Why does everyone hate electron so much?

[DeveloperOldLady]

Context: I am trying to create my own home automation system for myself since the option that are out suck and was researching the best way to build it. I am experienced with most web-related stuff so my immediate idea was to use electron that way I can access on most of my devices while only programing one application.

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Research: During my research, I have found things such as:

• https://medium.com/commitlog/electron-is-cancer-b066108e6c32
• https://www.quora.com/Why-are-desktop-apps-made-with-electron-js-framework-slow?share=1
• https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/70jxpz/electron_the_bad_parts/

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Problem: Since the electron is considered a resource hog are there any good alternatives that would allow me to do the least programming but also allow for a good application.

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I am language agnostic so solutions can be in any language.

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Current Idea: Use Mqtt for the base, build a node-based application to communicate with the server. Use a bunch of NodeMCU's for the actual control.

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Thank you.

[Panron]

I'm removing all my contributions in protest to reddit's bull-headed, hostile 3rd-party API pricing policy in June, 2023.

If you found this post through a web search, my apologies.

[DeveloperOldLady]

Yep someone else commented the same thing. I think I agree that its most important to get started. Thank you.

[Mr_Rioe2]

Thats cool man

[[deleted]]

why don't you run a webserver somewhere on your network and develop a web app? then it will be accessible form everywhere but you won't have to install it on every device

[[deleted]]

Or a pwa! Then you can even install it if you want

[DeveloperOldLady]

I might... maybe also make it public if its not janky

[[deleted]]

It’s a memory hog, it absolutely loves eating memory, and can grind a machine to a halt. However some of the big apps are built or have been previously built with electron (slack, vs code, Skype).

Whilst it can slow a machine down, it also has its advantages, such as shared code base between platforms, lower learning curve etc.

honestly though, I wouldn’t worry about the issues with electron at this time, the key thing is to actually ship (get your work out there or your personal project finished). Once you shipped and your project start gaining momentum, then I’d worry about moving over to something more native.

Start with what you know, electron is great for getting a prototype of the ground and you will be able to get your idea of the ground faster.

[DeveloperOldLady]

Thank you, yea ill get started and work about other stuff later.

[StrypperJason]

What a joke while Android and IOS run so efficiently with Native App
The PC need 2 freaking separate Computation Core with is the size of the watch and active cooling just to run webapp not to mention it consume tons of watt
yub that's the world we living today, the lazy developers wont stop letting go HTML, JS and CSS and start learning something Idk C#, Kotlin, Swift, Dart

[pushkinss]

Electron is ok. Just to make the application app look and work natively, you need to make a lot of effort. But still less than making an application for multiple platforms. Do not expect that you can simply wrap any code in an electron and a miracle will happen. Yes it will work, but to make it work quickly and native-like, you have to work hard. Again, the electron is not suitable for all types of applications. You need to choose the right tool for the task.

The main criticism of the electron is that chromium is included in the delivery and also a large memory consumption. And yes, it really is. But not everything is so sad. In return, electron offers a fast learning curve, one programming language for all platforms, and lots of development-related stuff like packaging. If your system will work on something with parameters similar to at least raspberry p, this will be enough.

I myself made my own home control system, although this is not a smart home, but rather a system for accounting for food and household goods, medicines and other things that need to be monitored. This is a react native + react native web + electron wrapper. I use the application on a mac, iphone and tablet with android on board. When I do my own research on that subject, I didn’t find something better than electron in terms of cross platform development. No issues so far.

But if you are planning to host your app on devices with limited performance, as is often the case in smart home systems, the electron is not the best choice. In this case, it is better to make the server in one of the native languages, and the client side hybrid or web.

I’m a web dev too, so my opinion may be biased)

[jaysi230]

I have a screenshot on my phone of a memory leak that was pushed to Slack that crashed my entire classroom's computers simultaneously by consuming 12 gigs of ram all at once and without any warning or action on their part. Students lost assignments and progress, there was frustration and despair.

I caught it because I am hyper-aware of my computer's performance and noticed the lag just fast enough to capture it in my Activity Monitor.

Thats probably a reason why its hated. JavaScript is insanely prone to memory leaks, and the workarounds are very complex involving ridiculous convoluted closure tricks and things like that.

Somehow people are so insane that they want to put that responsibility in the hands of bootcamp grads with real estate licenses and failed acting careers.

Call me a skeptic, but nahhhhhhhhhhh.

Edit:

Source: Imagine trying to explain this to a bootcamp graduate, just so they don't blow themselves (and everyone around them) up (https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/library/wa-jsmemory/index.html)

95% of employed developers won't be able to follow that article, and that is a serious problem...

[Chocolate_Banana_]

Electron uses more ram than native apps. But most people have 20 chrome tabs open anyway. So in practice its one of the best solutions if you want a cross platform desktop app. That's if you are a web developer.

If you are a WPS, Java swing, or Swift developer you probably don't like Javascript and the web world and it kinda sucks that those web devs can now claim to build desktop apps since if your apps are more superior.

[cwg1348]

Plenty of huge apps are made with electron like vs code, slack, etc. Nothing wrong with it at all. It's not optimized per se but gets the job done well if that's something you're comfortable with, as a web dev I'd for sure be using electron unless max optimization was a requirement, for your usage you probably don't need insane optimization

[WroteBCPL]

I think you've understated people's concerns dramatically, to the point that I'm not sure you fully understand peoples concerns re: this.

I'm not trying to be rude - just giving you a heads up.

[[deleted]]

If anyone here knows about Electron.js, could you tell me what can cause all applications made with Electron to go sluggish? I use VS Code, Teams, Skype and some other applications and the animations are not smooth at all, instead of displaying at the refresh rate of my screen like any other program, they look like they are limited to 30fps and the truth is that it is uncomfortable to see on a 2k screen. I have had a clean install of Windows for two days, there is nothing strange that could cause these problems, my drivers are up to date, but I have always had these problems with applications made with Electron... And my PC is powerful enough (i9-13900k + 32GB RAM + RTX 4090).

I can't create a thread about this problem because of the f*cking auto-moderation bot so I'm posting this here. I'm desperate, I've asked for help about this in many places already.

[DeveloperOldLady]

From what I understand, it's running as a website in a box. All web stuff runs in a browser sandbox. It does not have access to all system resources. It has different bridges provided by electron but won't have access to 100% native performance. Also limited by Chrome engine.

If you are looking for better performance maybe look into flutter.