LVGL Pro (Editor) v1.0 release candidate is available

[kisvegabor]

We’re at the finish line, and we have a lot to share!

First things first, LVGL’s UI Editor now has a name: LVGL Pro
And a website: https://pro.lvgl.io/

Why “Pro”?

Because it’s designed for professional developers who want to:
Build UIs from reusable components
Test and validate their work
Collaborate efficiently with their teams

So what is LVGL Pro?

A complete toolkit with 4 tools:
XML Editor: The heart of LVGL Pro. A desktop app to build components and screens in XML, manage data bindings, translations, animations, tests, and more.
Online Share: Run the Editor in your browser, open GitHub projects, and share easily without setting up any developer environment.
CLI Tool: Generate C code and run tests in CI/CD.
Figma Plugin: Sync and extract styles directly from Figma.

You can learn more about all of these in LVGL Pro’s documentation.

What is the current version?

We have just publish the Release candidate version of v1.0. It has all the major features including data-bindings, animations, translations, and many more. Try out all at https://viewer.lvgl.io/

What’s the Business model?

We’ve also updated the licensing model to be more flexible, scalable, and simple:
Buy seats for the Editor
Add CLI & Online Share for as many repositories as you need
Monthly or yearly plans
Huge startup discounts
All tools are free to use during the release candidate phase.

See our Pricing page for all the details: Pricing - LVGL Pro

What’s next?

In the next two weeks we will:
Fix bugs from your feedback
Finish the VS Code plugin
Improve docs
Record tutorials
Release LVGL Pro v1.0 mid-October

We’d love to hear your feedback about how the tools work, how they could be even more helpful for you, or if you already built something with LVGL Pro:
Just open a GitHub issue: GitHub · Where software is built
Or write us directly: lvgl@lvgl.io

Thanks for being with us on this journey, talk soon!

[KleinPan]

if you can update the news more frequently on github?

[kisvegabor]

How do you mean it?

[lgl88911]

LVGL Pro is an outstanding tool that greatly improves the LVGL UI development experience. I am a Zephyr developer, and I found it very easy to integrate the C code exported from the LVGL Pro XML Editor directly into a Zephyr application. It can be said that LVGL Pro also helps promote the development of the Zephyr ecosystem. Here’s an example of the integration between the two: https://github.com/lgl88911/LVGLXMLwZephyr/tree/main

[kisvegabor]

It’s amazing that LVGL Pro is being evaluated at Zephyr as well
Please let us know if you stuck somewhere.

[Dolence]

Hi!
I’m actually testing LVGL Editor newest release and I’m very positive on how well it is going. I’m a solo developer on a very small familiar business based on a emergent country, struggling to compete with cheap products being imported by way bigger companies. Our margins are very tight. I’m actually using EEZ Studio, which works fine but some features of LVGL Editor and the nice workflow is what made me consider the switch.
Unfortunately, opening the UI of our product for public access isn’t something I would consider and the first paid tier is way off our budget. Are there any plans to introduce an intermediate paid plan that would be the same as free tier only including local save? It would attend more users that fit the same category as me (not a open source developer/not a startup) or should I stick to EEZ Studio for now?

[kdschlosser]

I figured I would drop this nugget here as well. The online viewer that is available, when logging in using GitHub credentials it wants full access of my entire account. all public and private repos both read and write and also all of the organizational stuff as well.

The permissions that are being requested need to be a whole lot less. and if I am “viewing” it should not want access other than password verification, no read and write to ANY repos or any other aspect of my GitHub account. I am only viewing not modifying or anything else.

[Dolence]

My concerns are more towards the public access when the final version is released. I would be glad to open it when working in any open source software, but the pricing for a lone dev as me is too high.
The tool is very nice to work with and I’m sure it will power many amazing projects around the world, but putting the ability to save projects locally behind a paywall this tall is a big no, at least at this moment.
Speaking from my limited understanding, teams working for big companies will fall into a price that appear to be very fair. When a company of this magnitude find a useful tool that will improve their development workflow they will pay whatever the price is, but this is hurting the small guys that probably will never represent more than a tiny slice of the revenue.

