So I wanted to make a simple desktop app in Ruby — just a GitHub stats fetcher. You know, input a username, get their avatar, followers, repos… easy stuff.
Except it wasn’t that easy.
What’s up with Ruby GUI gems?
Tk: basically dead on modern Ruby
Shoes: fun idea, totally abandoned … Even the website seems to be crazy when downloading the executable
Scarpe / FXRuby / Qt: either unstable, heavy, or impossible to set up
What worked
I ended up using GTK3. It works. Cross-platform …and was easy to setup…
What I learned…
Ruby is amazing for scripting, APIs, automation — but GUI support is neglected.
Always check if a gem is maintained before committing time.
Community contributions matter — a little patch here or a fork there can keep gems alive.
Why it matters
If you’re a Ruby dev, or learning Ruby, don’t get discouraged. The tools are messy, but the language is still a joy. And if enough people care …maybe the GUI ecosystem can come back alive.
Nonetheless, GTK3 works. Other gems mostly don’t. But hacking through it is part of the fun
Top comments (5)
What about Glimmer, for libui? I know it's modern and maintained
Thanks ...i never thought of it...seems intersting!
Oh, it's a shame that are no GTK4 bindings yet, but that's promising that there's GTK3. Thanks for the info!
How about doing the UI in HTML?
There's ruby.wasm and also Opal ruby-to-javascript transpiler.
Just a thought.
yeah ..but is ruby hot in web these days?