std::thread pthread boost::thread

14 down vote accepted

If you want to run code on many platforms, go for Posix Threads. They are available almost everywhere and are quite mature. OTOH if you only use Linux/gcc std::thread is perfectly fine - it has a higher abstraction level, a really good interface and plays nicely with other C++11 classes. The C++11 std::thread class unfortunately doesn't work reliable (yet) an every platform, even if C++11 seems available. For instance in native Android std::thread or Win64 it just does not work or has severe performance bottlenecks (as of 2012). A good replacement is boost::thread - it is very similar to std::thread (actually it is from the same author) and works reliable, but of course it introduces another dependency from a third party library.

14 down vote accepted

If you want to run code on many platforms, go for Posix Threads. They are available almost everywhere and are quite mature. OTOH if you only use Linux/gcc std::thread is perfectly fine - it has a higher abstraction level, a really good interface and plays nicely with other C++11 classes. The C++11 std::thread class unfortunately doesn't work reliable (yet) an every platform, even if C++11 seems available. For instance in native Android std::thread or Win64 it just does not work or has severe performance bottlenecks (as of 2012). A good replacement is boost::thread - it is very similar to std::thread (actually it is from the same author) and works reliable, but of course it introduces another dependency from a third party library.