[kisvegabor]

Hi @Dolence,

Thank you for sharing your thoughts. As we receive feedback and see some new features emerging we are also also thinking about how to make the editor more accessible.

We are working on a drag and drop interface right now which will be different from what EEZ Studio or SquareLine provides. It will waaaay simpler. We create a huge bunch of ready to use components with a simple API. For example 5 types of sliders, in which you can set only a few properties to customize it (e.g. 1-2 colors, data_binding, range). This way you can create UIs super easily from these building blocks.

If we had the drag and drop editor part working, we could do this:

• Free version: you can use everything (drag and drop, XML, etc), but only have 3 screens
• Maker (~20USD/mo): use only the drag and drop mode with the provided component libraries, but no access to XML editor and other complex features, and cant’s create custom components either.
• Some Pro tiers for 2-500 USD/mo.

What do you think about it? Would it work for you to subscribe for ~20 USD/mo and build from prebuild elements, or creating custom components is a must?

[Dolence]

It’s nice to hear you are open to discussion and hearing the community feedback. I’m also glad for all the effort in future enhancements. You guys are on the right path
Personally, drag and drop doesn’t make a huge difference for my usage, but I’m sure makers will love it, as it indeed would make simple UI creation way easier.
I’m happy with XML editing and porting my actual EEZ Studio UI to LVGL is proving to be a very nice experience. I’ve been learning so much on the last few days. Things like creating my own components and combining widgets with C code adds unmatched flexibility.
My only problem since this is a commercial product is sharing my UI/C code. As I mentioned earlier, we are a very small business and the costs for having local saving or private github repository is too high for us. Some suggestions:
a) pay for this feature alone as an addon, be it local save or private repository. Doesn’t include support or any other feature of the paid plans
b) maybe pay an extra fee per project using it?
c) option to acquire more screens, be it per project or globally

I don’t know if this is viable or if the issues involved that could be prejudicial for the project, be it from an economical point of view or by a technical point of view.
All in all, I just want to be able to share my open source projects with the community but being able to sometimes have the possibility to work on a private project. No need for advanced features that would only benefity large teams working on big commercial projects, like team collaboration, CI integration, paid support available in multiple channels, a dedicated engineer for taking care of my issues. Even though all these features are unarguably valuable and a must have for many use cases, it isn’t our case, at least at this moment (and believe me, I do wish someday we grow to a extent it changes).

This is the UI I’m translating to the editor at this very moment. It would surpass the 3 screen barrier, unless I use one screen with the additional ones as hidden objects.

I just wanted to know if all of this makes sense to ensure I’m not dedicating time to learn a new tool that would not be viable as soon as the trial ends.

[kisvegabor]

Thank you do much again!

At the end of the day what is your monthly limit on a subscription fee?

I think changing the screen limit to is the simplest extension.

• free: 2 screens, all features (drag and drop + XML)
• maker, 20 USD: drag and drop only
• startup, 70 USD: 5 screen per project, all features
• normal business, 300 USD: no screen limit
• enterprise: support and other extras

What do you think?

[kdschlosser]

What I have seen done in the past is free to open source projects. These would need to be projects that use LVGL and are actively being worked on. Not projects that have just started either. This is not something a person would simply be able to get. They have to apply for it and with that application they have to provide a link to the code where the use of the editor and also LVGL is made in the “Help” or “About” portion of the UI. another requirement would be setting a number of mentions about LVGL and editor along with a link to LVGL in a public forum type setting. Set a time limit on how long the license would be good for something like 3 months, or 6 months and the person would need to apply again if they wanted to extend the license.

Free Tier: restrictive in the number of components, screens and number of things that can be changed for a widget and also the number of objects in a project.

DIY Tier: Low monthly amount like 10 or 15 bucks, no access to XML editor and increased limits for the number of screens UI elements and components. no restriction on the number of properties that can be changed per widget.

