Alternatives to GLEW / Is GLEW neccessary?

[Areyan]

Hi,

I'm only trying to use GLEW because a lot of tutorial-makers are so fond of it, however since it constantly annoys me with linking-errors whenever I try to compile anything where GLEW is used, no matter what I do to fix it, I'm starting to get a bit sick of it.

Due to that I'm wondering wether GLEW is actually neccessary, or if there's any good alternatives to GLEW?

I wouldn't mind going a bit more low-level if neccessary, as long as I may still be able to achieve most things OpenGL.

Thanks in advance for any useful replies