The creation of a window to render stuff in is not covered in the OpenGL specification. This is handled by platform-specific APIs. These APIs have been abstracted in many toolkits.
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These toolkits are designed specifically around creating and managing OpenGL windows. These tools usually provide basic input and timing support, but little else.
- FreeGLUT
- A GLUT-compatible cross-platform windowing system. It is intended for demo applications.
- GLFW
- A cross-platform windowing system. It is aimed mainly at the needs of games.
- GLUT
- Very old, do not use.
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Several "multimedia libraries" can create OpenGL windows, in addition to input, sound and other tasks useful for game-like applications.
- Allegro version 5
- A C-based cross-platform multimedia library focused on game development. Supports core OpenGL context creation.
- SDL
- A C-based cross-platform multimedia library. Version 1.2 does not support core OpenGL context creation, but version 2.0 will.
- SFML
- A C++-based cross-platform multimedia library. Supports creating a core OpenGL context.
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Many widget toolkits have the ability to create OpenGL windows, but their primary focus is on being widget toolkits.
- FLTK
- A small C-based widget library.
- Qt
- A C++ toolkit which abstracts the Linux, MacOS X and Windows away. It provides a number of OpenGL helper objects, which even abstract away the difference between desktop GL and OpenGL ES.
- wxWidgets
- A C++ cross-platform widget toolkit.
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