Electron vs Photon vs React Native Desktop

Overview

Electron

Stacks11.6K

Followers10.0K

Votes148

Photon

Stacks32

Followers89

Votes0

GitHub Stars10.1K

Forks573

React Native Desktop

Stacks15

Followers203

Votes11

Electron vs Photon vs React Native Desktop: What are the differences?

# Introduction

Key differences between Electron, Photon, and React Native Desktop are discussed below.

1. **Programming Language:** Electron uses JavaScript, HTML, and CSS for building desktop apps, Photon uses HTML, CSS, and JavaScript as well but has built-in Atom Shell framework, whereas React Native Desktop uses React and JavaScript to build cross-platform desktop applications.
  
2. **Wrapping Technology:** Electron wraps Chromium and Node.js, Photon is built on top of the Atom Shell framework which wraps Chromium and Node.js too, whereas React Native Desktop wraps React components to render the user interface natively.
  
3. **Target Platform:** Electron is mainly focused on building desktop applications, Photon is designed for creating cross-platform desktop applications, similar to Electron but more lightweight, while React Native Desktop is tailored for building desktop applications with a mobile-first approach. 

4. **Community Support:** Electron has a large and active community providing extensive documentation and third-party plugins, Photon has a smaller community but is supported by the Atom team, and React Native Desktop being a newer framework has a growing community with support from the React Native community.

5. **Development Workflow:** Electron allows the use of various front-end frameworks and has a flexible development workflow, Photon has a simpler and more straightforward workflow out of the box, and React Native Desktop leverages the React Native ecosystem and tools for a streamlined development experience. 

6. **Performance:** Electron apps may suffer from performance issues due to bundling Chromium and Node.js, Photon offers a lighter alternative with better performance for smaller-scale applications, while React Native Desktop leverages native APIs for improved performance on cross-platform desktop apps.

In Summary, the key differences among Electron, Photon, and React Native Desktop are evident in their programming languages, wrapping technologies, target platforms, community support, development workflows, and performance.

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Advice on Electron, Photon, React Native Desktop

Semih

Software Engineering Manager

Oct 1, 2020

Needs adviceon

JavaScript

HTML5

.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

Electron	Photon	React Native Desktop
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.	The fastest way to build beautiful Electron apps using simple HTML and CSS. Underneath it all is Electron. Originally built for GitHub's Atom text editor, Electron is the easiest way to build cross-platform desktop applications.	Build OS X desktop apps using React Native.
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 -	GitHub Stars 10.1K	GitHub Stars -
GitHub Forks -	GitHub Forks 573	GitHub Forks -
Stacks 11.6K	Stacks 32	Stacks 15
Followers 10.0K	Followers 89	Followers 203
Votes 148	Votes 0	Votes 11
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 Does not native 4 No proper documentation 1 Wrong reference for dom inspection	No community feedback yet	Pros 3 Pretty awesome 2 Memory usage reduced 2 Does not include any browser 2 Is native app 1 Open source Cons 0 Memory usage reduced
Integrations
No integrations available	No integrations available	React Native

What are some alternatives to Electron, Photon, React Native Desktop?

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.

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.

NodeGUI

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.

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 Photon vs React Native Desktop: What are the differences?

# Introduction

Key differences between Electron, Photon, and React Native Desktop are discussed below.

1. **Programming Language:** Electron uses JavaScript, HTML, and CSS for building desktop apps, Photon uses HTML, CSS, and JavaScript as well but has built-in Atom Shell framework, whereas React Native Desktop uses React and JavaScript to build cross-platform desktop applications.
  
2. **Wrapping Technology:** Electron wraps Chromium and Node.js, Photon is built on top of the Atom Shell framework which wraps Chromium and Node.js too, whereas React Native Desktop wraps React components to render the user interface natively.
  
3. **Target Platform:** Electron is mainly focused on building desktop applications, Photon is designed for creating cross-platform desktop applications, similar to Electron but more lightweight, while React Native Desktop is tailored for building desktop applications with a mobile-first approach. 

4. **Community Support:** Electron has a large and active community providing extensive documentation and third-party plugins, Photon has a smaller community but is supported by the Atom team, and React Native Desktop being a newer framework has a growing community with support from the React Native community.

5. **Development Workflow:** Electron allows the use of various front-end frameworks and has a flexible development workflow, Photon has a simpler and more straightforward workflow out of the box, and React Native Desktop leverages the React Native ecosystem and tools for a streamlined development experience. 

6. **Performance:** Electron apps may suffer from performance issues due to bundling Chromium and Node.js, Photon offers a lighter alternative with better performance for smaller-scale applications, while React Native Desktop leverages native APIs for improved performance on cross-platform desktop apps.

Electron vs Photon vs React Native Desktop

Overview