Hacker News Reader

Comment by alpaca128 | Hacker News Reader

> cross platform GUI applications

That's handled by Electron already. Unfortunately in a very inefficient way, but I don't think web-based UIs on the desktop will disappear soon. The comfort of using the same tech as websites and compatibility with many systems is hard to beat. I just hope all those projects aiming to replace Electron with their smaller footprint hold what they promise.

View on HN

There are lots of non-web solutions for this, for eg Qt, wxWidgets, Flutter etc.

I've had not-terrible luck with PyGTK on Win,Mac,Linux. But my apps are simple.

Tauri is a light and fast electron-esque platform written in rust. I’m pretty bullish on it, as it seems like the best of node and rust without the bloat. Using Svelte to write super light and fast cross-platform apps on Tauri is such a treat.

If possible, could you share some examples made using Svelte/React/Vue you've created or encountered?

Those are too hard for beginning programmers. And the Web has all the best-in-class UI design tools (except for maybe Interface Builder, which isn't cross-platform). Plus there's thr fact that Qt apps need extensive cross-platform testing; by contrast, because Chrome works the same way everywhere, so too do Electron apps, so you can deploy to multiple platforms much more quickly.

When it comes to TCO and time to market, none of the non-Web solutions come close to Electron.

Even web based but without Electron or Chrome e.g. rocket.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com