Because it’s essentially opening a new instance of Chrome, Electron apps can use much more RAM than their native counterparts. The main downside of Electron compared to a native app is performance. Additionally, this takes some load off your servers if most your userbase decides to use the desktop app. Plus, because Electron loads your web app from a packaged file rather than your servers, load times can be dramatically decreased, as there’s no content sent over the network (besides API calls). The packaged Electron app can even be auto-updated just like a real website. You have access to the entire npm library, something you don’t have with a regular web app. You don’t have to worry about compatibility, as the only thing that changes is the base that your app runs on.Įlectron is commonly used alongside a web framework like React, Vue, or Angular to make powerful web applications. Because it’s all running on a variant of Chromium, and Chromium has builds for Windows, macOS, and Linux, any Electron app can be easily bundled for any OS. The great benefit of Electron is that it makes your app cross-platform out of the box. If the app is snappy enough, you probably wouldn’t even know you were using a webpage instead of a native app. Though, you’ll still have access to Chromium’s Developer Tools for debugging your application. Every time you open an Electron app, it opens a new browser window, except it’s locked to your page loaded from the app’s files, and doesn’t have the URL bar or other browser features.

It’s built on top of Chromium, which is the open-source branch of Google Chrome without the Google-specific features.

What Is Electron, and How Does It Work?Įlectron is essentially a desktop container for your web app. It’s easy to install, and only requires you to drop in your index.html and other dependencies. Electron is a framework that packages your web application with a copy of Chrome, allowing it to run on a user’s desktop alongside native applications.

Slack desktop app container