Corporate Tier(s): whatever access you deem you want to give.

OpenSource: Free. Need to apply for it. Limited in the number that are given. access to all features. There is no support like what is given with the Corporate.

The reason why I think it is important that you provide that Opensource tier is because LVGL would not be what it is today without the OpenSource community. It’s a way of giving back to the people who have made LVGL what it is today. LVGL’s roots are OpenSource and the Editor is as well. Asking the community amount features for an editor that a person might not be able to use fully because they don’t have the ability to pay for a license that would allow access to these things is a bit odd to do.

IDK if you are aware of what is going on in the US currently and I am sure the same thing is happening all over the world. There are people that simply don’t have the money to pay for even the DIY subscription. To put it a bit into perspective, Insurance for my house went from costing me $3,800.00 a year to $9,800 a year. The reality of this is if I don’t have insurance on my home the mortgage company will foreclose on me so I have a choice to make, end up getting thrown out of my house or tighten the reins which means things like a subscription to an LVGL editor is not going to be in the budget.

By having that Opensource tier provides a way for someone that cannot afford to pay for a subscription to be able to get to use the software.

I personally feel that it would be great if you offered this and I am sure there are others that would agree as well.

[AndreCostaaa]

Hi @kdschlosser

I think you will be happy to know that the free tier for open-source projects is part of the pricing options. See here Pricing - LVGL Pro

We’re looking into how we can help freelancers who want to create commercial products

[kdschlosser]

What I was suggesting would keep everyone honest. where OpenSource projects would be able to have access to an unrestricted version (just not get any support) and to get that they would need to request it. As we all know there is nothing that is “free” in this world so having some tasks the person needs to accomplish like spreading the LVGL name is not a bad thing to have the person do. they send in a request with a link to the opensource repo and links to where the person has spoke about LVGL and provided a link to the LVGL website or repo.

The one thing that is a big tripping point with what you posted is the “Changes cannot be saved”… That’s a HUGE limit to be able to use it.

[kdschlosser]

Then you can have a “free” version that has limits like the not being able to save, or limiting the number of objects that can be added to the UI. I wouldn’t do a limit on screens I would do a simple across the board limit on the objects.

The next step up which is paid would remove the not being able to save and it would increase the number of objects they are able to add to a UI…

so if there is a limit of 100 objects and a person wants to create 50 screen each having a single label on it then that would be OK because it is in the 100 object limit.

Things like a list drop down would have an object for each element in the list plus the one for the widget itself.

Using the number of objects being able to be added is a good way to go about it. The free version would only have the limit of not being able to save a project. They can create a UI and export it but they will not be able to save the project so they could open it and make changes later on.

The object limit should be done so that if a saved project is opened and if the project has more elements then what they are allowed then an error would pop up and the saved project would end up getting truncated.

[aonsquared]

We’re also a small company and our price range falls somewhere between the “maker” and the “pro” tiers.

You’ll really find that you optimize your revenue if you manage to match pricing segments/pricing metrics with the value seen by the customer - like how Netflix first managed to hit on pricing by number of movies (which the customer valued) rather than the number of days they borrowed a movie (which customers didn’t value - but was used by their competitor Blockbuster).

There’s an excellent book called The Strategy and Tactics of Pricing (Nagle) which explains the concepts very well, I highly recommend it!

[kdschlosser]

Also as much as I would love to use the “Free” Pro version I am not going to give read and write access to all of my repos both public and private and also give them permission to modify any organizations I have set up.

Read the permissions you have to give in order to use it.

[kisvegabor]

Thank you! What would be the model you love the most?

[kisvegabor]

True, that’s something we need to fix asap.

[aonsquared]

I think a possible alternative to screens is segmenting by widgets - so for the “free” tier, unlimited number of screens but only basic widgets available, then higher and higher tiers will have more widgets and other features.

Or, some other things like color depths, etc. Free tier is unlimited, but monochrome only, etc. However the book I mentioned has a really good overview on the whole strategic concepts.