This table is based on research by Team Vuo. It covers built-in features, not necessarily third-party add-ons. If you notice any inaccuracies, please send us a correction.

SDK for developing custom nodes SDK for running compositions within other applications Text languages Source code license
Vuo

✔
All Vuo nodes, built-in and custom, use the same first-class API

✔
Vuo provides well-documented APIs for C++ and Cocoa

C
C++
Objective-C
GLSL

Part proprietary, part open source
Isadora

✔

No

C
C++
GLSL
Javascript

Proprietary
Max

✔

No
Except by special arrangement with Cycling '74

C
GLSL
Java
JavaScript

Proprietary
Processing

✔

✔
Sketches can be run as applets or PApplets

Java
Python

Open source
Pure Data

✔

Partial
Audio synthesis compositions can be embedded using libpd

C
GLSL

Open source
Quartz Composer

Partial
Apple provides an incomplete public API for third-party patches

✔
Cocoa API

C
C++
Objective-C
GLSL
OpenCL
JavaScript

Proprietary
TouchDesigner

✔

No

Python
Tscript
C++
GLSL

Proprietary
vvvv

✔

No

C#
HLSL

Part proprietary, part open source