C++ Community Chooses Best Libraries of the Year: 2024 Voting Results

C++ Community Chooses Best Libraries of the Year: 2024 Voting Results

The annual voting among C++ developers has concluded, and the community has named the best libraries of 2024. The survey, organized by the C++ Foundation and leading technical blogs, gathered over 8,000 votes from professional programmers, open-source enthusiasts, and CppCon conference attendees. Winners were determined in several key categories, ranging from standard utilities to specialized solutions for graphics and multithreading.

Winners in Main Categories

Here is the list of libraries that received the greatest recognition in 2024:

• Best Multipurpose Library — Boost (winner for the 8th consecutive year). Despite criticism for its size, Boost remains an indispensable set of tools for working with threads, serialization, and algorithms.
• Best GUI Library — Qt 6. The updated version with support for HiDPI, QML, and a modular architecture surpassed wxWidgets and FLTK.
• Best Formatting and Logging Library — {fmt} (fmtlib). A modern alternative to printf and iostream, which formed the basis of std::format in C++20.
• Best Testing Library — Catch2. Ease of use and support for BDD-style made it a community favorite, surpassing Google Test.
• Best Serialization Library — nlohmann/json. An intuitive API and high performance cemented its leadership.

Special Categories of 2024

This year, the organizers added the "Breakthrough of the Year" category, where async_simple from Alibaba won — a lightweight library for asynchronous operations compatible with C++20 coroutines. The community also recognized range-v3 for its influence on the standardization of ranges in C++23 and spdlog as the fastest logging library.

What Does This Mean for Developers?

The voting results are not just a ranking but an indicator of trends. First, the community is increasingly moving to C++20 and C++23, abandoning outdated approaches. Second, there is growing demand for lightweight, header-only libraries (e.g., {fmt} and nlohmann/json) that are easy to integrate into projects without complex builds. Third, asynchrony and coroutines are becoming mainstream — this is confirmed by the success of async_simple.

For those just starting to learn C++, these libraries are an excellent starting point: they are well-documented, actively maintained, and frequently used in industrial development. Even if you didn't vote, it's worth paying attention to the winners — they will help you write more reliable and faster code.

How to Participate Next Year?

The voting is held annually in October-November. Follow announcements on CppCon, Reddit (r/cpp), and the official C++ Foundation website. Every developer can suggest their own category or library via a special form. In 2025, new categories for embedded development and machine learning in C++ are expected.

Sources: survey results on isocpp.org, discussions on r/cpp, C++ Foundation reports.