A Text-based User Interface (TUI) provides a structured way to engage with a computer through text characters. Unlike a basic Command-Line Interface (CLI), a TUI utilizes the entire screen, incorporating menus, panels, and colors for better visual organization. While it still relies on keyboard input and text, it enhances the user experience by creating a more advanced terminal setting that connects the simplicity of commands with the richness of graphical interfaces (GUIs).
The software featured in this roundup helps developers create TUI programs. There is a diverse range of programs included, mostly best described as frameworks. Rust is a versatile programming language that’s gaining popularity for its strong focus on performance and safety. It’s designed to ensure type safety and offers excellent support for concurrency, making it a great choice for high-performance applications.
The language embraces various programming paradigms and takes inspiration from functional programming. Features such as immutability, higher-order functions, algebraic data types, and pattern matching enrich its capabilities, allowing developers to write clean and efficient code.
Here’s our verdict captured in a legendary LinuxLinks-style ratings chart. Only free and open source software is eligible for inclusion.
Click the links in the table below to learn more about each tool.
| Rust TUI Frameworks | |
|---|---|
| Ratatui | Simple and flexible way to create text-based user interfaces in the terminal |
| Crossterm | Terminal manipulation library |
| iocraft | Craft CLIs, TUIs, and text-based IO |
| tui-realm | Component-driven Rust toolkit built around an Elm-style architecture |
| Zaz | Terminal manipulation library |
| tui-input | Library supporting multiple backends |
| AppCUI-rs | Fast cross-platform Rust library for rich terminal applications |
| R3BL TUI | Async Rust workspace for responsive, interactive terminal applications |
| Revue | Vue-inspired toolkit for building reactive terminal interfaces |
| Tears | Declarative Rust library for composing polished terminal interfaces |
| Reratui | Modern reactive Rust library for dynamic terminal applications |
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