The Qt framework was created in 1991 by a company named Trolltech (now called the Qt Company). The KDE Linux desktop is based on Qt and its increase in popularity may be a key reason why Qt development became more widespread. As a platform that's, in part, aimed at embedded devices, the typical developers using Qt are different to those for the GTK+ framework. Additionally, the tooling and support available is better developed due to their commercial backing.

The Qt framework is released in two separate distributions, one commercial and one open source (known as dual licensing). In this manner, they can support open source-compliant applications for free, while providing unrestricted usage for closed source commercial projects. Before the year 2000 (with the release of 2.2), the source code for the free distribution had been under various licenses that some groups considered incompatible with common open source initiatives. For the 2.2 release, it was changed to GPL licensing, which settled any concerns about the group's commitment to true open source freedoms. In 2007, Qt 4.5 was released and they added LGPL as an option for developers who prefer the more permissive license.

In 2011, the Nokia company founded the Qt Project in a move to open up the development and road map of the Qt libraries. Qt's largest market is in embedded devices, such as cars and appliances, the technology being utilized by large companies such as Tesla and Mercedes Benz:

The Go bindings by therecipe (whose real name isn't attached to the project), along with many contributors, aims to bring the Qt API along with its substantial list of supported platforms to the Go language. The project supports building applications for Windows, macOS, and Linux desktop computers but also Android, iOS, and many other mobile and embedded devices.