rinch

Rinch

A GUI framework for Rust that doesn't hate you.

Every few months, someone on r/rust asks "what's the state of GUI in Rust?" and the thread fills with the same apologetic answers: "it's getting better," "try [framework du jour]," "have you considered a web view?" Rinch exists because "getting better" has been the answer for seven years and we got tired of waiting.

The Pitch

Rinch gives you HTML and CSS — the layout system that billions of people have already debugged for you — but renders it natively with Vello (GPU) or tiny-skia (CPU). No Electron. No web view. No 200MB runtime. Your app is a single binary that starts in milliseconds.

Reactivity is fine-grained. When a signal changes, Rinch updates that one DOM node. Not the component. Not the subtree. Not "the whole thing but we diff it so it's fine." The node. Your component function runs exactly once.

use rinch::prelude::*;

#[component]
fn app() -> NodeHandle {
    let count = Signal::new(0);
    rsx! {
        div {
            h1 { "Count: " {|| count.get().to_string()} }
            button { onclick: move || count.update(|n| *n += 1), "+" }
        }
    }
}

fn main() {
    run("Counter", 400, 300, app);
}

That {|| ...} closure is doing all the work. It creates an Effect that tracks which signals it reads, then surgically updates its text node when they change. No virtual DOM. No diffing. No reconciler. Just a function pointer and a node reference.

Why Not [Other Framework]?

Complaint	Rinch's answer
"I have to learn a custom layout system"	It's CSS. You already know it. Flexbox via Taffy, style resolution via Servo's Stylo engine.
"Reactivity requires re-rendering the whole component"	Signals -> Effects -> surgical node updates. Component runs once.
"No component library"	60+ components. Buttons, inputs, modals, tabs, accordions, color pickers, rich text editors.
"Styling is painful"	Theme system with CSS variables, 14 color palettes, dark mode, spacing scales. Write p: "md" instead of padding: var(--rinch-spacing-md).
"I can't inspect anything"	F12 opens DevTools. Alt+I for inspect mode. There's an MCP server so Claude can screenshot your app and fix your CSS.
"Text rendering is bad"	Parley for shaping, HarfBuzz under the hood. Ligatures, BiDi, the works.
"No web target"	Compiles to WASM with a browser-native DOM backend — no canvas, just real DOM nodes. 3MB binary.

What's In The Box

Rendering. Dual backend — GPU via Vello/wgpu, or software via tiny-skia. Same code, same output, pick at compile time. The software renderer does dirty-region tracking, so even without a GPU, incremental updates are fast.

60+ Components. A Mantine-inspired component library that actually works: Button, TextInput, Modal, Tabs, Accordion, Select, ColorPicker, Stepper, RichTextEditor, and about fifty more. Plus 5,000+ Tabler Icons with a type-safe enum API.

Fine-Grained Reactivity. Signal, Memo, Effect — all Copy, no .clone() ceremony. Cross-thread dispatch built in (signal.send(value) from any thread). Stores for shared state. Context for dependency injection.

Native Rust Control Flow. if, for, match in RSX — all automatically reactive. Keyed list reconciliation with the LIS algorithm. No .map() gymnastics.

let tab = Signal::new("home");
let todos = Signal::new(vec![Todo { id: 1, name: "Ship it".into() }]);
let user = Signal::new(Some("Alice".to_string()));

rsx! {
    div {
        // if — shows/hides reactively when the signal changes
        if let Some(name) = user.get() {
            p { "Welcome back, " {name} }
        }

        // match — switches between views
        match tab.get().as_str() {
            "home" => div { "Home sweet home" },
            "settings" => div { "Tweak away" },
            _ => div { "404, probably" },
        }

        // for — keyed list with minimal DOM ops on change
        for todo in todos.get() {
            div { key: todo.id, {todo.name.clone()} }
        }
    }
}

Platform Integration. Native menus via muda. File dialogs. Clipboard. System tray with minimize-to-tray. Transparent borderless windows with custom chrome. Keyboard shortcuts.

Rich Text Editing. CRDT-backed editor (Automerge), 22 formatting extensions, markdown input rules, syntax highlighting, find & replace. Not a toy.

Game Engine Embedding. Two modes: RenderSurface (Rinch owns the window, your renderer submits frames) or RinchContext (your engine owns the window, Rinch produces a Vello scene you composite). Either way, Rinch handles the UI and gets out of your way.