Buildroot vs qmake
Buildroot
buildroot.orgqmake
doc.qt.ioSide by side
| Figure | Buildroot | qmake |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Windows | — | Yes |
| macOS | — | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| iOS | — | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | — |
| Plans published | 1 | 1 |
| Spec score · Build Automation Software | 8.6 (#5) | 7.6 (#24) |
| Licensing | The Buildroot manual is licensed under GNU General Public License version 2. | Qt offers commercial and open-source licensing, with the Community Edition available under LGPL or GPL terms. |
| Purpose | Buildroot automates building complete embedded Linux systems through cross-compilation. | qmake manages the build process for applications, libraries, and other components by expanding project files into Makefiles. |
Plans
In their own words
qmake
qmake manages builds for applications, libraries and other components by turning project files into Makefiles. Its `.pro` files can define source files, configuration, libraries and include paths. It supplies build rules for Qt's moc and uic tools, with templates for applications, libraries and plugins. Projects can specify third-party libraries, and qmake can use pkg-config for supported libraries such as D-Bus and ogg. It can generate Microsoft Visual Studio project files and, on macOS, Xcode project files. Platform notes cover iOS universal binaries, frameworks and bundles. In Qt 6, qmake remains supported for building Qt applications, but cannot compile custom Qt plugins or libraries that rely on Qt 5 build-system internals. Qt warns that building an untrusted project can execute code on the build machine. The Qt Community Edition is free under LGPL or GPL terms, with source-code obligations and limited access to some Qt capabilities.