{"slug": "tkinter", "name": "Tkinter", "category": "dev-libs", "category_name": "Libraries and frameworks", "description": "", "recommenders": 4, "commenters": 10, "warners": 1, "score": 3.965, "rising": 0.02, "first": "2025-11-10", "latest": "2026-09-02", "why": "Tkinter or other Tk based GUI interfaces are the immediate tool I reach for", "why_is_quote": true, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 4, "neutral": 7, "compare": 0, "warn": 1}, "spark": [0, 0, 1, 2, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "Tkinter or other Tk based GUI interfaces are the immediate tool I reach for", "kind": "", "icon": true, "domain": null, "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://docs.python.org/3/library/tkinter.html", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["Tkinter", "tkinter"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 792258160, "item_id": 49516135, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49516135", "by": "piloto_ciego", "date": "2026-08-31", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Tkinter or other Tk based GUI interfaces are the immediate tool I reach for", "excerpt": "Tkinter or other Tk based GUI interfaces are the immediate tool I reach for whenever I build something that's not in the CLI or in the browser. My general \"daily driver\" is python and I love that I can just spin up a cross-platform tool immediately with it. Tcl/Tk rule and are insanely useful.", "context": "Python daily driver", "use_case": "cross-platform GUI tools", "switched_from": "", "story": "Develop Cross-Platform CLI and GUI Tools with Tcl/Tk"}, {"id": 752454608, "item_id": 47028413, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47028413", "by": "poketdev", "date": "2026-02-15", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I love how you stuck with pure Python libraries - tkinter, numpy, and sounddevice.", "excerpt": "This is fantastic work! I love how you stuck with pure Python libraries - tkinter, numpy, and sounddevice. The Moog ladder filter implementation is particularly impressive. Have you considered adding export functionality for the generated audio? Being able to save presets or record to WAV files would make this even more practical for music production. Great job on the GUI design too - those rotary knobs look perfect ", "context": "", "use_case": "synthesizer GUI", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: VOOG \u2013 Moog-style polyphonic synthesizer in Python with tkinter GUI"}, {"id": 751016979, "item_id": 46938561, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46938561", "by": "zelphirkalt", "date": "2026-02-08", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I used Python and tkinter, which works really well", "excerpt": "What kind of application do you write in Gauche? I am asking, because I might want to get more familiar with it, if it is great for something like GUI or web app. I know there is Guile Golf, but to me it feels unfinished, and I experienced segfaults and crashes, when not doing things exactly as shown in examples and using standard GTK procedures, so that one is kind of out for me, and guile-gi is still changing and s", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Hoot: Scheme on WebAssembly"}, {"id": 747263636, "item_id": 46703977, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46703977", "by": "Imustaskforhelp", "date": "2026-01-21", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I feel both tools are great fwiw", "excerpt": "I think I agree with you & I follow a similar trend but the creative part is doing a lot of heavy work. Like, If we are using AI to build yet another next.js App, then perhaps its me but I personally find it doesn't satisfy my curiosity. I want to see projects be written in niche languages and new languages and AI can be perfect for that. See which language you like the most and each language/idea has their own trade", "context": "", "use_case": "Python GUI apps", "switched_from": "", "story": "The percentage of Show HN posts is increasing, but their scores are decreasing"}]}], "caveats": [], "who": [{"by": "piloto_ciego", "context": "Python daily driver", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49516135", "date": "2026-08-31"}], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["cross-platform gui tools", "synthesizer gui", "python gui apps", "desktop gui", "gui rendering", "gui toolkit"], "compared": [{"slug": "qt", "name": "Qt", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "tk", "name": "Tk", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [{"id": 735297858, "item_id": 45956116, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45956116", "by": "forgetbook", "date": "2025-11-17", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "registering my Tkinter/Pyinstaller app with windows", "excerpt": "To explain better, there's basically 3 jobs avaliable in this kind of work right now, all of which I've interviewed for and been not selected with varying degrees of frusturation. (1) build a bunch of automation scripts that we can reliably run as part of our product. This is closest to my day-to-day, you're (mis?)using selenium or playwright to make a known set of \"click here, fill that, click there\" scripts, and th", "context": "", "use_case": "desktop GUI app", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (Nov 2025)"}], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49515662", "title": "Develop Cross-Platform CLI and GUI Tools with