System requirements

Lepton runs on Linux, and on Windows through WebView2 in the 0.1.9 beta. macOS is not supported. The floors below come from the tools themselves, checked on 2026-10-17; they are not guesses at what usually works.

Linux

	Needs	Why
Kernel	5.10 or newer	Zig 0.16, which the core is written in, supports Linux 5.10 and newer.
Display	Wayland or X11	The core opens its own window on either.
Web engine (webview apps)	WPE WebKit 2.54 or newer, with its WPE Platform API	The API the core uses; stable and on by default since 2.54. Native apps need no engine.
To build WPE WebKit 2.54	GLib 2.70, ICU 70.1, GStreamer 1.18.4, Wayland 1.20, libinput 1.19; Clang 18 or GCC 12	WebKit’s own build checks. This is what decides which distributions can have 2.54 at all.
Servo instead (--servo, experimental) 0.1.9-beta.2	Linux x86-64, X11 (XWayland on Wayland); @lepton-desk/servo-linux-x64 in the project; libX11 and libxkbcommon with their headers (libx11-dev libxkbcommon-dev on Debian and Ubuntu; part of libx11 and libxkbcommon on Arch)	Servo draws into the core’s X11 window, and the core reads keys through Xlib and xkbcommon. Windows always uses WebView2.

To develop, add Zig 0.16 or 0.17, Node 20 or newer, and npm, pnpm, Yarn or Bun. lepton info checks all of it. 0.1.9-beta.2 The CLI takes the first of zig, zig-0.17 and zig-0.16 on PATH that is 0.16 or 0.17, or the one LEPTON_ZIG names, and says so when it finds only another version. Both build the same core, plugins and projects (measured: core tests, a webview app with every plugin, a native app, and the Windows build, with each).

The CLI on Arch 0.1.7

npm create lepton-app works on every distribution. On Arch the CLI is also packaged: lepton-desk builds it from source, lepton-desk-bin installs the binary published to npm, and both pull in WPE WebKit. Arch’s zig is 0.17, so both depend on the AUR’s zig0.16-bin, which installs Zig 0.16 in /opt/zig0.16 beside the system Zig; lepton-desk hands that one to the CLI, and the system’s zig can be upgraded. New AUR accounts are closed for now, so until the packages are on the AUR, build them from the repository (makepkg does not fetch AUR dependencies itself):

paru -S zig0.16-bin
git clone https://github.com/lepton-desk/lepton.git
cd lepton/packaging/aur/lepton-desk-bin && makepkg -si

The command is lepton-desk (lepton-desk new my-app): the AUR’s lepton is Dropbox’s JPEG compressor and owns /usr/bin/lepton, so the two install side by side. Inside a project the lepton script runs the project’s own CLI, as with any install.

WPE WebKit by distribution

Distribution	WPE WebKit 2.54
Arch, EndeavourOS, Manjaro	wpewebkit from the distribution
openSUSE Tumbleweed	wpewebkit-devel from the distribution
Debian testing and unstable	libwpewebkit-2.0-dev from the distribution
Ubuntu 24.04, 26.04, 26.10	not packaged by Ubuntu; from Lepton’s own repository, being set up
Fedora 43, 44, 45	retired by Fedora; from Lepton’s own repository, being set up
Debian 13 (trixie)	the distribution has 2.48.3; its libraries are new enough for 2.54, so a Lepton build is possible but not offered yet
Debian 12 (bookworm), Ubuntu 22.04	libraries meet 2.54’s minimums, some only just; not offered yet
Ubuntu 20.04 and older	no: GLib 2.64 is below what 2.54 needs

Where the engine is missing, lepton info asks your package manager what it can install and prints the command. 0.1.5 lepton build, dev and run do the same before a webview build and, on a terminal, offer to run it.

Packaged apps

A package built with lepton package is linked against the libraries of the machine that built it, so it runs on that distribution and newer ones, not older ones. Building for older distributions means building on them; that is planned with Lepton’s CI, not done yet.

Windows 0.1.9-beta.0

Through WebView2, the Chromium-based engine that comes with Windows; your app does not carry it. The core finds the installed runtime itself, so no WebView2Loader.dll ships with the app. Building needs Zig 0.16 or 0.17 and Node 20 or newer, as on Linux; lepton info checks for the runtime. Packages are a .zip and, on request, an MSI made without WiX that installs per user, without admin rights (Packaging). The os, fs and dialog plugins were measured there 0.1.9-beta.1, and clipboard 0.1.9-beta.2: all four end to end in a WebView2 app, fs.watch included. The native render path runs there too 0.1.9-beta.2: a Win32 window drawn on the CPU with DirectWrite text, at 60 frames a second; drawing on the GPU (D3D11) is next. Not there yet: MSIX. Installers are not signed, so Windows shows its SmartScreen warning.

• Windows 10 (1709 and later, and the LTSC releases) and Windows 11: the versions Microsoft supports WebView2 on.
• Windows 8.1, 8 and 7: not supported. WebView2 stopped at version 109 on them in January 2023 and gets no security fixes there; a web app on an unpatched engine would put its users at risk. Zig 0.16 also supports Windows 10 and newer only. A web view app says it needs Windows 10 or 11 in a message box when it starts there, and stops 0.1.9-beta.3, instead of failing where the page should be. Native apps are built for Windows 7 SP1 and later, but do not start there yet: Zig’s standard library imports Windows 8 functions, and Lepton’s own system layer that would replace them is planned.

macOS: not supported

Lepton does not support macOS and does not plan to. Signing and notarizing for macOS needs a paid Apple developer account, and testing needs Mac hardware; Lepton cannot keep that up. lepton build --macos is refused with that reason.