What is Canonic?

Canonic is a free, open-source (GPL3), browser based on and for Qt's QML UI language as well as various other file formats. It is maintained by haikü and was originally built as a way to make deploying QML applications easier.

What is Canonic for?

I built Canonic for a few reasons:

1. I think QML > HTML and wanted to create a browser to test QML as a web standard.
2. I work in the VFX / cloud computing space and wanted an internal tool for viewing 3D related file formats.
3. I am of the opinion that file systems were a mistake and I want to create a browser to experiment with other ways of hosting information on the web - more on this soon :)

But you can use it to browser qml files on the web.

But why make a browser within a browser?

Canonic can be built to work on any platform (it is made with Qt after all) but is currently only available as a WASM web app. This is because browser sandboxing is hard and given QML is more powerful than HTML there are also extra security considerations to take into account. Running everything in an existing browser via WASM sidesteps all these issues for now.

Want to learn more?

Read the docs to learn more about Canonic and how to use it.