Quick answer: they aren’t really rivals. They stack.
- UMG is where almost everyone should start: visual widget editor, Blueprint logic.
- Common UI sits on top of UMG and adds gamepad navigation, input routing and menu stacks. Use it for console or gamepad games.
- Slate is the C++ layer underneath both. Use it for editor tools or custom widgets UMG can’t do.
How they fit together
Every UMG widget is a wrapper around a Slate widget. When you place a Button in the UMG designer, Unreal draws a Slate button for you. Common UI is a plugin of extra UMG widgets and rules built on top. So choosing Common UI or Slate doesn’t mean giving up UMG; it means adding a layer.
UMG: the default
Good for: HUDs, menus, inventory screens, mobile UI, prototypes.
- Visual designer with drag and drop, anchors and animations.
- Logic in Blueprint or C++.
- Designers and artists can work on it without code.
Drawbacks: gamepad and keyboard focus is fiddly to get right on your own. Very large or dynamic layouts, like a piano roll with thousands of notes, can get slow if every item is its own widget.
Common UI: for gamepad and console
Good for: games that need to feel right on a controller.
- Menus that know which one is active and route input to it.
- Platform-correct button icons (Xbox, PlayStation, keyboard).
- Back-button handling and screen stacks.
Drawbacks: more setup and concepts up front. For a mouse-only PC game or a small mobile game, it can be more than you need.
Slate: for tools and special widgets
Good for: editor tools, editor panels and widgets with custom drawing.
- Full control over layout, drawing and input.
- What the Unreal Editor itself is built with.
Drawbacks: C++ only, with its own syntax, and slower to iterate on. Our custom widgets tutorial shows what it looks like.
Which one should you use?
| You’re building | Use |
|---|---|
| A PC game menu and HUD | UMG |
| A console or gamepad game | UMG + Common UI |
| An editor tool | Slate, or UMG in an Editor Utility Widget |
| A custom widget UMG doesn’t have | Slate, wrapped so you can use it in UMG |
| An app-style UI (panels, timelines, windows) | UMG with custom widgets or a UI plugin |
Many games mix them: UMG for screens, Common UI for input, and one or two Slate widgets wrapped for UMG where performance matters.
We built the missing app-style widgets in our Enhanced UI plugin.
FAQ
Is Slate faster than UMG?
UMG runs on Slate, so the difference is small for normal screens. It matters when you draw thousands of items: a single custom Slate widget that paints them all is much faster than thousands of UMG widgets.
Can I use UMG widgets in editor tools?
Yes, through Editor Utility Widgets, or inside Slate.
Do I need C++ for Common UI?
No. It works from Blueprint, though some setup lives in project settings and data assets.