The 2026 LunarG Vulkan Ecosystem Survey received 360 responses — nearly 30% more than last year. With 49% commercial developers and 71% rating themselves as regular, advanced, or expert users, the feedback was practical and insightful.
Here are some of the most common requests and our responses, aimed at sharing what’s already available or improved in the current Vulkan SDK and tools.
SDK Updates
Feedback: “I only update the SDK when I need a new feature. There’s rarely a reason otherwise, and updates can cause breakage or new validation errors.”
Reply: Newer SDKs are fully backwards compatible. You don’t need to target Vulkan 1.4 to benefit. The biggest value in every release is the improved Khronos Validation Layers — better coverage, clearer error messages, and more robust checking, even for older API versions. Those “new errors” usually catch real issues that improve your code quality.
Feedback: “But updating can cause some instability and cost…”
Reply: Updating the SDK will likely cause new validation errors. This is due to the validation layers constantly improving in coverage and bug fixes. Validating your application with the newer validation errors and addressing the issues will improve the quality of your Vulkan application.
Feedback: “SDK updates feel manual and time-consuming. Better management (auto-update, easy cleanup of old versions) would help.”
Reply: We’re exploring improved SDK management tools. In the meantime, the installer and Linux tarball (now used by 53% of respondents) make updates straightforward for most workflows.
Feedback: “I would like a minimal zip file, or tar ball, for all platforms, that contains only what is needed to compile a Vulkan application. This would be for easier packaging of Vulkan as a dependency.”
Reply: The ability to do this already exists on Windows and macOS. In the getting started guide for Windows it states “There is an option to only copy the SDK files and not perform any operations to the registry such as setting up new layers, creating shortcuts, and adjustments to the system path. For the copy only option, append copy_only=1 to the end of the command line installer executable.” On macOS, you can omit the “System Global” optional package, or leave it out of the command line installer list of packages to include.
Validation Layers
Feedback: “Validation error messages are still unclear, and GPU-AV performance often prevents daily use.”
Reply: Error messages have improved noticeably (fewer complaints this year). Synchronization Validation is in good shape and can be enabled with a single click in vkconfig. GPU-Assisted Validation (GPU-AV) continues to mature and is getting better, though we agree it needs more work before recommending it for everyday heavy use.
Feedback: “I wish the validation layer caught more synchronization issues out of the box.”
Reply: Synchronization validation is already one of the strongest tools available and can be turned on quickly in vkconfig.
Feedback: “Add more detailed information to vkconfig to show what each feature does.”
Reply: vkconfig currently has documentation on each feature that is shown when you hover over its button.
Feedback: “Descriptions for all the layer settings would be good.”
Reply: You can right click on each layer setting and a pop-up will show you a detailed description of the layer setting.
Feedback: “Please provide documentation on how to build an application with validation layers, but without using global system variables, or libraries.”
See the Configuring Vulkan Layers white paper.
Tools & Getting Started
Feedback: “The Vulkan Configurator is hard to find or use. It should make enabling layers and drivers simpler.”
Reply: The latest vkconfig features an improved interface with a dedicated Drivers tab for quick Lavapipe integration and checkbox-style layer settings (including sync validation). Check your applications menu after installing the SDK.
Feedback: “We still need better documentation, modern samples, and tutorials.”
Reply: This remains a top request, and the Khronos Vulkan WG documentation and samples project is actively investing in improvements.
GFXReconstruct
Feedback: “I don’t use GFXReconstruct…I’m not familiar with it.”
Reply: Use it! Or use a tool built on top of it! It’s an amazing tool for debugging, testing, and profiling. It is the foundation for tools like Samsung’s Sokotoa and Arm’s Frame Advisor.
Shading Ecosystem
Feedback: “GLSL feels limited. Better support or easier options for modern shading languages would be great.”
Reply: Slang has seen impressive growth — now the preferred shading language for 42% of respondents (up from ~27% in 2025) and used by 40% as the tool of choice for generating SPIR-V. The SDK works seamlessly with Slang alongside glslang/glslc.
Apple Platforms
Feedback : “We really need a better or more native Vulkan-to-Metal driver on Apple platforms.”
Reply: 60% of respondents rated a Vulkan-to-Metal driver as must-have or nice-to-have. KosmicKrisp (the Mesa-based driver) is rapidly approaching feature parity with MoltenVK. Awareness is now at 56%, with 33% already adopting or planning to adopt it. OS26+ and ARM64-only support have not been significant barriers for most.
General
Feedback : “I really need XXX and it’s not there.”
Reply: Please file an issue in the appropriate Github repo. This allows us to follow up with questions and clarifications. Creating these feature requests is a constructive way to help us improve things for everyone.
Thank You!
Thank you to all 360 respondents for your honest feedback. Your comments — even the repeated ones — directly shape priorities for validation layers, tools, documentation, and platform support.
Many of the improvements you’re asking for are already here or closer than they appear. We encourage you to try the latest SDK, explore the updated vkconfig, enable synchronization validation, and test KosmicKrisp where it fits your needs.
Download the full 2026 LunarG Vulkan Ecosystem Survey Report to see all graphs, comments, and details.
If something still feels missing, reach out on Khronos Vulkan Slack, Discord, or GitHub.
Happy (well-validated) Vulkan coding!
