Raylib

C/C++ library

raylib is highly inspired by Borland BGI graphics lib and by XNA framework and it's especially well suited for prototyping, tooling, graphical applications, embedded systems and education.

NOTE for ADVENTURERS: raylib is a programming library to enjoy videogames programming; no fancy interface, no visual helpers, no debug button... just coding in the most pure spartan-programmers way.

features

NO external dependencies, all required libraries are included into raylib
Multiple platforms supported: Windows, Linux, MacOS, RPI, Android, HTML5... and more!
Written in plain C code (C99) using PascalCase/camelCase notation
Hardware accelerated with OpenGL: 1.1, 2.1, 3.3, 4.3, ES 2.0, ES 3.0
Unique OpenGL abstraction layer (usable as standalone module): rlgl
Software Renderer backend (no OpenGL required!): rlsw
Multiple Fonts formats supported (TTF, OTF, FNT, BDF, sprite fonts)
Multiple texture formats supported, including compressed formats (DXT, ETC, ASTC)
Full 3D support, including 3D Shapes, Models, Billboards, Heightmaps and more!
Flexible Materials system, supporting classic maps and PBR maps
Animated 3D models supported (skeletal bones animation) (IQM, M3D, glTF)
Shaders support, including model shaders and postprocessing shaders
Powerful math module for Vector, Matrix and Quaternion operations: raymath
Audio loading and playing with streaming support (WAV, QOA, OGG, MP3, FLAC, XM, MOD)
VR stereo rendering support with configurable HMD device parameters
Huge examples collection with +140 code examples!
Bindings to +70 programming languages!
Free and open source

basic example

This is a basic raylib example, it creates a window and draws the text "Congrats! You created your first window!" in the middle of the screen. Check this example running live on web here.

    #include "raylib.h"

    int main(void)
    {
        InitWindow(800, 450, "raylib example - basic window");

        while (!WindowShouldClose())
        {
            BeginDrawing();
                ClearBackground(RAYWHITE);
                DrawText("Congrats! You created your first window!", 190, 200, 20, LIGHTGRAY);
            EndDrawing();
        }

        CloseWindow();

        return 0;
    }

learning and docs

raylib is designed to be learned using the examples as the main reference. There is no standard API documentation but there is a cheatsheet containing all the functions available on the library a short description of each one of them, input parameters and result value names should be intuitive enough to understand how each function works.

Some additional documentation about raylib design can be found in raylib GitHub Wiki. Here are the relevant links:

Tags: gamedev native windows macos linux android browser

Last modified 14 May 2026

Raylib

A simple and easy-to-use library to enjoy videogames programming.

features

basic example

learning and docs