Electron vs NodeGUI

Overview

Electron

Stacks11.6K

Followers10.0K

Votes148

NodeGUI

Stacks15

Followers109

Votes6

GitHub Stars9.1K

Forks308

Electron vs NodeGUI: What are the differences?

Electron and NodeGUI are two popular frameworks used for building desktop applications. Let's explore the key differences between them.

Architecture: Electron is based on Chromium and Node.js, while NodeGUI is based on Qt. This means that Electron uses web technologies for UI rendering, while NodeGUI uses native technologies.
Performance: Electron may have higher memory and CPU usage compared to NodeGUI due to its reliance on a full web browser environment. NodeGUI, being based on Qt, provides lower memory and CPU usage, resulting in improved application performance.
Native Functionality: Electron provides a wide range of native APIs for accessing system resources, such as file system and network. NodeGUI, on the other hand, provides direct access to Qt's extensive library of native widgets, making it easier to create applications with a native look and feel.
Development Experience: Electron is primarily targeted towards web developers who are already familiar with JavaScript, HTML, and CSS. NodeGUI, being based on Qt, has a steeper learning curve as it requires knowledge of C++ and Qt-specific APIs. However, NodeGUI provides bindings for popular programming languages like JavaScript and Python, making it accessible to a wider range of developers.
Platform Support: Electron can build applications for Windows, macOS, and Linux platforms. NodeGUI, being based on Qt, also supports these platforms but additionally provides cross-compilation support, allowing developers to build applications for other platforms such as Android, iOS, and Raspberry Pi.
Community Support: Electron has a large and active community with a vast number of resources, tutorials, and plugins available. NodeGUI, being relatively newer, has a smaller but growing community. However, NodeGUI benefits from its close connection to the Qt community, which provides extensive documentation and support.

In summary, Electron is based on Chromium and Node.js, uses web technologies for UI rendering, provides native APIs, and has a large community support. NodeGUI, on the other hand, is based on Qt, uses native technologies for UI rendering, provides direct access to Qt's native widgets, supports cross-platform development, and has a growing community.

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CLI (Node.js)

Manual

Detailed Comparison

Electron	NodeGUI
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.	It is an open source library for building cross-platform native desktop applications with JavaScript and CSS like styling. It is based on Qt5 and NOT chromium, hence it is memory and cpu efficient.
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	Cross platform;Low CPU and memory footprint;Styling with CSS ;Complete Nodejs api support ;Good Devtools support
Statistics
GitHub Stars -	GitHub Stars 9.1K
GitHub Forks -	GitHub Forks 308
Stacks 11.6K	Stacks 15
Followers 10.0K	Followers 109
Votes 148	Votes 6
Pros & Cons
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 No proper documentation 4 Does not native 1 Each app needs to install a new chromium + nodejs	Pros 1 No webkit thus super resource efficient 1 Its not hybrid & fully native. 1 Easy to make cross platform & resource efficient apps 1 Rich API which binds C++ QT 1 It uses Qode which is a fork of Node to be used with QT Cons 1 Doesn't have x86 support
Integrations
No integrations available	Linux JavaScript Node.js TypeScript Windows CSS 3 macOS Qt

What are some alternatives to Electron, NodeGUI?

Sciter

It brings a stack of web technologies to desktop UI development. Web designers, and developers, can reuse their experience and expertise in creating modern looking desktop applications.

wxWidgets

It is a C++ library that lets developers create applications for Windows, macOS, Linux and other platforms with a single code base. It has popular language bindings for Python, Perl, Ruby and many other languages, and unlike other cross-platform toolkits, it gives applications a truly native look and feel because it uses the platform's native API rather than emulating the GUI. It's also extensive, free, open-source and mature.

Qt5

It is a full development framework with tools designed to streamline the creation of applications and user interfaces for desktop, embedded, and mobile platforms.

JavaFX

It is a set of graphics and media packages that enables developers to design, create, test, debug, and deploy rich client applications that operate consistently across diverse platforms.

React Native Desktop

Build OS X desktop apps using React Native.

JUCE

It is a C++ framework for low-latency applications, with cross-platform GUI libraries to get your apps running on Mac OS X, Windows, Linux, iOS and Android.

Proton Native

Create native desktop applications through a React syntax, on all platforms.

pygame

It is a cross-platform set of Python modules designed for writing video games. It includes computer graphics and sound libraries designed to be used with the Python programming language.

SDL

It is a cross-platform development library designed to provide low level access to audio, keyboard, mouse, joystick, and graphics hardware via OpenGL and Direct3D.

Element

Element is a Vue 2.0 based component library for developers, designers and product managers, with a set of design resources.

Related Comparisons

Electron vs NodeGUI: What are the differences?

Electron and NodeGUI are two popular frameworks used for building desktop applications. Let's explore the key differences between them.

Architecture: Electron is based on Chromium and Node.js, while NodeGUI is based on Qt. This means that Electron uses web technologies for UI rendering, while NodeGUI uses native technologies.
Performance: Electron may have higher memory and CPU usage compared to NodeGUI due to its reliance on a full web browser environment. NodeGUI, being based on Qt, provides lower memory and CPU usage, resulting in improved application performance.
Native Functionality: Electron provides a wide range of native APIs for accessing system resources, such as file system and network. NodeGUI, on the other hand, provides direct access to Qt's extensive library of native widgets, making it easier to create applications with a native look and feel.
Development Experience: Electron is primarily targeted towards web developers who are already familiar with JavaScript, HTML, and CSS. NodeGUI, being based on Qt, has a steeper learning curve as it requires knowledge of C++ and Qt-specific APIs. However, NodeGUI provides bindings for popular programming languages like JavaScript and Python, making it accessible to a wider range of developers.
Platform Support: Electron can build applications for Windows, macOS, and Linux platforms. NodeGUI, being based on Qt, also supports these platforms but additionally provides cross-compilation support, allowing developers to build applications for other platforms such as Android, iOS, and Raspberry Pi.
Community Support: Electron has a large and active community with a vast number of resources, tutorials, and plugins available. NodeGUI, being relatively newer, has a smaller but growing community. However, NodeGUI benefits from its close connection to the Qt community, which provides extensive documentation and support.

Electron vs NodeGUI

Overview