Boost

Boost threads is a relatively small part of the Boost collection of libraries. It was, however, used as the basis for what became the multithreading implementation in C++11, similar to how other Boost libraries ultimately made it, fully or partially, into new C++ standards. Refer to the C++ threads section in this chapter for details on the multithreading API.

Features missing in the C++11 standard, which are available in Boost threads, include the following:

• Thread groups (like Windows jobs)
• Thread interruption (cancellation)
• Thread join with timeout
• Additional mutual exclusion lock types (improved with C++14)

Unless one absolutely needs such features, or if one cannot use a compiler which supports the C++11 standard (including STL threads), there is little reason to use Boost threads over the C++11 implementation.

Since Boost provides wrappers around native OS features, using native C++ threads would likely reduce overhead depending on the quality of the STL implementation.