SDL2

SDL2, or Simple DirectMedia Layer 2, is a cross-platform development library designed to provide low-level access to audio, keyboard, mouse, joystick, and graphics hardware. It is used to handle window creation, event handling, and rendering in multimedia applications and games, across more than a dozen operating systems including Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS and Android.

The core library provides modules for windowing, input, audio, timers, threads, and synchronization. For rendering, SDL2 supplies a hardware-accelerated 2D rendering API via SDL_Renderer and SDL_Texture, while still allowing integration with native graphics APIs such as OpenGL, Vulkan, Direct3D, or Metal. In addition to its 2D API, SDL can be used as a cross-platform input and multimedia layer, feeding data to and from devices like keyboards, mice, game controllers, and joysticks. It also supports audio playback and mixing through SDL_audio, and textual rendering via add-on libraries such as SDL_ttf.

SDL2 is released under the zlib license, a permissive open-source license that permits use in free and commercial software with minimal restrictions.

The library is widely adopted in game development, multimedia software, and educational projects. Its modular ecosystem includes ancillary libraries such as SDL_image for image loading, SDL_mixer for complex audio, and SDL_ttf for font rendering, which extend SDL2’s capabilities.