this post was submitted on 06 Apr 2024

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117

What's your experience with Electron alternatives (lemmy.ml)

submitted 7 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

62 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Electron is a widely hated framework on Linux, but what about the alternatives like Neutralinojs?

In their own words: In Electron and NWjs, you have to install Node.js and hundreds of dependency libraries. Embedded Chromium and Node.js make simple apps bloaty — in most scenarios, framework weights more than your app source. Neutralinojs offers a lightweight and portable SDK which is an alternative for Electron and NW.js. Neutralinojs doesn't bundle Chromium and uses the existing web browser library in the operating system (Eg: gtk-webkit2 on Linux). Neutralinojs implements a secure WebSocket connection for native operations and embeds a static web server to serve the web content. Also, it offers a built-in JavaScript client library for developers.

Do you experience alternatives like Njs to blend more in the desktop layout, install less junk, use less memory, are more compatible with Wayland,...?

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 7 months ago

I'm using pywebview, a cross-platform python web view GUI framework. I like it so far, it's fairly straightforward. I just wanted a python API around my database, and I'm building most of the app in the front-end with vanilla JS and html.

I didn't want the (alleged) bloat of electron, and I didn't want to jam async/await onto everything in the backend, so I found this alternative.

The 3rd contender was Tauri, but I didn't want to bother learning Rust for a simple API. But it was very tempting, and Tauri is an option you should consider.

I haven't finished my current project so I can't completely vouch for pywebview yet. But so far it's great and I recommend it if you don't mind using python (I do long for a statically typed backend TBH).

[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 months ago (5 children)

The thing is, Linux Desktops dont have a unified WebView. I wonder how that would work on KDE and others

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Alternative for what? I never used electron apps and I don't see any reason for that. If you are a developer, try Qt.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Qt and Electron are different technologies that achieve somewhat different goals

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago (9 children)

Qt and Electron are different technologies

Yes.

that achieve somewhat different goals

No.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Yet the telegram client is written in Qt and has great cross-platform support.

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[–] [email protected] 47 points 7 months ago (1 children)

No matter how much I like an alternative to Electron. It cannot save me from bad Electron apps.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 7 months ago (19 children)

Are there any good electron apps? Like genuinely

[–] [email protected] 41 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (4 children)

VSCode and Obsidian work great.

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[–] [email protected] 96 points 7 months ago (5 children)

https://tauri.app/ is very popular and does not need electron. It uses the OS native we view.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 7 months ago

Tau'ri, you say?

[–] [email protected] 27 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (4 children)

And 2.0 will support Android and iOS

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