The Qt Project has released Qt Creator 18, the latest stable version of its open-source integrated development environment. This update, arriving over four months after version 17, introduces experimental support for development containers and various enhancements to Git integration and project management. It is available for GNU/Linux, macOS, and Windows.
Qt Creator 18 marks a significant update to the free, cross-platform IDE designed for developing applications with the Qt framework. Released on October 30, 2025, the new version builds on its predecessor with features aimed at improving developer workflows.
A key addition is experimental support for development containers. The IDE now automatically detects a “devcontainer.json” file in a project directory and creates a Docker container for it, facilitating containerized development environments.
User interface improvements include an Overview tab in the Welcome mode, merged notifications within progress pop-ups, and an option under Environment > Interface to enable tabbed editors. GitHub Copilot now supports GitHub Enterprise environments.
Git functionality has been enhanced with actions for files in the commit editor, a performance boost for version control state updates, and visualization of version control states in both the File System and Projects views.
For project handling, Qt Creator 18 adds support for CMake Test Presets and a new auto-connect setting for remote Linux devices, allowing users to verify and connect devices on startup. A Build & Run > General > Keep run configurations in sync setting synchronizes configurations across kits.
Device management sees settings for on-device tools integrated into device configurations, with an auto-detection option. Project-specific “.user” files are now stored in a “.qtcreator/” subdirectory. Build and Run settings in Projects mode have shifted to tabs, separating Deploy Settings from Run Settings.
Under the hood, prebuilt binaries update Clangd/LLVM to version 21.1, and the built-in code model includes fixes for newer C++ features. Numerous small improvements and bug fixes round out the release.
Developers can download Qt Creator 18 from the official website, including .run installers for 64-bit and AArch64 Linux systems, as well as a source tarball for compilation.