StackShareStackShare
Follow on
StackShare

Discover and share technology stacks from companies around the world.

Follow on

© 2025 StackShare. All rights reserved.

Product

  • Stacks
  • Tools
  • Feed

Company

  • About
  • Contact

Legal

  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Service
  1. Stackups
  2. Application & Data
  3. Frameworks
  4. Cross Platform Mobile Development
  5. Electron vs NativeScript

Electron vs NativeScript

OverviewDecisionsComparisonAlternatives

Overview

NativeScript
NativeScript
Stacks533
Followers1.1K
Votes516
GitHub Stars25.3K
Forks1.7K
Electron
Electron
Stacks11.6K
Followers10.0K
Votes148

Electron vs NativeScript: What are the differences?

## Key Differences between Electron and NativeScript

**1. Execution Environment**: Electron applications run in a dedicated Chromium process which allows them to have direct access to the host operating system, while NativeScript apps run in a JavaScript VM within a native mobile application wrapper.
**2. User Interface**: Electron primarily targets desktop applications with a web-based user interface, utilizing HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. In contrast, NativeScript is focused on creating native mobile applications with platform-specific UI components.
**3. Development Approach**: Electron follows a one-size-fits-all approach where the same codebase can be used to build applications for multiple desktop platforms, while NativeScript requires separate development efforts for each targeted mobile platform (iOS and Android).
**4. Performance**: Electron applications may face performance issues due to running a full web browser instance, resulting in potential memory and processing overhead. On the other hand, NativeScript apps benefit from utilizing native APIs and components, leading to better performance and user experience.
**5. Device Access**: NativeScript provides direct access to device features and APIs such as GPS, camera, and contacts, allowing developers to leverage native functionalities seamlessly. Electron, however, relies on additional modules or custom integrations to access similar features.
**6. Tooling and Ecosystem**: Electron has a mature ecosystem with a wide range of plugins, tools, and community support. Conversely, while NativeScript also offers a rich ecosystem, it may have fewer resources compared to Electron due to its focus on mobile development.

In Summary, Electron and NativeScript differ in execution environment, user interface, development approach, performance, device access, and tooling/ecosystem, catering to distinct application requirements in desktop and mobile environments respectively.

Share your Stack

Help developers discover the tools you use. Get visibility for your team's tech choices and contribute to the community's knowledge.

View Docs
CLI (Node.js)
or
Manual

Advice on NativeScript, Electron

Semih
Semih

Software Engineering Manager

Oct 1, 2020

Needs adviceonJavaScriptJavaScriptHTML5HTML5.NET.NET

Hi,

We are planning to develop a brand new UX for an already existing desktop software. The previous version is developed on C#.NET with Winforms & WPF. Our plan is to use JavaScript/HTML5 based frontend technologies for the new software. For some components, we are highly dependent on .NET/ .NET Core because the JS-based versions are not mature enough.

What would you choose for a desktop-based Engineering Software that supports multi-OS and has rich UI capabilities considering the .NET dependencies?

Thanks in advance,

Semih

57.9k views57.9k
Comments

Detailed Comparison

NativeScript
NativeScript
Electron
Electron

NativeScript enables developers to build native apps for iOS, Android and Windows Universal while sharing the application code across the platforms. When building the application UI, developers use our libraries, which abstract the differences between the native platforms.

With Electron, creating a desktop application for your company or idea is easy. Initially developed for GitHub's Atom editor, Electron has since been used to create applications by companies like Microsoft, Facebook, Slack, and Docker. The Electron framework lets you write cross-platform desktop applications using JavaScript, HTML and CSS. It is based on io.js and Chromium and is used in the Atom editor.