Tcl/Tk", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45869146", "title": "Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (Nov 2025)", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47764747", "title": "Show HN: Scryptian \u2013 A lightweight, local AI bar for Windows (Python and Ollama)", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47026768", "title": "Show HN: VOOG \u2013 Moog-style polyphonic synthesizer in Python with tkinter GUI", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46923254", "title": "Hoot: Scheme on WebAssembly", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46702099", "title": "The percentage of Show HN posts is increasing, but their scores are decreasing", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {"neutral": 2}, "2025-12": {"neutral": 1, "warn": 1}, "2026-01": {"neutral": 2, "recommend": 1}, "2026-02": {"recommend": 2}, "2026-03": {}, "2026-04": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-05": {}, "2026-06": {}, "2026-07": {}, "2026-08": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-09": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-10": {}}, "versions": [], "version_unnamed": 0, "family_ref": null, "runs_on": null, "lines": [], "quotes": [{"id": 792698209, "item_id": 49543638, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49543638", "by": "so-cal-schemer", "date": "2026-09-02", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "", "excerpt": "A collection of Tk resources for Scheme: https://wiki.tcl-lang.org/page/Scheme This is quite old, but I always remember seeing it in the BSD packages collection: https://conservatory.scheme.org/stk/ Then there is Portable Scheme / Tk, a library for several Scheme implementations: https://wiki.call-cc.org/eggref/5/pstk PS/Tk provides an interface to the Tk toolkit, and is an effective tool for creating graphical inter", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Develop Cross-Platform CLI and GUI Tools with Tcl/Tk"}, {"id": 792258160, "item_id": 49516135, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49516135", "by": "piloto_ciego", "date": "2026-08-31", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Tkinter or other Tk based GUI interfaces are the immediate tool I reach for", "excerpt": "Tkinter or other Tk based GUI interfaces are the immediate tool I reach for whenever I build something that's not in the CLI or in the browser. My general \"daily driver\" is python and I love that I can just spin up a cross-platform tool immediately with it. Tcl/Tk rule and are insanely useful.", "context": "Python daily driver", "use_case": "cross-platform GUI tools", "switched_from": "", "story": "Develop Cross-Platform CLI and GUI Tools with Tcl/Tk"}, {"id": 764236163, "item_id": 47764760, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47764760", "by": "bonsuaq", "date": "2026-04-14", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Python + Tkinter", "excerpt": "Current Project Status: raw Proof of Concept (PoC) (GIF demo on GitHub) I\u2019m sharing this project because I thought such a utility might be useful to someone. It\u2019s incredibly simple adn raw. On MacOS, there is already a service called Raycast AI. But its not free. Technical part: Python + Tkinter (for the UI bar called via hotkey) + Ollama (qwen2.5:3b). I specifically avoided using any other heavy libraries, so the pr", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Scryptian \u2013 A lightweight, local AI bar for Windows (Python and Ollama)"}, {"id": 752454608, "item_id": 47028413, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47028413", "by": "poketdev", "date": "2026-02-15", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I love how you stuck with pure Python libraries - tkinter, numpy, and sounddevice.", "excerpt": "This is fantastic work! I love how you stuck with pure Python libraries - tkinter, numpy, and sounddevice. The Moog ladder filter implementation is particularly impressive. Have you considered adding export functionality for the generated audio? Being able to save presets or record to WAV files would make this even more practical for music production. Great job on the GUI design too - those rotary knobs look perfect ", "context": "", "use_case": "synthesizer GUI", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: VOOG \u2013 Moog-style polyphonic synthesizer in Python with tkinter GUI"}, {"id": 751016979, "item_id": 46938561, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46938561", "by": "zelphirkalt", "date": "2026-02-08", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I used Python and tkinter, which works really well", "excerpt": "What kind of application do you write in Gauche? I am asking, because I might want to get more familiar with it, if it is great for something like GUI or web app. I know there is Guile Golf, but to me it feels unfinished, and I experienced segfaults and crashes, when not doing things exactly as shown in examples and using standard GTK procedures, so that one is kind of out for me, and guile-gi is still changing and s", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Hoot: Scheme on WebAssembly"}, {"id": 747263636, "item_id": 46703977, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46703977", "by": "Imustaskforhelp", "date": "2026-01-21", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I feel both tools are great fwiw", "excerpt": "I think I agree with you & I follow a similar trend but the creative part is doing a lot of heavy work. Like, If we are using AI to build yet another next.js App, then