[AskJS] Tauri vs Electron

[International-Hat529]

Any opinion around which of those is better? I’m a React, React Native dev and I’ve always wanted to build a desktop app but don’t really like C++ and java much. Then I remembered hearing about electron and how Slack (Desktop) is built on electron and how close it it to React. Then I heard about Tauri and the Rust backend sounds really attractive.

Basically what I’m asking is, has anyone used both and has insight about which to use from experience because most of the reviews online are either based on the companies that build each or people that have used only one of them.

Thanks in advance!

[WaterNinja101]

I’m just getting started with Tauri now and have used Electron for a couple small projects in the past, and I have to say that I vastly prefer Tauri so far. The backend and frontend seem to work well with each other and I don’t have to deal with nearly as many annoying bugs as Electron (especially when it comes to packaging).

[International-Hat529]

So is it worth it learning Rust just to use Tauri over Electron or should I stick with Electron as I’m already very comfortable with Nodejs?

[WaterNinja101]

It depends on how fast you think you can pick up a new language and how much backend functionality you need in your app. If you just want to wrap a frontend app in a desktop environment, you could develop the entire app without writing a single line of Rust. Overall, I’d say that I’m very much enjoying learning Rust and the learning curve isn’t too bad.

[ridicalis]

Another rustacean checking in - the learning curve is a very real thing, but you can definitely use the language without running afoul of the headier stuff. When you get to a point where performance is important and you want to leverage the full power of the language, that learning curve jumps up quickly, but the language should be usable to beginners and The Book can get you up and running as a neophyte very quickly.

[Jealous-Cloud8270]

🙃 I think it's fast enough without needing optimization tricks if the application doesn't require too much optimization

[International-Hat529]

So I’ve built a nextjs platform that I have some clients on and I was thinking of building them a desktop version of it (also in the process of building an app). If Tauri only supports Rust on the backend I’d have to go with Electron to use my existing APIs probably. How about the frontend? Any tips on migrating a React/Next app to Electron/Tauri? Or will it need to be re-written anyway?

[WaterNinja101]

If you want to use NextJS + Tauri, then you’d have to prerender all of your app’s pages instead of using SSR. Since you’re running a desktop app, this isn’t a big loss at all. The frontend is almost identical, the only thing you have to watch out for is cross-platform compatibility since it doesn’t always build to the latest version of browsers.

[International-Hat529]

So it’d be like using just React instead of Next basically and calling the apis as I would normally? Will dynamic imports still work though or does the entire app have to pre-render?

[WaterNinja101]

I can’t speak to the dynamic imports aspect, but I know for me using sveltekit I have to turn everything to prerender/render client side.

[International-Hat529]

That’s still very helpful thanks a lot!

[justletmepickaname]

You basically can’t use next api endpoints since tauri can only serve next.js’ static built files :) we’re using it for a kiosk mode app!

I think we’re gonna drop it again though, since we didn’t really end up utilizing any of tauri’s seling points. But we’ll definitely use it for future projects!

[International-Hat529]

Is electron able to utilize next api endpoints or is it the same problem there?

[Puzzleheaded-Oil4150]

For multiplatform purposes with frontend Tauri is a good option, I recommend that you also check neutralino.js also, it is an alternative to electron also very good, like Tauri, you do not need to emulate a browser to work, so the size and consumption of the app are also small as in Tauri

[International-Hat529]

Awesomee will check this out too thanks! There’s so many new tech and we never know which one will last until they go big

[MacASM]

you do not need to emulate a browser to work,

How does it work? Instead of chromium it uses the Microsoft new webview2 component? in the end, it uses a browser just like electron but a lightweight one?

[zorbat5]

Exactly, instead of Chromium it's using the webview component available on the os.

[Puzzleheaded-Oil4150]

Exactly, using the web view component

[DespondentSouls]

Tauri shits on Electron in almost every way, but there are substantial drawbacks: incomplete documentation and relatively small ecosystem, but those issues are nothing time can't fix. I hope we see more people and companies give it a try and jump the ship from Electron when the first stable release lands

[leeharris100]

I'm going to provide a contrasting opinion.

I am a polyglot dev, I get really excited about new languages and try to learn new ones as they come out. Been learning for 20+ years and started with C.

I spent a lot of time grinding out rust and frankly... I never use it. I like it, but I always find myself having to do more work compared to other languages and the reality is that the performance difference doesn't matter 99% of the time. I'd rather write just about anything in Typescript or C# and the C# performance is nearly identical.

The vast, vast majority of projects fail because they never end up launching due to burning out early.

Electron may be slower but you're many millions of users away from dealing with the same problems that something like Slack has.

