In this FAQ, we address the most common questions surrounding SWT Evolve, our modern, cross-platform successor to the classic SWT library. Whether you're maintaining a long-standing Eclipse RCP application or exploring modernization paths for large desktop systems, this guide provides clear explanations, quick insights, and pointers to deeper technical resources.

It’s designed to give you a comprehensive understanding of what SWT Evolve offers, how it fits into today’s UI landscape, and how it can bring legacy SWT applications into a modern native and web-ready future—without disrupting your existing codebase.

• What exactly is SWT Evolve?

  

  SWT Evolve is a cross-platform, drop-in replacement for the standard SWT library that instantly modernizes your Eclipse RCP application, without rewriting it’s logic.

  If your application runs on SWT today, it can run on SWT Evolve with a modern, GPU-accelerated interface and a clean, refined rendering engine that brings your product up to today’s UX standards.

  SWT Evolve is designed around a two-pronged model:

• Modern Native Desktop: A fast, fluid, high-performance UI powered by a modern renderer.
• Web Deployment: The same SWT application can also be compiled and deployed to the browser as a single-user, client-side application, and again, with zero code changes.

Our mission is to deliver a complete and high-performance replacement for SWT, with full API and widget coverage. Looking ahead, we are also building a multi-user cloud platform based on client-side rendering, dramatically reducing server load while keeping core SWT logic intact.

In essence, SWT Evolve gives legacy SWT and Eclipse RCP applications a modern future in different areas: on desktop, on the web, and soon, in the cloud, without suffering the cost, risk, and disruption of a rewrite.

• Is SWT Evolve open-source?

  

  Yes. SWT Evolve is a free and open-source project, licensed under the Eclipse Public License 2.0 (EPL-2.0), and we are fully committed to its growth and long-term success.

  The core of SWT Evolve, including the modern renderer, cross-platform support, and SWT API compatibility work, is developed openly, with community feedback and contributions playing a key role in shaping the project.

  For organizations building mission-critical or large-scale applications, Equo also offers Equo Enterprise: a suite of commercial products, extended capabilities, and professional services designed to accelerate modernization, strengthen reliability, and ensure long-term project success. These capabilities include corporate theming & branding, web deployment, advanced WebView and browser integration, and enhancements in performance and security, among others.

  This dual approach allows anyone to use SWT Evolve freely, while giving enterprises the support and advanced tooling they need for high scale, business applications.

• Is SWT Evolve related to initiative31?

  

  No. SWT Evolve is an independent project with a different mission and a fundamentally different technical direction.

  While initiative31 explored ways to modernize parts of the SWT ecosystem, its main goal was to make SWT maintainable through a single unified library across platforms. It also had no interest in enabling SWT applications to run in the browser or supporting a path toward web compatibility. SWT Evolve, from the beginning, was committed to a broader vision: providing a single drop-in replacement for SWT that can run both natively on desktop with a fresh modern UI and in a web browser, without requiring UI rewrites.

  Because this dual-runtime goal was never part of initiative31, SWT Evolve had to follow its own path, its own architecture, and its own roadmap. The result is a modernization solution focused on cross-platform deployment, GPU-accelerated rendering, and long-term API completeness, all while preserving existing SWT applications and their logic.

• Who is behind this project, and how can we trust it won't be abandoned?

  

  SWT Evolve is a committed open-source project backed and driven by Equo Tech, Inc. We are invested in its long-term future, which is why we are actively working with customers today to modernize their existing commercial applications with SWT Evolve. Our commitment to commercial support ensures the project's stability and sustained development.

• How does SWT Evolve differ from Eclipse RAP and other server-side renderers?

  

  SWT Evolve is not a server-side technology.

  Unlike Eclipse RAP or similar frameworks that render the UI on the server and manage user sessions, SWT Evolve keeps all UI logic and rendering on the client side, whether running natively or in the browser.

  Eclipse RAP requires applications to adopt a server-centric model, introduce new concepts, and adapt their architecture so multiple users can share the same backend without interfering with each other. SWT Evolve takes a fundamentally different approach: it is a drop-in replacement for SWT that preserves your existing architecture and runs your UI locally, using a modern GPU-accelerated renderer.

