Build Systems

Most Qt Creator project wizards enable you to choose the build system to use for building the project: qmake, CMake, Meson, or Qbs. qmake is installed and configured when you install Qt. To use one of the other supported build systems, you need to set it up, as described in the following sections:

• Setting Up CMake

  CMake is an alternative to qmake for automating the generation of build configurations.

• Setting Up Qbs

  Qbs is an all-in-one build tool that generates a build graph from a high-level project description (like qmake or CMake do) and executes the commands in the low-level build graph (like make does).

• Setting Up an Autotools Project

  Qt Creator can open projects that use the Autotools build system. You can build and run the projects directly from Qt Creator.

• Setting Up a Generic Project

  Qt Creator supports generic projects, so you can import existing projects that do not use qmake or CMake. This enables you to use Qt Creator as a code editor and to fully control the steps and commands used to build the project.

• Setting Up Nimble

  The experimental Nim plugin integrates the Nimble package manager for generating Nim application executables that are supported on Windows, Linux, and macOS.

• Setting Up Meson

  Meson is an open source build system meant to be both extremely fast, and, even more importantly, as user friendly as possible.

• Setting Up IncrediBuild

  IncrediBuild decreases the time it takes to build C++ code.

• Setting Up Conan

  The experimental Conan plugin integrates the Conan package manager that speeds up the integration of C or C++ libraries into your project. You can use Conan with most build systems integrated into Qt Creator.