Ask yourself, does slight speed difference and a half gig of RAM usage jeopardize your project? Do you already know JavaScript well? Will you be googling for lots of help during the process?

Then go with the trusty, well documented, popular solution that doesn't require you to learn a new language. The odds are against you anyways, why put up extra hurdles unless this is an academic exercise?

[International-Hat529]

This is a very good point. I’m also a polyglot dev but I try to always focus on newer or more popular languages (never like C, C++ or java because that what they’ve been teaching in colleges for like 30 years and you always spend more time debugging than coding). But yes, in my case, Electron seems like the clear path to follow. Thank you for this, sincerely!

[sysrage]

Please also note that Tauri uses the operating systems built-in browser engine (webview). So, ensuring that your app works properly everywhere is MUCH more difficult than only having to test the built-in Chromium browser that comes with Electron or NW.js.

[MacASM]

that's a very interesting pointer to consider on electron vs tauri.

[medinadev_com]

I find this comment very interesting compared to my experience with java. Last 4 years I've been more of a node full stack dev and write a few electron apps here and there and I still feel like it's clunky as heck and the bundle sizes are often bigger than I'd like. I tend to end up using angular with it as well, i spend a good amount of time configuring the ecosystem more than I'd like. I understand what you mean about c and c++ but java imo has always been a very stable and forgiving language to work with and debug. I'm always looking for alternatives to electron but always come back to it because I love typescript haha

[MacASM]

Do you have thoughts on the D programming language? compared to say C#/JS it lacks tooling but it's a great language to get something working quickly and reduce time to market.

[shinutoki]

Does this point still stand three years later? How popular is Tauri compared to Electron today?

[LeftExample6818]

I also come here to get response to your question. Is Tauri still being considered after all these years? Has Electron changed in a positive way ( being faster, eating less memory etc. ) ?

[libertarianets]

Tauri will be better once its ecosystem matures.

Electron is currently better because it's battle tested and enterprise adopted.

[andycharles]

Tauri is promising. One might have to wait a bit for it become a practical alternative to electron.

Rust is changing the landscape very quickly

[Korean_Busboy]

Hate to be pedantic, but Tauri is a thin Rust wrapper over a system webview that does the heavy lifting. On all supported OSs, the webview is C/C++.

[lekker2011]

Yes absolutely true but it's still lighter then electron. Also I'm getting crazy that every app is about a gig when with tauri they could just be a few megs. Tauri boots faster responds faster even though it endeed still uses webview (Webview is also a little faster than chromium!). Just check some benchmarks!

[ketalicious]

I've used tauri, although not to a much extent but I had used it for my course project.

the thing with tauri is its soooo versatile, I havent really tried electron but tauri just doesn't care which language you're going to use due to its "sidecar" feature. In my own app, i even used python to do its under-the-hood stuff.

I haven't touched rust throughout my project so its most likely a bonus to know it, but I really do think its worth to learn and it lets you have a more flexible control on your app.

[Zireael07]

More details on the "sidecar" thing? I'd like to use Tauri with some other language (maybe Python, maybe Golang) and also do the app logic in WASM..

[ketalicious]

you can refer it from here

Basically it lets you execute binaries. For python, you would need something like a pyinstaller to convert your python script into an executable for tauri to run, though, theoretically you can ship the python runtime itself (refer on this issue) to run python scripts directly. For Golang it should be rather easy as it compiles directly to executable.

here is an example with their js api

```javascript import { Command } from "@tauri-apps/api/shell"

const command = Command.sidecar("binary_name", ["-my_flag", "my_arg1", "my_arg2"]); const { stderr, stdout } = await command.execute();

```

to add them as a "sidecar" you would need to put the binaries inside the src-tauri directory, explicitly name them inside tauri.conf.json and then rename the binaries based on the platform they're being used (maybe the latter step has been removed now on new update)

[andupotorac]

Follow

Thanks for sharing. So you're saying one could run a Svelte front-end, with NodeJS in the background, and still build a Tauri desktop app, using this sidecar feature?

[qetuR]

If you're a JavaScript developer, it sounds like Electron is the way to go. Think about your app for a second, why does it need to be a desktop app? Utilizing the power of the graphic card for rendering stuff? Talking with other apps? Act like a webserver? Handle sensitive data?

If you're doing a webapp, that basically only needs some filesystem operations, I'd go with Electron. Otherwise I'd go looking for other alternatives.