  The result is a solution that:

• Maintains 100% SWT API compatibility.
• Requires zero UI rewrites.
• Delivers native-level performance on desktop.
• Compiles to a single-user, client-side web application, not a server-hosted UI.

This client-side design eliminates server rendering load and avoids the complexity introduced by server-managed UI state, while providing a simpler and more faithful path for existing SWT and Eclipse RCP applications.

• What operating systems are supported?

  

  SWT Evolve runs on all major desktop operating systems: Windows, macOS, and Linux delivering a consistent, modern UI across every platform supported by the original SWT ecosystem. It’s a single, unified library that runs everywhere, removing the need for separate platform-specific implementations.

• Is GPU acceleration available on all platforms?

  

  Yes. SWT Evolve provides GPU-accelerated rendering on all major platforms, including Windows, macOS, Linux, and the web.

  Our modern rendering engine is designed to take advantage of hardware acceleration wherever it’s available, delivering smoother animations, faster UI rendering, and overall improved responsiveness.

• How does SWT Evolve handle the unstable SWT Browser widget?

  

  We recognize the SWT Browser widget is a persistent pain point. SWT Evolve solves this by integrating with modern, stable browser components (such as Equo Chromium), giving developers a predictable, high-performance, and secure web rendering environment that is consistent across all platforms.

• Can I customize my application with personalized themes and branding?

  

  Yes. SWT Evolve supports advanced theming and custom branding through our Enterprise Features.

  With Equo Enterprise, you can apply global themes, create custom widget styles, enforce corporate branding, and adapt the UI to match your product’s identity across all platforms. These theming capabilities work on both native desktop and web-deployed applications, ensuring a consistent and modern look for your entire product line.

• Will SWT Evolve support complex graphical applications (GEF, GMF, Draw2D)?

  

  Yes, this is a core target for SWT Evolve. Supporting these complex frameworks requires a complete overhaul of the low-level GC (Graphical Context) API, which is a major focus for our team right now. Our goal is to ensure that even the most complex graphical editors run flawlessly with our modern rendering engine.

  These editors rely heavily on custom drawing, zooming, selection handles, live feedback during drag operations, and large diagrams with many nodes and connections. SWT Evolve is being tuned specifically for these workloads, leveraging hardware acceleration where available to keep panning, zooming, and editing smooth even on large models.

  Our approach is to preserve compatibility so existing GEF/GMF/Draw2D-based editors can continue to run with zero changes, while enabling modern capabilities such as high-DPI rendering, updated theming, and future web deployment options.

• Are Nebula widgets supported?

  

  Yes. SWT Evolve is fully compatible with Eclipse Nebula, and Nebula widgets work out-of-the-box with no code changes. Because SWT Evolve maintains 100% API compatibility with the SWT widget model, Nebula components render correctly using the modern SWT Evolve rendering engine, while preserving their behavior, events, and customization options.

  NatTable is fully supported in SWT Evolve. Other GC-based Nebula widgets operate correctly on top of Evolve’s rendering pipeline, taking advantage of modern visuals and GPU-accelerated rendering. We’re also working on modern UI replacements for additional GC-based Nebula widgets, offering updated styling, improved performance, and a more contemporary user experience where teams want fully modernized components.

• Can I still use native OS dialogs and system integrations?

  

  Yes. on the desktop, you can continue using your existing native OS dialogs and platform integrations. Because SWT Evolve is a drop-in replacement for SWT, it preserves the SWT APIs your application already uses for things like file choosers, message dialogs, and other OS-level interactions. Your existing code continues to work while benefiting from the modernized, GPU-accelerated UI.

  When targeting the web, some native OS integrations are naturally limited by the browser environment. In those cases, SWT Evolve will rely on browser-safe equivalents, while deeper native integrations remain available in the desktop deployment.

• Is this suitable for enterprise or regulated environments (automotive, banking, medical, government)?

  

  Yes. SWT Evolve is designed with enterprise-grade requirements in mind and is fully suitable for regulated industries.

  Because it is a drop-in replacement for SWT, it preserves your existing architecture, plugin model, and security posture. This means that your application can modernize its UI without introducing any risks or uncertainties.

