Size of hello world app that includes relevant DLLs is over 150 MB. Which is almost like including a web engine.

What I'm looking for is old-school AOT compiled executable where UI framework dependency is statically compiled and trimmed.

I know that these days a lot of game and application developers just render a custom UI to a 2d or 3d rendering device. I've been looking for a UI framework like that as I don't want to write my own, but so far most of them have been either web based or require their own mini-language and compilation step.

You mean just self-drawn controls or also immediate mode GUI?

I haven't tried it, but there's ImGui.NET (or a bit easier ImGui.Forms) immediate mode GUI. Downside is no accessibility.

Avalonia uses Skia to draw controls, although it primarily uses XAML to define UI.

The issue with self-drawn controls is that creating such framework is a lot of work, so smaller projects often have issues with things like accessibility.

EDIT: Just did hello world test with ImGui.Forms. Self-contained AOT compiled result was 7 MB.

Within game development it is predominantly immediate mode as it more closely resembles the main game loop. With other applications I'm not sure, some I know just use ImGui and run an immediate mode UI, others would be retained mode.

In my case I'm looking for a C++ UI library, not .Net. Also not a fan of immediate mode GUIs either, so would want something more traditional.

I don't want to write my own, so will probably try Qt again, but might switch to a custom library in time.