compiler

List of C/C++ compilers

• Clang - Developed by Apple.
• GCC - GNU Compiler Collection.
• Intel C++ Compiler - Developed by Intel.
• Microsoft Visual C++ - MSVC, developed by Microsoft.
• LLVM - Collection of modular and reusable compiler and toolchain technologies.

Online Compiler

List of online C/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.
• 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.

Debugger

List of C/C++ debuggers

• Comparison of debuggers - A list of Debuggers from Wikipedia.
• GDB - GNU Debugger.
• Valgrind - A tool for memory debugging, memory leak detection, and profiling.
• x64_dbg - An open-source x64/x32 debugger for windows.

Integrated Development Environment

List of C/C++ nominal IDEs.

• Code::Blocks - A free C, C++ and Fortran IDE.
• Dev-C++ - A portable C/C++/C++11 IDE.
• Eclipse CDT - A fully functional C and C++ IDE based on the Eclipse platform.
• 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.
• Xcode - Developed by Apple.
• YouCompleteMe - YouCompleteMe is a fast, as-you-type, fuzzy-search code completion engine for Vim.

Buildsystem

• FASTBuild - high performance, open-source build system supporting highly scalable compilation, caching and network distribution.
• tundra - 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.

Static Code Analysis

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

• Cppcheck - A tool for static C/C++ code analysis. - source
• OCLint - A static source code analysis tool to improve quality and reduce defects for C, C++ and Objective-C. - source
• List of tools for static code analysis - A list of tools for static code analysis from Wikipedia.

Resources

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

Articles

Fantastic C/C++ related articles.

• C++Now 2014 Presentations - Presentation materials presented at C++Now 2014.
• C++Now 2013 Presentations - Presentation materials presented at C++Now 2013.
• C++Now 2012 Presentations - Presentation materials presented at C++Now 2012.

Books

Fantastic C/C++ related books.

• The C++ Annotations - An in-depth guide on C++, intended for people with a good knowledge of C who want to make the transition to C++.
• Free C Books - vhf/free-programming-books/C.
• Free C++ Books - vhf/free-programming-books/C++.
• The Definitive C++ Book Guide and List - A collection of quality books and an approximate skill level.

Coding Style

• google-styleguide - Style guides for Google-originated open-source projects.
• Google C++ Style Guide
• GNU Coding Standard

Videos

Fantastic C/C++ related videos.

• Awesome C Programming Tutorials in Hi Def [HD] - A collection of detailed C Programming Language Tutorials for Beginners and New Programmers.
• C++ - by VoidRealms.
• C++ Qt Programming - by VoidRealms.
• C++ Programming Tutorials Playlist - thenewboston Official Buckys C++ Programming Tutorials Playlist.
• C++ Programming Tutorials from thenewboston - These are all of thenewboston's C++ programming tutorials.
• C++ GUI with Qt Playlist - Official Playlist for thenewboston C++ GUI with Qt tutorials.
• C Programming Tutorials - All of thenewboston's C programming tutorials are right here.

Websites

Useful C/C++ related websites.

• C++ reference - C++98, C++03, C++11, C++14 reference.
• cplusplus.com - The C++ Resources Network.
• Standard C++ - News, Status & Discussion about Standard C++.

Other Awesome Projects

Collection of useful codes, snippets, ...

• algorithms - Algorithms & Data Structures in C++.
• c-algorithms - C algorithms library.
• C/C++ Awesome Pack - Contains some awesome c++ codes, packed in one.

Other Awesome Lists

Other amazingly awesome lists

• lists - List of (awesome) lists curated on GitHub
• awesome-awesomeness - A curated list of awesome awesomeness.
• awesome - A curated list of awesome lists.
• free-programming-books - List of Freely Available Programming Books
• papers-we-love - Papers from the computer science community to read and discuss.
• awesome-php - Awesome PHP libraries, resources and shiny things.
• awesome-python - Awesome Python frameworks, libraries and software.
• awesome-sysadmin - Awesome open source sysadmin resources
• awesome-talks - A lot of screencasts, recordings of user group gatherings and conference talks.
• github-cheat-sheet - A list of cool features of Git and GitHub.
• ToolsOfTheTrade - Tools of The Trade, from Hacker News.
• cheatsheets.org - The largest collection of reference cards for developers.
• cheat-sheets.org - All cheat sheets, round-ups, quick reference cards, quick reference guides and quick reference sheets in one page.
• thefreecountry.com - A collection of free programming resources, free webmasters' resources, free security resources and free utilities.

Contributing

Please see CONTRIBUTING for details.