100% Access to Native Platform API;NativeScript is free of charge as an open source project;Code with JavaScript. Style with CSS;Cross-platform UI abstractions;Shared business logic and data models
Use HTML, CSS, and JavaScript with Chromium and Node.js to build your app.;Electron is open source; maintained by GitHub and an active community.;Electron apps build and run on Mac, Windows, and Linux.;Automatic updates;Crash reporting;Windows installers;Debugging & profiling;Native menus & notifications
Statistics
GitHub Stars
25.3K
GitHub Stars
-
GitHub Forks
1.7K
GitHub Forks
-
Stacks
533
Stacks
11.6K
Followers
1.1K
Followers
10.0K
Votes
516
Votes
148
Pros & Cons
Pros
  • 75
    Access to the entire native api
  • 47
    Support for native ios and android libraries
  • 46
    Angular 2.0 support
  • 46
    Support for javascript libraries
  • 44
    Native ux and performance
Cons
  • 5
    Lack of promotion
  • 1
    Slower Performance compared to competitors
Pros
  • 69
    Easy to make rich cross platform desktop applications
  • 53
    Open source
  • 14
    Great looking apps such as Slack and Visual Studio Code
  • 8
    Because it's cross platform
  • 4
    Use Node.js in the Main Process
Cons
  • 19
    Uses a lot of memory
  • 8
    User experience never as good as a native app
  • 4
    Does not native
  • 4
    No proper documentation
  • 1
    Each app needs to install a new chromium + nodejs

What are some alternatives to NativeScript, Electron?

Ionic

Ionic

Free and open source, Ionic offers a library of mobile and desktop-optimized HTML, CSS and JS components for building highly interactive apps. Use with Angular, React, Vue, or plain JavaScript.

Flutter

Flutter

Flutter is a mobile app SDK to help developers and designers build modern mobile apps for iOS and Android.

React Native

React Native

React Native enables you to build world-class application experiences on native platforms using a consistent developer experience based on JavaScript and React. The focus of React Native is on developer efficiency across all the platforms you care about - learn once, write anywhere. Facebook uses React Native in multiple production apps and will continue investing in React Native.

Xamarin

Xamarin

Xamarin’s Mono-based products enable .NET developers to use their existing code, libraries and tools (including Visual Studio*), as well as skills in .NET and the C# programming language, to create mobile applications for the industry’s most widely-used mobile devices, including Android-based smartphones and tablets, iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch.

Apache Cordova

Apache Cordova

Apache Cordova is a set of device APIs that allow a mobile app developer to access native device function such as the camera or accelerometer from JavaScript. Combined with a UI framework such as jQuery Mobile or Dojo Mobile or Sencha Touch, this allows a smartphone app to be developed with just HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

Framework7

Framework7

It is a free and open source mobile HTML framework to develop hybrid mobile apps or web apps with iOS native look and feel. All you need to make it work is a simple HTML layout and attached framework's CSS and JS files.

Qt

Qt

Qt, a leading cross-platform application and UI framework. With Qt, you can develop applications once and deploy to leading desktop, embedded & mobile targets.

PhoneGap

PhoneGap

PhoneGap is a web platform that exposes native mobile device apis and data to JavaScript. PhoneGap is a distribution of Apache Cordova. PhoneGap allows you to use standard web technologies such as HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript for cross-platform development, avoiding each mobile platforms' native development language. Applications execute within wrappers targeted to each platform, and rely on standards-compliant API bindings to access each device's sensors, data, and network status.

Expo

Expo

It is a framework and a platform for universal React applications. It is a set of tools and services built around React Native and native platforms that help you develop, build, deploy, and quickly iterate on iOS, Android, and web apps.

Vue Native

Vue Native

Vue Native is a mobile framework to build truly native mobile app using Vue.js. Its is designed to connect React Native and Vue.js. Vue Native is a wrapper around React Native APIs, which allows you to use Vue.js and compose rich mobile User Interface.

Related Comparisons

Bootstrap
Materialize

Bootstrap vs Materialize

Laravel
Django

Django vs Laravel vs Node.js

Bootstrap
Foundation

Bootstrap vs Foundation vs Material UI

Node.js
Spring Boot

Node.js vs Spring-Boot

Liquibase
Flyway

Flyway vs Liquibase