Survey: Which C++ Frameworks Are Actually Used in Production in 2024

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Survey: Which C++ Frameworks Are Used in Production

The C++ ecosystem is traditionally known for its diversity, but when choosing a framework for a production project, developers are guided not only by trends, but also by stability, performance, and long-term support. We conducted a survey among professional C++ developers (over 500 respondents) and found out which libraries and frameworks are actually used in commercial projects, and not just in pet projects.

Production Leaders: Qt and Boost

The undisputed leader remains Qt — 38% of respondents noted that they use it in production. This is not surprising: cross-platform capabilities, a mature ecosystem, and support for GUI, networks, and databases make Qt indispensable in embedded systems, desktop applications, and even some backend services.

In second place is Boost (32%). However, it is worth clarifying: developers almost never include Boost as a whole. Most often, individual modules are used:

Boost.Asio — for low-level networking and asynchronous I/O.
Boost.Beast — as an extension over Asio for HTTP and WebSocket.
Boost.Filesystem and Boost.SmartPtr — in legacy projects prior to C++17.

Specialized Solutions: POCO, Crow, Pistache

For developing microservices and REST APIs, lightweight frameworks are increasingly chosen. POCO C++ Libraries (15% of votes) is a full-fledged analogue of Qt for server-side development: modular architecture, support for HTTP, SMTP, XML, JSON. POCO is actively used in fintech and telecom.

Crow (9%) and Pistache (6%) are minimalist web frameworks. Crow is especially popular for prototyping and microservices due to its syntax, similar to Flask. However, some respondents noted that in production, Crow is used only for internal tools and monitoring, not for client-facing services.

Unexpected Favorites

An interesting trend: 11% of developers indicated that in production they do not use third-party frameworks at all, relying only on STL, Boost.Asio (as a header-only library), and custom wrappers. This is typical for high-load systems (exchanges, games, embedded), where every extra layer of abstraction is critical.

Separately, it is worth noting cpp-httplib (5%) — a single-header library for HTTP servers and clients. It is chosen for its ease of integration (just copy the .h file) and performance sufficient for most tasks.