perhaps its me but I personally find it doesn't satisfy my curiosity. I want to see projects be written in niche languages and new languages and AI can be perfect for that. See which language you like the most and each language/idea has their own trade", "context": "", "use_case": "Python GUI apps", "switched_from": "", "story": "The percentage of Show HN posts is increasing, but their scores are decreasing"}, {"id": 747204016, "item_id": 46700251, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46700251", "by": "Dev_Master", "date": "2026-01-20", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "a simple Tkinter/ttkbootstrap UI", "excerpt": "I built a lightweight desktop file encryption tool in Python using Fernet + PBKDF2 (per-file random salt). It supports recursive folder encryption, drag & drop, cancelable operations, and a simple Tkinter/ttkbootstrap UI. The goal was a transparent, offline-first alternative to cloud-based file lockers that\u2019s easy to audit and modify. Feedback on security choices, UX, and Python architecture is very welcome.", "context": "", "use_case": "Desktop GUI", "switched_from": "", "story": null}, {"id": 746450960, "item_id": 46653185, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46653185", "by": "logicallee", "date": "2026-01-16", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "the browser does render using a GUI package, namely tkinter", "excerpt": "To the author: your email address bounces with \"Your message wasn't delivered to embedding-shape@proton.me because the address couldn't be found, or is unable to receive mail.\" 550 error >The response from the remote server was: >550 5.1.1 : Recipient address rejected: Address does not exist Here's what I wrote in the email: I saw your post in which you looked at Cursor's claims. At the same time that they were doing", "context": "", "use_case": "GUI rendering", "switched_from": "", "story": "Cursor's latest \"browser experiment\" implied success without evidence"}, {"id": 744447136, "item_id": 46527946, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46527946", "by": "logicallee", "date": "2026-01-07", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Originally it was using tkinter for the GUI toolkit", "excerpt": ">A python-based browser? What are you using for the GUI toolkit? Great questions. 1. Yes, for the moment. Like the title of this article suggests - we're using a library! :) It's great to iterate in Python, which has a large ecosystem of libraries. Believe it or not, there is a chance that in the future it would be able to translate the language into a different one (for example, C++) while using C++ bindings for the", "context": "", "use_case": "GUI toolkit", "switched_from": "", "story": "Stop Designing Languages. Write Libraries Instead (2016)"}, {"id": 743148640, "item_id": 46446790, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46446790", "by": "DrewADesign", "date": "2025-12-31", "version": null, "stance": "warn", "quote": "", "excerpt": "If anyone stumbles upon this in a search for Python UI libaries, also check out Textural. It's a TUI setup that can also be displayed in web browsers because it uses CSS for styling. At least for fairly uncomplicated UIs, it seems pretty simple, and has good event hook support. It has some features like event bubbling, and reactivity, which smack of JS front-end framework workflows on the data side, for better or wor", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Python 3.15's interpreter for Windows should be 15% faster"}, {"id": 742150496, "item_id": 46384406, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46384406", "by": "zelphirkalt", "date": "2025-12-25", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "build an application using Tkinter", "excerpt": "This is how I used LLMs to learn and at the same time build an application using Tkinter.", "context": "", "use_case": "GUI application", "switched_from": "", "story": "Fabrice Bellard: Biography [pdf]"}, {"id": 737091333, "item_id": 46068208, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46068208", "by": "paul2495", "date": "2025-11-27", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "built in Python with a simple Tkinter GUI", "excerpt": "Hey HN, As a security analyst, a typical workflow for me was a frustrating juggling act: run an Nmap scan, manually parse the output, search for CVEs, find an exploit script, set up a listener in Metasploit, and then finally launch the exploit. I was drowning in terminal windows and context-switching, and I knew there had to be a better way. So, I built Syd: a desktop assistant that acts as an intelligent front-end f", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "I got tired of juggling security tools,so I built an AI copilot to do it for me"}, {"id": 733987969, "item_id": 45874248, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45874248", "by": "zelphirkalt", "date": "2025-11-10", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "The app is written in Python and tkinter.", "excerpt": "Building a language learning tool again[1]. I have found for myself that there is a lack of vocabulary learning apps that have good search functions. When I make a search function, I want it to be able to find all subsets of words, that I could think of. Instead what many search functions only allow you to do is, to first find one set of words, and then in a new separate search find another set of words. Currently wo", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (Nov 2025)"}]}