Mako UI specs
Requirements, platform details, measurement notes and the sources behind every comparison on the main page.
Engines & platforms
| Host | Requirements |
|---|---|
| Unity | Unity 6 (6000.0+) with the Input System package (1.7+). Full-screen overlays use the URP Render Feature (URP 17+) or the HDRP Custom Pass (HDRP 12+). Canvas widgets, world-space panels and editor windows are included. |
| Unreal Engine | Built for Unreal Engine 5.8. HUD overlays, UMG widgets, world-space panels and Slate editor tabs share one API. Each release lists its compatible engine versions. |
| Custom C++ | C++20 core behind a versioned C ABI. Your engine implements the render backend (IRenderBackend) and host services (IPlatformBridge); shaders ship in HLSL. |
| Target | Notes |
|---|---|
| Windows · macOS · Linux | Runtime and Studio editor. |
| iOS · Android | Runtime. Validate content loading, input and rendering on your target devices for each release. |
| PlayStation 5 · Xbox Series X|S · Nintendo Switch 2 | Runtime, delivered through the platform holders’ NDA channels to registered developers. Talk to us about console access. |
Runtime
CSS coverage
Mako parses 274 CSS properties; an internal source audit found that 228 of them affect the rendered UI today. Support can vary by value and selector. Layout covers Flexbox, CSS Grid (spans, named areas), tables and container queries.
Scripting
ES modules with a DOM API, Web Workers, iframes with their own script realm, CSS animations and the Web Animations API. Scripts can run from source (hot reload) or ship as precompiled bytecode or native code. Each UI has a script time budget.
Input, text & accessibility
Gamepad focus navigation, keyboard and pointer input are built in, with IME and virtual keyboards for text entry; test text entry with your target OS input methods. Text uses HarfBuzz shaping, bidirectional text and CJK line breaking. An accessibility tree is available to tools and Studio audits; native screen-reader output is not available yet. Unity renders emoji in monochrome.
Media & embedded documents
Video and audio use AV1, VP8, VP9, Opus, Vorbis, FLAC and WAV, plus the codecs in your platform package. Embedded iframes keep their own UI state and run in the same process. <mako-viewport> displays render-to-texture scenes from your engine.
Debugging
Chrome DevTools connects over the DevTools protocol for DOM inspection, live CSS editing, the console and script sources. Script breakpoints are not available yet.
Studio, Figma & Mako Agent
Studio runs inside the Unity and Unreal editors and as a standalone app. It is stripped from player builds. Hot reload applies local source edits while the UI runs; compiled scripts and packaged content go through your normal build.
Figma. The “Send to Mako UI” plugin pairs with Studio. Updates merge property by property: a property changed only in Figma takes Figma’s value, one changed only in Studio keeps Studio’s, and a property changed on both sides is shown as a conflict. Data bindings, localization keys, gamepad navigation, events, components and ids belong to Studio and are never overwritten. Figma component states become CSS states.
Mako Agent runs Claude or OpenAI models through an API key or an existing Claude Pro/Max or ChatGPT sign-in. It works in plan, guided or accept-edits mode, and every edit is undoable through Studio’s history.
Performance
CPU: reference HUD, 11 July 2026, MacOS-MakoCI. Three runs, 95th-percentile frame time: 0.8055, 0.8100 and 0.8111 ms. Covers native update, layout, paint and draw-list construction; excludes host and GPU time. Comparable measurements for the other UI systems have not been recorded.
Sharing: native runtime test, 5 September 2026: 1, 2, 4 and 8 panels retain the same 22 source assets (30.65 MiB). This measures shared source data, not total RAM or VRAM. Decoded-image caches have eviction budgets; active images and uploads can exceed those budgets.
Image lifecycle: visibility and zero opacity skip paint. The Unity renderer removes unused static images when their final reference is released. External textures and media have their own lifecycle. The current implementation loads every mipmap level of an image.
Unity and Unreal also provide streaming for supported resources.
Gates: the reference HUD has a 1 ms p95 budget on the CPU UI pass in CI; a release that exceeds it is blocked. Windows CI measured the same HUD at 0.838–0.842 ms p95 (August 2026). GPU text renders at about 0.02 ms per glyph.
Comparison sources
Reading the matrix: Each mark refers to the named feature. A note identifies a separate tool, a version requirement or a different workflow. CSS Grid means the CSS layout system; other tools have their own grid layouts. “Not documented” means the reviewed documentation does not establish the feature.
Scope: Mako’s AI row covers Mako Agent and Smart Templates built from your current screen and theme. Noesis imports vector artwork as SVG and requires a source for background effects. UI Toolkit backdrop filters require Unity 6.6+ and screen space. Prysm is a separate Coherent product with an Adobe Animate workflow.
Unity AI Assistant (beta) can create UI Toolkit UI from a Figma design. Separate plugins exist for the other systems; each has its own supported features.