Electron vs Qt

Overview

Stacks464

Followers637

Votes138

Electron

Stacks11.6K

Followers10.0K

Votes148

Electron vs Qt: What are the differences?

Introduction

In this article, we will compare Electron and Qt, two popular frameworks for building cross-platform desktop applications. Both Electron and Qt provide the ability to create desktop applications using web technologies, but there are several key differences between the two frameworks.

Architecture: Electron is based on Chromium and Node.js, while Qt is a C++ framework. Electron uses web technologies such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to build desktop applications, while Qt provides a set of C++ libraries for building cross-platform applications.
Platform Support: Electron supports Windows, macOS, and Linux operating systems, making it a truly cross-platform solution. Qt, on the other hand, supports a wide range of platforms including Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, iOS, and even embedded systems.
Performance: Electron applications are known to consume more system resources compared to Qt applications. This is because Electron applications run a full Chromium browser instance in the background. Qt applications, being written in C++, have a smaller memory footprint and are generally more efficient in terms of performance.
UI Customization: In Electron, the user interface is built using web technologies and can be fully customized using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Qt provides a more traditional approach to building user interfaces with its own set of UI components and styling options. While Qt offers more control over the look and feel of the application, Electron allows for more flexibility in terms of design and customization.
Development Workflow: Electron follows a more web-centric development workflow. Developers can use popular web development tools and frameworks such as React or Angular to build the user interface of an Electron application. Qt, being a C++ framework, requires knowledge of C++ and its libraries. It also provides its own set of tools and IDEs for development.
Community and Ecosystem: Electron has a larger and more active community compared to Qt. It has a vibrant ecosystem with many community-maintained packages and libraries available for use. Qt, on the other hand, has a smaller community but is backed by the Qt Company, which provides commercial support and a range of professional services.

In summary, Electron and Qt are both powerful frameworks for building cross-platform desktop applications. Electron, being based on web technologies, offers more flexibility in terms of design and customization. Qt, being a C++ framework, provides better performance and a wider range of platform support. The choice between the two frameworks ultimately depends on the project requirements and the development team's skill set.

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CLI (Node.js)

Manual

Detailed Comparison

Qt	Electron
Qt, a leading cross-platform application and UI framework. With Qt, you can develop applications once and deploy to leading desktop, embedded & mobile targets.	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.
-	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
Stacks 464	Stacks 11.6K
Followers 637	Followers 10.0K
Votes 138	Votes 148
Pros & Cons
Pros 17 High Performance 13 Declarative, easy and flexible UI 12 Performance 12 Cross platform 9 Fast prototyping Cons 5 Paid 4 C++ is not so productive 2 Lack of community support 1 Lack of libraries 1 Not detailed documentation	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 Wrong reference for dom inspection

What are some alternatives to Qt, Electron?

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

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’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.

NativeScript

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.

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

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.

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

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 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

Electron vs Qt: What are the differences?

Introduction

Architecture: Electron is based on Chromium and Node.js, while Qt is a C++ framework. Electron uses web technologies such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to build desktop applications, while Qt provides a set of C++ libraries for building cross-platform applications.
Platform Support: Electron supports Windows, macOS, and Linux operating systems, making it a truly cross-platform solution. Qt, on the other hand, supports a wide range of platforms including Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, iOS, and even embedded systems.
Performance: Electron applications are known to consume more system resources compared to Qt applications. This is because Electron applications run a full Chromium browser instance in the background. Qt applications, being written in C++, have a smaller memory footprint and are generally more efficient in terms of performance.
UI Customization: In Electron, the user interface is built using web technologies and can be fully customized using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Qt provides a more traditional approach to building user interfaces with its own set of UI components and styling options. While Qt offers more control over the look and feel of the application, Electron allows for more flexibility in terms of design and customization.
Development Workflow: Electron follows a more web-centric development workflow. Developers can use popular web development tools and frameworks such as React or Angular to build the user interface of an Electron application. Qt, being a C++ framework, requires knowledge of C++ and its libraries. It also provides its own set of tools and IDEs for development.
Community and Ecosystem: Electron has a larger and more active community compared to Qt. It has a vibrant ecosystem with many community-maintained packages and libraries available for use. Qt, on the other hand, has a smaller community but is backed by the Qt Company, which provides commercial support and a range of professional services.

Electron vs Qt

Overview

Electron vs Qt: What are the differences?