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  1. Stackups
  2. Application & Data
  3. Frameworks
  4. Cross Platform Desktop Development
  5. Electron vs React Desktop

Electron vs React Desktop

OverviewDecisionsComparisonAlternatives

Overview

Electron
Electron
Stacks11.6K
Followers10.0K
Votes148
React Desktop
React Desktop
Stacks15
Followers173
Votes0
GitHub Stars9.5K
Forks454

Electron vs React Desktop: What are the differences?

Introduction

Electron and React Desktop are both popular frameworks for building desktop applications. While both frameworks are used for building cross-platform desktop applications, there are several key differences between them.

  1. Architecture: Electron is a framework that combines Chromium and Node.js, allowing developers to build desktop applications with web technologies. It provides a runtime environment that runs a separate instance of Chromium and Node.js for each application window. React Desktop, on the other hand, is a UI toolkit built on top of React, providing a set of components specifically designed for desktop applications. It follows a component-based architecture.

  2. Language: Electron primarily uses JavaScript, HTML, and CSS for building applications. It provides a familiar web development environment for developers. React Desktop, as the name suggests, is built on top of React and primarily uses JavaScript and JSX for building applications. It leverages the power of React to build highly interactive and reusable UI components.

  3. Performance: Electron applications can be resource-intensive due to the separate instances of Chromium and Node.js running for each application window. This can affect the overall performance of the application, especially when running multiple windows simultaneously. React Desktop, being a UI toolkit built on top of React, benefits from React's virtual DOM and efficient rendering mechanism, resulting in better performance and optimized resource usage.

  4. Development Workflow: Electron provides a powerful set of tools and a mature ecosystem for developing desktop applications. It allows developers to build, package, and distribute applications with ease. React Desktop, on the other hand, leverages the existing React development workflow and ecosystem. It provides a seamless integration with tools like webpack, Babel, and npm, making it easier for developers already familiar with React to start building desktop applications.

  5. Platform Support: Electron supports a wide range of platforms, including Windows, macOS, and Linux. It provides a consistent development experience across different operating systems. React Desktop, being a UI toolkit built on top of React, can potentially be used on any platform supported by React. However, the level of platform support may depend on the specific UI components and libraries used in the application.

  6. Application Size: Electron applications tend to have larger file sizes compared to native desktop applications. This is because Electron packages the entire Chromium runtime along with the application code. React Desktop, being a UI toolkit built on top of React, allows developers to build smaller and more lightweight applications by selectively using only the necessary React components.

In summary, Electron is a framework that combines Chromium and Node.js to build desktop applications with web technologies, while React Desktop is a UI toolkit built on top of React for building desktop applications with a component-based architecture. Electron has a slightly higher performance overhead and larger file sizes compared to React Desktop, but it provides a mature development workflow and extensive platform support. React Desktop, on the other hand, benefits from React's efficient rendering mechanism and provides a lightweight and familiar development experience.

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Advice on Electron, React Desktop

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

Electron
Electron
React Desktop
React 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.

react-desktop is a JavaScript library built ontop of Facebook's React library, which aims to bring a native desktop experience to the web, featuring many OS X El Capitan and Windows 10 components. react-desktop works perfectly with node-webkit and Electron.js, but can be used in any JavaScript powered project!

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
9.5K
GitHub Forks
-
GitHub Forks
454
Stacks
11.6K
Stacks
15
Followers
10.0K
Followers
173
Votes
148
Votes
0
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
    Wrong reference for dom inspection
No community feedback yet
Integrations
No integrations available
React
React

What are some alternatives to Electron, React Desktop?

Sciter

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

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

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

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

React Native Desktop

Build OS X desktop apps using React Native.

JUCE

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

Proton Native

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

NodeGUI

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

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

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.

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