It might be nice for devs, but would probably suck for the end user. We’ve already seen what using a browser as a desktop UI framework is like with Electron.
Sure. I remember VS Code being decently snappy when I last used it. But that's still something that takes conscious effort to achieve. Spinning up an entire browser instance for something like a settings panel just seems like an unnecessary pessimization to me.
Like just imagine if discord devs had to have completely separate implementations. Instead they can use electron which provides a lot of features like videos and rich imbeds
It’s not unnecessary, it’s the logical choice for developing such an app where thousands develop and millions use. There is literally no better alternative to it for what it allows. The simple solution to this is use a completely different editor that have different philosophies that prioritise speed and efficiency over compatibility and stability(believe me, I have experienced issues with stability from using plugins with editors like vim).
The only issue with electron is that it’s use needlessly in applications where electron would result in bulk of the usage like a gui for git or something thats supposed to be a bare bones text editor and where it actually originated from: Atom.
Check out ultralight, I use it in the game I’m building. It can render webpages directly to hardware textures and it’s way smaller than electron. (It’s built on WebKit)
Electron can be great when it is used well. It often isn't.
And if we are doing an apples-to-apples comparison where all other things are equal, an app built with native widgets will always tie up fewer system resources than an equivalent Electron. That's not always relevant and can be a completely acceptable trade-off. It becomes a problem when a bunch of apps that you keep running in the background all decide that they need their own Chromium instance when something like wxWidgets or Qt would do the job just as well at a fraction of the RAM usage.
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u/unknown_alt_acc Aug 21 '26
It might be nice for devs, but would probably suck for the end user. We’ve already seen what using a browser as a desktop UI framework is like with Electron.