Kael is a GPU-accelerated UI framework for building native desktop applications in Rust. Built on top of GPUI from Zed Industries, Kael extends it with webviews, media playback, system tray, form controls, rich text, Lottie animations, blur effects, gesture recognition, theming, and more — all while delivering 60fps with near-zero CPU usage at idle through dirty tracking and render-on-demand.Documentation Index
Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://mintlify.com/Augani/kael/llms.txt
Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
Quickstart
Build your first Kael application in minutes with a working counter example
Installation
Add Kael to your Cargo project and configure platform dependencies
Core Concepts
Learn the entity model, rendering lifecycle, and reactivity system
API Reference
Explore the full public API: App, Window, elements, themes, and plugins
Why Kael?
Kael targets macOS, Linux (X11 and Wayland), and Windows with platform-native rendering backends — Metal on macOS, Blade (Vulkan) on Linux, and DirectX 11 on Windows. The framework uses dirty tracking so the GPU is only invoked when the UI actually changes, resulting in idle CPU usage of 0%.Rendering & Graphics
GPU-accelerated with per-platform shaders, canvas drawing, backdrop blur, Lottie animations, and SVG rendering
Layout & Elements
Flexbox and grid layout via Taffy, rich text, recycling lists, form controls, and spring animations
Platform Integration
System tray, global hotkeys, native dialogs, notifications, WebViews, media playback, and screen capture
Plugin System
Extension host with WASM sandboxing, process isolation, typed IPC, and capability-based security
Platform support
| Platform | Renderer | Status |
|---|---|---|
| macOS | Metal | Full support |
| Linux (X11) | Blade (Vulkan) | Full support |
| Linux (Wayland) | Blade (Vulkan) | Full support |
| Windows | DirectX 11 | Full support |
Quick example
Cargo.toml
main.rs
Kael is built on GPUI, the UI framework created by Zed Industries for the Zed code editor. The original GPUI code is licensed under Apache-2.0. Kael itself is also Apache-2.0.