TL;DR
OpenGL is a legend but as a first graphics API to learn in 2025, it teaches bad habits you’ll later have to unlearn. SDL_GPU or WebGPU settle you on the modern path: explicit resources, pipelines, synchronization and validation.
You’ll ship faster, debug less, and your skills will transfer straight to Vulkan / Metal / D3D12.
When you want to enter the world of graphics programming, you may be tempted to learn OpenGL. After all, it’s an API used everywhere, in games, software, demos, and there’s even a chance that the web browser you’re using to read this article uses OpenGL to render it. OpenGL is certainly well-known, and it is often recommended and used in courses and tutorials, but this is a mistake. This API should not be the first thing you learn when you want to make your screen go beep boop.
If you’re new to graphics in 2025, you should start where the industry already lives: explicit, validated, predictable. In this article you’ll see why OpenGL is probably the worst choice for you.
A short history of graphics APIs
Hardware has always dictated how graphics APIs are developed and used. During the early 90s, when GPUs were nothing more than barebones fixed-function rasterizers, OpenGL (1992) and subsequently Direct3D (1995) matured into providing developers with a cross-platform way to tap 3D acceleration. The concept was straightforward: send vertices, mess around with global state, let the driver do its magic. Such “simple but implicit” design made possible the creation of three-dimensional games, thanks to which, CAD programs, and demos’ whole new market.
Over time GPUs gained capabilities and so did graphics APIs.
Around 2002-2004 most GPUs moved beyond fixed-function rasterizers to programmable shaders introduced in OpenGL 2.0 and Direct3D 9.
In 2009 Direct3D 11 introduced a more structured pipeline, multithreading improvements, and tessellation—still relatively high-level and driver-managed.
Between 2008 and 2010s OpenGL 3-4 added a “core profile” tried to modernize by deprecating old immediate mode, while adding compute shaders, instancing, and more—yet the underlying implicit model remained.
In the early 2010s, GPUs got to be massively parallel, general-purpose devices. The “driver does the heavy lifting” approach was turning from a bottleneck into a problem. The industry moved to the explicit APIs, which were created to provide developers with control over memory, synchronization, and command recording.
In 2013 DICE Studio and AMD presented Mantle, the pioneer of low-level, console-style graphics programming on PC.
Right after in 2014 Apple introduced Metal, a streamlined, low-overhead API, focused on tight integration with their GPUs.
Direct3D 12 was release in 2015 with a much more low-level philosophy, ditching much of the hidden state of D3D11.
Finaly in 2016 Vulkan was created from Mantle (which has been donated by AMD to the Khronos group), cross-platform and explicitly modeled after modern GPU architectures.
The change of the shift altered the base philosophy : the “driver, optimize for me” thing was no longer an option. Developers have now to describe the work in pipelines, command buffers, and resource binding contracts. Debugging became more audible but also more predictable, and the performance was something that your mind could work with. Historically, the less advanced APIs were the right choice for their period—they were user-friendly, 3D programming accessible to a broader audience, and they hid the complex hardware part. However, the developers are now facing the same abstractions that are actually the obstacles which slow down their work.
The nostalgia trap
OpenGL was the go-to graphics API for many games, demos, and educational materials. You can see it mentioned in numerous outdated blog posts and video tutorials. However, the world of graphics has changed. New GPUs, and the APIs that interface them, are designed for explicit control: you create pipelines, manually bind resources, issue commands to queues, and consider synchronization. If you start with OpenGL, matters will be quite opposite, as you get acquainted with a more implicit model that is at odds with this.
That “implicit” philosophy will cost you :
- Global state & hidden magic → easy to start, hard to reason about.
- Undefined behavior → quirks vary by driver and platform.
- Feature mismatch → compute, multithreaded recording, and memory control are either add-ons or inconsistent.
Meet the modern on-ramps
“Okay OpenGL is bad today but I don’t want to learn Vulkan now, it is far too complex.”
Well, there are some well-designed, recent APIs that fall right in between in terms of complexity but embodies today’s GPU model : explicit, validated, pipeline and device centric, compute-first.
Allow me to introduce SDL GPU and WebGPU.
SDL GPU is a clean C API that feels like the big three (Vulkan/Metal/D3D12) without the boilerplate wall. It integrates seamlessly with SDL’s window/input/audio stack, so you can concentrate on GPU concepts rather than platform glue.
WebGPU is a safety-first, spec-driven API that runs in browsers as well as in native apps via implementations (e.g., Dawn/wgpu). Thus, you receive modern GPU manipulation model with zero-install distribution when you target the web.
“But what those APIs have in common that OpenGL doesn’t ?”
Modernity.
They are built around modern and lower level concepts that OpenGL is meant to abstract :
- Explicit devices and queues : you communicate with a device, submit to queues, and you can trace where the work has been sent.
- Command recording : you create and build command buffers (or encoders) and then submit them to the GPU. There is no globally hidden state machine god-like that changes things without your knowledge.
- Pipeline objects : shaders + fixed-function bits are combined into immutable pipelines that you create beforehand (nice for speed and predictability).
- Resource binding by contract : bind groups / descriptor sets / argument buffers—similar ideas but different names—are “what is bound where” easier to understand.
- Validation as a feature : errors are caught quickly and loudly. You find out quicker since the API tells you what and why, not just “driver crashed :sadge:”.
- Compute as a first-class citizen : use your GPU to perform general purpose computations.
“Why does it matters ?”
It matters because :
- You’ll learn fundamental concepts
Those “Queues”, “Command buffers”, “Descriptor sets” you’ll be faced with are real concepts that usually were hidden in drivers for older APIs. - You’ll learn the good vocabulary
“Devices”. “Queues”. “Command buffers”. “Pipelines”. “Bind groups/descriptors”. Once these click, Vulkan/Metal/D3D12 feel familiar instead of alien. - Debugging is easier to be understood by a person
WebGPU is especially made to detect errors before they lead the driver. That means fewer “works on my machine” riddles and more helpful mistakes while you learn. - Compute is not separated
The compute path is first-class for particles, tiled lighting, post-processing, small ML inference. You can’t be stopped at the point where you go beyond “draw a triangle” land.
“But OpenGL is easier…”
Early on, yes. Drawing your first triangle with OpenGL feels simpler and quicker but the curve bends the wrong way :
- You’ll encounter state leaks as soon as you add a second pass.
- Multithreading and explicit memory management? We’ve got 27 extensions for that 👀.
- Performance tuning becomes hours of weird tweaking because the driver hides too much.
Starting modern is harder on day one but way smoother by week two.
Conclusion: learn where the future lives
OpenGL and other similar software were the perfect tools they could be at their time. They gave developers their first spinning cube, their first game, and their first shader experiment, among others. However, holding on to them nowadays is almost like saying new programmers must always begin with punch cards - undoubtedly crucial in the past but no longer compatible with how current systems work.
If your intention is to become a better graphics programmer in 2025, then you should allocate your time in the place where the industry is already: APIs that are explicit, validated, and predictable. This can be Vulkan, Metal, Direct3D 12, or even some more accessible modern ramps like WebGPU and SDL GPU for beginners, in any case, you will be learning the same concepts that directly correspond to the hardware of the real GPU and the real production code.
In this case, you shouldn’t be nostalgic or fall victim to the outdated tutorials. Simply move on from OpenGL as it is in the history books and demo archives. Beginning with the present-day graphics will not only help you grasp the current ones but also enable you to cope with the graphics of the next 10 years.