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About
Ultralight is a lightweight, cross-platform, HTML rendering engine for desktop apps and games. It supports most modern HTML5 and JavaScript features while still remaining small in binary size and memory usage.
API is available for C and C++, with community bindings for C#, Rust, Java, and Go in our forum here.
Base Memory Usage
| Ultralight | Electron | |
|---|---|---|
| Windows | 9 MB | 72 MB |
| macOS | 17 MB | 97 MB |
| Linux | 15 MB | 136 MB |
Base Distributable Size
| Ultralight | Electron | |
|---|---|---|
| Windows | 30 MB | 147 MB |
| macOS | 43 MB | 163 MB |
| Linux | 49 MB | 179 MB |
Comparison with Chromium
| Ultralight | Chromium | |
|---|---|---|
| Renderer | Proprietary (GPU) | Skia (CPU) / GPU Compositor |
| Layout Engine | WebCore (from WebKit) | Blink |
| JavaScript Engine | JavaScriptCore | V8 |
| IPC | None (Single Process) | Yes (Multi Process) |
Architecture
Ultralight is a new port of WebKit combined with a new lightweight renderer intended specifically for embedding in apps and games.
Virtual GPU Renderer
Our optional, high-performance GPU renderer takes advantage of GPU hardware when available. All painting is performed via virtual display lists and translated to your target platform at runtime (see the GPUDriver interface). This renderer is enabled by default when using Ultralight via the AppCore runtime.
Accelerated CPU Renderer
For easier integration into games and environments with limited GPU, Ultralight can also render to an offscreen pixel buffer using an SIMD-accelerated CPU rendering pipeline. Paths, gradients, and patterns in this mode are rasterized using Blend2D's high-performance JIT compiler.
HTML Renderer For Games
Ultralight is designed to integrate well into existing games and game engines. Developers have complete control over asset loading via the FileSystem interface and have the ability to provide the library a custom, lockable pixel-buffer for each View to render into (eg, for display of HTML in a texture).
For more info about integrating Ultralight into a game, please see: https://docs.ultralig.ht/docs/integrating-with-games
Cross-Platform AppCore Runtime
AppCore is an optional, cross-platform desktop app runtime built on top of Ultralight that handles window creation, native event loops, native graphics drivers (D3D11, D3D12, Metal, OpenGL), and more.
You can use it to build desktop HTML apps in a manner similar to Electron. It's currently under active development and only supports single-window apps at this writing. A number of planned features (app icons, automatic packager, borderless windows with custom draggable titlebars, etc) are missing but on the way.
For more info about using Ultralight in a desktop app, please see: https://docs.ultralig.ht/docs/writing-your-first-app
Licensing
Free License
Ultralight is free for non-commercial use and free for commercial use by companies with less than $100K gross annual revenue. For more info see LICENSE.txt
Commercial Licensing and Support
We offer commercial licensing, priority support, and source code. To learn more, please visit our website.
Getting the Latest SDK
You can get the latest SDK for each platform via the following links:
Getting Pre-Built Binaries for a Specific Commit
Pre-built binares are uploaded to the following S3 buckets every commit:
- Archived Binaries: https://ultralight-sdk.sfo2.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/
Click any of the links for an XML listing of available files.
Useful Links
| Link | URL |
|---|---|
| Join our Discord! | https://chat.ultralig.ht |
| Support Forum | https://forum.ultralig.ht |
| Browse API Headers | https://github.com/ultralight-ux/Ultralight-API/ |
| Docs / Getting Started | https://docs.ultralig.ht |
| Follow Us on Twitter | https://twitter.com/ultralight_ux |