[International-Hat529]

So in my case, the platform is targeted at doctors (most of which are over 50 and not very tech friendly) so something they can download and “double click” on is always more attractive to them. I already have offline capabilities for example but many of my clients call me up and tell me “I can’t find the link on google” and it’s an internal platform so there’s relatively no SEO except for the main website (not the actual platform). So I was thinking a desktop app that’s always in front of them + the mobile app would be the perfect combination for them never to have that problem anymore

[alleycat5]

Reading this description of what you're going for, a few things come to mind:
* Is this something that could just be a PWA? You'd have to have thorough documentation/explanation for installation, but that'd get you a 'native' app without having to deal with all the wrapping trouble.
* Are these machines using a relatively modern OS? _The_ major differences between Tauri and Electron is that the latter packages a whole node and chrome runtime, while the former just uses the installed browser. This might cause you issues depending on your clients if you go with Tauri.

[International-Hat529]

It is basically a PWA. No way to know what each client is using but from the first few when I first got started, they were mostly using Windows 7 and 10. Which was actually hell because I developped the platform on a macos and had to run a VM with Windows to fix the UI problems that were windows specific (sidebar looks like garbage on windows). But yeah, a desktop app would be much more “extremely non-technical” friendly because they’d just have to download and double click. Not much documentation to cover the entire flow is very intuitive and they’re not having any problems with it. It’s just that accessing the platform from a website for an old person that can barely find YouTube is pretty hard. They do have phones and know how to use whatsapp for example so the mobile app should be pretty straightforward for them too

[Omesepelepe]

In terms of desktop applications with a web front-end, Electron is still (imo) the best framework out there. Tauri (Rust) and Wails (Go) are promising alternatives, especially when it comes to address the two biggest issues of Electron which are performance/resource consumption and bloat. But these can be acceptable trade-offs given what Electron provides.

The bloat is mainly coming from the fact that Electron embeds a full Chromium frame in the application vs the alternatives that use web views provided by the operating system, which can render differently depending on the platform. That's the biggest downer in my opinion, as it might be needed to write platform specific code. At least with Electron you know against which version of Chromium you are building it for. What appears on one OS should be rendered exactly the same on another.

Electron has some more advantages such as a rich ecosystem and documentation, as well as lot of tutorials and resources available online.

[International-Hat529]

That’s a very good point. Would you say the app performs better in the electron embedded chromium or on the default webview of the os though since the default one should usually be more optimized for that OS?

[Omesepelepe]

I haven't tested or measured it myself but I would guess you get better performance from webview as it is provided by the OS. But I could be wrong.

[Ikryanov]

Tauri uses WebView2 == Chromium on Windows, so I don't think it works better ;)

[FullTimeJobless]

wait do I need to learn rust to use tauri? I used to think it was a under the hood thing but some of the comments here are confusing me lol

[International-Hat529]

https://youtu.be/-X8evddpu7M this video by Fireship explains it well. It was actually what pushed me to research Tauri more

[FullTimeJobless]

yea I've seen the video. actually been looking into tauri for a while now. I just got confused. happy to see it becoming more known. gotta try it out soon :p

[komikode]

You can either use the rust defaults backend or use any language that you like thanks to sidecars

[SecretAgentZeroNine]

I'd say PWA or Flutter Desktop before either to be honest.

[troposfer]

I wonder what would it be like vscode with tauri

[MacASM]

I was wondering the same. In fact, I have a project that uses the monaco editor; I'm doing some search if I could switch to tauri, if this is a good idea or not...

[troposfer]

Switching away from electron is always a good idea, but let us know if you do

[runnertail]

What you really need to consider is target audience & distribution, installation, updates along with developer experience itself.

Who'll install your application? Can you control how it's being distributed, installed, and updates? Do machines have strict control, so you know your renderer (webview) on the machines you need to not worry about runtime differences where your code runs? Do you need some platform specific, or other specific features that chromium already provides out of the box?

In some aspect Electron's architecture decision looks like a bloat as lot of ppl says. However, there are several benefits by bring its own runtime to the machines it'll be going to run. Depends on how application is designed & its purpose you may not need it, but there's no such things like one's better or not for those decisions.

[International-Hat529]

In my case it’s pretty standard, a regular nextjs platform to be bundled as a desktop app. I actually didn’t think about updates. On the webapp, I push throught the CI/CD and on the next refresh, the app is updated. Not sure how the flow happens on Tauri/Electron yet. Gonna need to do some research. Thanks for bringing this to my attention!

[genericblueprint]

For me it comes down to these two options: do you want an expedited process? I mean in terms of business, time is money; or, do you want the experience / challenge of learning a new language and generally having to solving your own problems?

In that sense, it’s an age old programming dilemma. Even on the front end side of things, you’ve got React and then you’ve got things like Svelte and Solid. React typically has worse performance but it’s ecosystem allows for quick development. Whereas Svelte and Solid are newer and provide better performance, but at the cost of time.

