Ask HN: Any true alternatives to electron JavaScript?
I see companies having codebase in Tauri going back to electron - is this a common thing?
There is Slint - https://github.com/slint-ui/slint/
- UI renders natively (without a browser)
- Slint uses a declarative UI that should be intuitive to use for developers / designers / agents.
- Can be interfaced from different languages such as Rust / JS / TS / Python
(disclaimer, I am working for Slint)
I use a 1MB Rust shell with a webview (wry and winit). It works wonders
Drop a SQLite db if you want a quick portable app, or postgresql if something more robust on your server.
Tell your AI of choice [2] to create a TODO rust app [1] in html, css and js using wry and winit and you'll see what I mean, a thing of beauty
[1] https://github.com/kuyawa/todo-rust
[2] https://github.com/kuyawa/todo-rust/blob/main/prompt.txt
Tauri is solid, but after 10 years of navigating the space and shipping desktop apps. My best advice is JUST USE ELECTRON. I know! it hurts to ship a bloated shell, but it works like charm
What are the issues you had that pulled you away from tauri?
for one, tauri uses the webview of the host operating system, which means you're exposed to probably, 100+ different versions of edge, safari, webkit or whatever linux is doing.
For littler personal projects, I’ve used python’s webview to avoid having to bundle a whole browser when the app (it uses the operating system’s default engine). It also didn’t require a learn a whole framework… I could just hook a web front end to some python functions, and run it as a desktop app.
Yesterday was kicking the tires on https://helixnotes.com/, a Tauri app. It's really slick and performance is really good. Loads fast, opens quick, etc.
So, I see that as evidence that Tauri is really solid.
Tauri, electrobun, React Native for Desktop, Flutter, actually building a proper native app... there's loads of alternatives.
I maintain a Tauri app. It's fine. I've not seen any reason to go back to Electron.
Sciter[1] has been around for a while and ships much smaller executables.
[1]: https://sciter.com/
I don't think that it's a common thing. There are many alternatives like MoBrowser, Electrobun, Wails. The choice depends on the project requirements.
I had good luck with Avalonia UI and F#. I don’t understand either, but Claude nailed it.
So many, Flutter being one, as well as Rust GUIs like egui, iced, Dioxus Native etc.
Not for a company app, where support and maturity count.
tauri if you still want a web ui, otherwise iced/egui and skip the browser stack
egui is very neat indeed. With agentic coding, Rust UI dev is as easy as electron dev without the bloat. Electron was relevant when we had to manually code stuff.
yeah once agents can spit out the egui layout the packaging story is still the hard part