Boost (C++ libraries)

Boost is a set of libraries for the C++ programming language that provides support for tasks and structures such as linear algebra, pseudorandom number generation, multithreading, image processing, regular expressions, and unit testing. It contains 164 individual libraries (as of version 1.76).

All of the Boost libraries are licensed under the Boost Software License, designed to allow Boost to be used with both free and proprietary software projects. Many of Boost's founders are on the C++ standards committee, and several Boost libraries have been accepted for incorporation into the C++ Technical Report 1, the C++11 standard (e.g. smart pointers, thread, regex, random, ratio, tuple) and the C++17 standard (e.g. filesystem, any, optional, variant, string_view).

The Boost community emerged around 1998, when the first version of the standard was released. It has grown continuously since then and now plays a big role in the standardization of C++. Even though there is no formal relationship between the Boost community and the standardization committee, some of the developers are active in both groups.