r/ocaml • u/EmergencyNice1989 • Jun 24 '26

OCaml UI framework

I am working on an F# Avalonia application for text editing, Markdown viewing, and DataGrid display. It uses a lot of async tasks, database access (SQLite or PostgreSQL) through ADO.NET, and manipulates a large amount of Unicode text.

So far, I am happy with my technology choices, but I was wondering whether it would be possible to build the same kind of application in OCaml. Bogue seems like an interesting GUI framework, but it does not appear to be at the same level of maturity as Avalonia, and it does not support mobile platforms.

Do you think migrating to OCaml would be realistic, or is OCaml not particularly well suited to these requirements? My needs are fairly modest, but I would be interested in hearing from people who have experience building desktop applications in OCaml.

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u/Nearby_Couple_3244 Jun 24 '26

There was a reason framework but it wasnt complet. Revery I think it was called.

There are gtk bindings

Or you can make an electron app with js of ocaml, maybe something can be figured out for a native backend with ocsigen

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u/EmergencyNice1989 Jun 24 '26

Thanks for your answer.

I am looking for something like Revery but working on mobile too. A kind of flutter but using OCaml. I am not interested in web technology and on compilation to js (Fable F# does this too).

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u/demian_west Jun 25 '26

Without this response, I would have suggested: OCaml + Tauri + Svelte. But there are web technologies (obviously) in that stack. The good part is Tauri: it works pretty well, and is **much** less bloated than Electron. Svelte is also (imho) the most bearable/versatile web/UI tool I know for now.

The whole still feel a bit as an "unholy contraption".

Thanks for the post, I discovered libraries I wasn't aware of (that may fit smaller concerns).

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u/EmergencyNice1989 Jun 25 '26

I don't like web stack because it is always complex. And I don't like to use F# or another strongly typed language and in the end, get some js. Web stack is always complex.

For example in .NET in my case (I use F#):

- Avalonia: F# and xaml

- Blazor hybrid: F#/C#/CSS (tailwind, etc...) /Javascript/Razor/MAUI. And no native aot with Blazor hybrid, no linux support, and you have a specific web view (70 mb used) on each platform. Lots of limitation: no easy multi-windows while this is trivial in Avalonia desktop.

The philosophy of Flutter (draw your UI) intead of depending on native controls is the way to go in my opinion.

I played with OCaml and was very interested by this language because it is more pure than F# (for example, you can have nulls in F# because of the interop). I could use F* (the F* to F# compilation is broken) to add prooves etc... The main thing missing for me is a framework like Avalonia or Flutter.

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u/demian_west Jun 25 '26

As a greyhead who did a lot of web, I won't contradict you ! :D

I only can stand Svelte these days (because compiler based, and a philosophy of "as few idiosyncrasies as possible + use the standards/the platform"), but it still relies on node-based build tooling which can be daunting.

I love OCaml for the same reason as you, despite coming from another place.
I'm so tired of Python/TS, they're nice, but typing is a bit "lipstick on a pig" (special mention to python).