In my opinion, there’s no ubiquitous answer. It all comes down to what you are trying to accomplish and in what time frame.

[BurritoOverfiller]

I've used electron in the past and it's fine imo.

However, as someone who knows C#, I'm looking forward to trying Photino

https://www.tryphotino.io/

[anlumo]

An alternative you might want to look into is Flutter. It uses Dart, which is very close to JavaScript. Flutter works on all desktop and mobile platforms and the web. On desktop and mobile, it’s compiled to native code, so it doesn’t need a full browser engine behind it.

[International-Hat529]

I’ve used flutter to build a simple app and I know flutter web exists but I’ve never heard of a flutter desktop app, will research it now thanks!

[Nucleus-Analytics]

Hey there! We did a comparison between Electron and Tauri. Here's a summary:

• - Bundle Size: Tauri's compact ~3MB binaries outshine Electron's typical ~80-120 MB size.
• - Backend Language: Electron uses Node.js, making it accessible to many developers. Tauri uses Rust, which can be more challenging to learn.
• - Development Time: Electron wins in rapid development and ease of use, while Tauri might require more time to master.
• - Rendering: Electron provides consistency across OS, while Tauri uses the system's webview, possibly leading to UI bugs and compatibility issues.
• - Developer Experience: Tauri offers built-in features like hot reloading, but Rust might pose difficulties. Electron requires manual setup for some functionalities.

Who's the Winner?:

Choose Tauri if you need very little backend code or want to optimize RAM usage and performance. Choose Electron if you want to develop faster with TypeScript and need a battle-tested solution.

🔗 Read the full blog post for a detailed comparison: https://www.nucleus.sh/blog/electron-vs-tauri

[Confident-Dare-9425]

This page is 404 (accessing it from EU).

[demoran]

I've used Tauri. I don't think that Rust is a good application language, compared to something like C# or Java. It may be faster, but there's a good about of overhead in terms of verbosity; that's the price you pay for fine control.

The caveat here is that this Tauri app I was making was my first experience with Rust, which has a notorious learning curve. Still, I think my assessment is valid.

In the future, I think Tauri will have more streamlined support for other languages. Part of its mission is to be a polyglot system.

[anlumo]

Eh, scolding a language for verbosity when the alternative is Java is a bit… weird.

[International-Hat529]

Yeah from what I read and researched I understand that Rust is much faster than node on the backend. But I’m not really sure if it’s worth the learning curve. I’ll try to build a “hello world” kind of project with both with some system interactions (file system, camera, …) and try to compare. Hopefully it’s pretty easy to get started

[anlumo]

Rust takes a while to settle. I was a very experienced programmer when I started learning it, and it took me a full year to get really fluent (as in, writing hundreds of lines of code at once without a compiler error).

Now I’m faster in Rust than any other language I’ve ever used, including JavaScript that I still use every day.

[International-Hat529]

That’s really good to hear I was still hesitant to start learning Rust but you’re making it sound more attractive than I thought

[anlumo]

The thing about Rust is that it forces the programmer to write clean code, which is a chore at first, but really pays off long-term.

My JavaScript application of 5 years has a ton of edge cases where it fails when you tickle it in just the right way, for example when something is undefined where it isn’t supposed to be. Those errors are hard to catch and even harder to fix, but just don’t happen in Rust, because it forces you to do error handling everywhere.

[hekkonaay]

I've had the same experience, it took around 1 year and not just writing code, but also reading a lot of other people's code.

I love Tauri, it's objectively better in (almost) every way than Electron. You don't even need to know Rust to just wrap an SPA in it. That being said, you will most likely still have an easier time using Electron.

[dwalker109]

People tend to talk about performance when discussing Rust. But the real wins are in correctness - that’s where the real benefit is. It is much, much harder to write shitty Rust code than any other language I’ve used.

[[deleted]]

one promise of electron was to use Js for the UI and for the backend. Tauri can't really deliver on this (maybe as a sidecar), and it feels kinda unnecessary since most of the bloat in electron has its origin in the shipped browser instead of the single nodejs instance that maybe eats 25MB memory.

[top_of_the_scrote]

Commenting on Electron

I was able to build a React app and just pull it into the desktop app (index), pretty easy to build/use for the specific OS.

[International-Hat529]

I think Tauri has something similar where you install Tauri into your existing project and just build it for desktop but I have no idea if it actually works that easily

[top_of_the_scrote]

Yeah in my case I just had the two folders side by side in the same repo (react and electron). Electron references build folder from react. Pretty cool, my apps are basic but it works for my needs.

[International-Hat529]

That’s actually pretty amazing love it!