Based on your dependencies and programming style it might be less or more, but it sounds not unreasonable. I wrote the same program in two environments once: C

Based on your dependencies and programming style it might be less or more, but it sounds not unreasonable. I wrote the same program in two environments once: C++ with stdlib and boost, and C++ purely using QT abstractions. The second one already compiled in 1/5th of the time. I guess that's because with QT the headers are small because most implementations are hidden behind pointers (PIMPL), while with boost you often pull in lots of code through headers and compile dozens of specializations of similar types to avoid indirection costs.