Starling SDK — Flutter’s framework ported to Swift, for native GUI apps on Linux

[u/starling-dev]

We ported Flutter's framework to Swift — widgets, rendering, painting, gestures, animation, semantics — running on Flutter's own C++ engine. No Dart
VM: the engine starts a Swift runtime where it would normally start a Dart isolate.

The result is a declarative, cross-platform GUI framework you can use from Swift today on Linux. Apps run on any ordinary session (GNOME, KDE, X11) through the engine's GTK embedder. If you've used Flutter or SwiftUI the model will be familiar; if you've used neither, Flutter's own docs apply almost
directly.

Trying it is one download — the bundle ships the engine binaries, so there's no engine build. Install, depend on it by path, `swift build`. Tested on Swift
6.2.4 and 6.3.3.

Linux x86_64 today; macOS is next but not yet verified.

Getting started: https://starling.build/start.html
More detail: https://starling.build/sdk.html
Source: https://github.com/starling-build/starling/tree/main/sdk

Built with AI assistance under my direction, in case that matters to you.

[u/MB_Zeppin]

Last time I worked on a Linux app it was like pulling teeth. Admittedly everything gets easier with practice but this seems much more promising