  SWT Evolve’s cross-platform renderer delivers consistent, high-performance behavior across Windows, macOS, and Linux, while keeping all application logic on the client side. This makes it compatible with the deployment models and compliance constraints commonly found in automotive, banking, medical, and government environments.

  For organizations that require additional guarantees, enterprise support, consulting, and long-term stability options are available as part of the SWT Evolve roadmap.

• How does SWT Evolve reduce long-term maintenance costs?

  

  SWT Evolve lowers long-term maintenance costs by modernizing your application without requiring a rewrite and by removing the technical debt accumulated around legacy SWT.

  Because SWT Evolve is a drop-in replacement, your existing architecture, plugins, and UI logic remain intact—meaning your team maintains one codebase instead of managing a fragmented modernization effort.

  In short, SWT Evolve keeps your application modern, stable, and maintainable without the cost, disruption, or risk of a full rewrite.

• Do you offer enterprise support or advanced features beyond the OSS version?

  

  Yes. While SWT Evolve is free and open-source, Equo offers a full Enterprise Edition for organizations that require advanced capabilities, long-term stability, and professional support.

  Equo Enterprise provides a suite of commercial products and services designed specifically for commercial SWT and Eclipse RCP applications, including:

• End-to-End Application Modernization.
• Theming & Custom Branding for full visual customization.
• Custom Widget Development tailored to your business needs.
• Compliance & Accessibility tooling (WCAG).
• Equo SDK for enterprise-grade middleware and developer tools.
• Equo Chromium integration for high-performance embedded browsing.
• Signed & Notarized Binaries for all major OSes.
• Guaranteed Compatibility with Eclipse/SWT 3.x and 4.x.
• Dedicated Enterprise Support, SLAs, expert training, and priority channels.
• Cloud Migration Strategy with minimal changes to your existing codebase.
• Ready-to use binary repositories.
• Google fonts support modern typography with seamless integration of Google Fonts across your applications. .

Enterprise customers gain the reliability, stability, and dedicated support needed to run and maintain large-scale SWT/RCP applications in production, while the open-source base of SWT Evolve remains freely available to everyone.

• Does Evolve require changes to my existing SWT/Eclipse RCP codebase?

  

  No. SWT Evolve is a drop-in replacement for the standard SWT library, and it runs your application without requiring changes to your existing codebase.

  Your current widgets, layouts, listeners, plugins, and RCP architecture continue working as they are. SWT Evolve simply replaces the rendering layer with a modern, GPU-accelerated engine.

  This also applies to web deployment: your application can be compiled to run in the browser as a single-user, client-side experience with zero UI rewrites.

  For teams that want to modernize deeper — through theming, branding, or custom widgets — those enhancements can be added progressively, but the core adoption of Evolve requires no migration work.

• Can SWT Evolve modernize my application instantly, or do I still need a long migration project?

  

  You can see results almost instantly, because there is no need for a long, disruptive rewrite.

  SWT Evolve is fully compatible with existing SWT and Eclipse RCP applications, so your current codebase can run as-is on top of Evolve. Once you switch to Evolve and rebuild, the vast majority of your UI is immediately upgraded to a modern, GPU-accelerated experience with updated visuals, theming options, and smoother rendering, without changing your layouts, views, or event handlers.

  While you can modernize specific parts of your application over time, even at a widget level, the real power of SWT Evolve is that you start from a fully modernized baseline on day one. This lets teams focus on refining the areas that matter most, instead of spending months or years rewriting existing functionality just to reach a modern UI.

• How do I get my application onto the web, and is it truly "Web-Ready"?

  

  SWT Evolve maintains the single-user, stateful application model of Eclipse RCP. Our Web-Ready feature allows you to deploy that exact same single-user codebase to a web environment. This gives you a clear path to offer a browser-accessible version of your application without ever refactoring your core SWT logic for multi-tenancy.

• Do we need to learn a new UI framework or technology to use SWT Evolve?

  

  No. SWT Evolve is designed to be a drop-in replacement for SWT, so your team continues working with the same APIs, layout mechanisms, and event model you already use today. There is no new UI framework to learn and no additional language or toolkit to adopt.

Want to see more? Dive deeper into SWT Evolve by reviewing our Enterprise offering, visit our GitHub repository, or contact us to schedule a modernization discussion.