What Features and Supported Languages/Platforms Does the Meson Build System Offer?

Updated

Meson is an open source build system designed to be extremely fast and as user-friendly as possible. It is a good fit if you want readable build definitions, fast full and incremental builds, and support for multiple platforms and languages — including cross-compilation and bare-metal targets. Its stated design point is that time spent writing or debugging build definitions, or waiting for the build system to start compiling, is wasted.

Platform and toolchain support

Meson advertises multiplatform support, including:

  • Operating systems: Linux, macOS, Windows
  • Toolchains/compilers: GCC, Clang, Visual Studio, and others

It also supports cross compilation for many operating systems as well as bare metal targets.

Supported languages

The supported languages listed on the site include:

  • C
  • C++
  • C#
  • D
  • Fortran
  • Java
  • Rust

Build definition language

Build definitions are written in a very readable, user-friendly, non-Turing complete DSL. The non-Turing complete design is relevant if you care about keeping build files simple and predictable rather than embedding arbitrary program logic in them.

Build performance and correctness

Meson is optimized for extremely fast full and incremental builds without sacrificing correctness. This matters if you rebuild often and want quick feedback without giving up reliable results.

Dependencies

Meson includes a built-in multiplatform dependency provider that works together with distro packages. This is useful when your project depends on libraries already packaged by your Linux distribution or other package sources.

Documentation and learning resources

The site organizes its material into:

  • Overview — what Meson is and its main design goals
  • Features — the capability list summarized above
  • Quickstart for beginners — a guide aimed at absolute beginners to programming
  • Tutorials — including building a Gtk app from scratch and building an SDL app from scratch
  • Manual — the usage manual, API reference manual, modules documentation, FAQ, and release notes

There is also a dedicated page, The Absolute Beginner's Guide to Installing and Using Meson, plus a Quickstart Guide, a Tutorial, and a Building a simple SDL2 app from scratch GUI tutorial. For reference work, the site provides a reference manual, reference tables, style recommendations, and a Meson file rewriter.

Community and development

  • Chat: the #mesonbuild channel via Matrix (web interface) or OFTC IRC
  • General discussion: the Discussions section of the Meson GitHub repository
  • Development: all development happens on the GitHub project; contribution instructions are on the contribution page, and no CLA is required to contribute
  • Release process: covered separately on the Releasing page

The site also lists projects using Meson as learning resources for converting existing projects, and invites success stories and improvement feedback.

When Meson is a reasonable choice

Consider Meson if your project:

  • Targets Linux, macOS, or Windows with GCC, Clang, or Visual Studio
  • Uses one or more of C, C++, C#, D, Fortran, Java, or Rust
  • Needs cross-compilation or bare-metal builds
  • Benefits from a readable, non-Turing complete build DSL
  • Wants fast full and incremental builds without sacrificing correctness
  • Relies on distro-packaged dependencies through a built-in dependency provider

If you are new to programming entirely, the beginner guide and quickstart are the intended starting points rather than the full manual.