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. Languages
  4. Languages
  5. Hack vs React Native Desktop

Hack vs React Native Desktop

OverviewComparisonAlternatives

Overview

Hack
Hack
Stacks818
Followers169
Votes29
GitHub Stars18.5K
Forks3.1K
React Native Desktop
React Native Desktop
Stacks15
Followers203
Votes11

Hack vs React Native Desktop: What are the differences?

  1. Key Difference 1: Execution Environment Hack is a programming language designed for use with the HHVM runtime environment which translates high-level Hack code into low-level PHP code, whereas React Native Desktop is a framework based on React Native that allows the development of desktop applications using familiar web technologies like JavaScript and React.

  2. Key Difference 2: Platform Compatibility Hack is primarily used for web development and can be integrated with PHP-based websites, while React Native Desktop is specifically designed for creating desktop applications and offers support for Windows, macOS, and Linux operating systems.

  3. Key Difference 3: Development Workflow Hack provides additional features like static type checking, type inference, and gradual typing which help developers catch errors at compile time, whereas React Native Desktop leverages the React Native ecosystem and hot reloading capabilities to provide a fast development cycle for building desktop applications.

  4. Key Difference 4: Performance Hack relies on the HHVM compiler and JIT (Just-In-Time) compilation techniques to optimize performance, while React Native Desktop uses native components and APIs to deliver efficient performance on desktop platforms.

  5. Key Difference 5: Community and Support Hack has a smaller but dedicated community of developers due to its specific focus on PHP interoperability, while React Native Desktop benefits from the larger React Native community and ongoing support from Facebook, which ensures regular updates and improvements.

  6. Key Difference 6: Learning Curve Hack introduces unique concepts like shape checking, nullable types, and async/await syntax, which may require a learning curve for developers familiar with traditional statically-typed languages, whereas React Native Desktop follows the React Native principles and development patterns, making it easier for web developers to transition to creating desktop applications.

In Summary, the key differences between Hack and React Native Desktop encompass their execution environments, platform compatibility, development workflows, performance optimizations, community support, and learning curves for developers.

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

Detailed Comparison

Hack
Hack
React Native Desktop
React Native Desktop

Hack provides instantaneous type checking via a local server that watches the filesystem. It typically runs in less than 200 milliseconds, making it easy to integrate into your development workflow without introducing a noticeable delay.

Build OS X desktop apps using React Native.

Fast Development; Type Checking; Built for HHVM; Type Annotations; Generics; Lambdas
-
Statistics
GitHub Stars
18.5K
GitHub Stars
-
GitHub Forks
3.1K
GitHub Forks
-
Stacks
818
Stacks
15
Followers
169
Followers
203
Votes
29
Votes
11
Pros & Cons
Pros
  • 6
    Open source
  • 6
    Interoperates seamlessly with php
  • 5
    Backed by facebook
  • 4
    HHVM
  • 2
    Generics
Pros
  • 3
    Pretty awesome
  • 2
    Does not include any browser
  • 2
    Memory usage reduced
  • 2
    Is native app
  • 1
    Quickly convert react.js web app to desktop app
Cons
  • 0
    Memory usage reduced
Integrations
HHVM (HipHop Virtual Machine)
HHVM (HipHop Virtual Machine)
React Native
React Native

What are some alternatives to Hack, React Native Desktop?

JavaScript

JavaScript

JavaScript is most known as the scripting language for Web pages, but used in many non-browser environments as well such as node.js or Apache CouchDB. It is a prototype-based, multi-paradigm scripting language that is dynamic,and supports object-oriented, imperative, and functional programming styles.

Python

Python

Python is a general purpose programming language created by Guido Van Rossum. Python is most praised for its elegant syntax and readable code, if you are just beginning your programming career python suits you best.

PHP

PHP

Fast, flexible and pragmatic, PHP powers everything from your blog to the most popular websites in the world.

Ruby

Ruby

Ruby is a language of careful balance. Its creator, Yukihiro “Matz” Matsumoto, blended parts of his favorite languages (Perl, Smalltalk, Eiffel, Ada, and Lisp) to form a new language that balanced functional programming with imperative programming.

Java

Java

Java is a programming language and computing platform first released by Sun Microsystems in 1995. There are lots of applications and websites that will not work unless you have Java installed, and more are created every day. Java is fast, secure, and reliable. From laptops to datacenters, game consoles to scientific supercomputers, cell phones to the Internet, Java is everywhere!

Golang

Golang

Go is expressive, concise, clean, and efficient. Its concurrency mechanisms make it easy to write programs that get the most out of multicore and networked machines, while its novel type system enables flexible and modular program construction. Go compiles quickly to machine code yet has the convenience of garbage collection and the power of run-time reflection. It's a fast, statically typed, compiled language that feels like a dynamically typed, interpreted language.

HTML5

HTML5

HTML5 is a core technology markup language of the Internet used for structuring and presenting content for the World Wide Web. As of October 2014 this is the final and complete fifth revision of the HTML standard of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The previous version, HTML 4, was standardised in 1997.

C#

C#

C# (pronounced "See Sharp") is a simple, modern, object-oriented, and type-safe programming language. C# has its roots in the C family of languages and will be immediately familiar to C, C++, Java, and JavaScript programmers.

Scala

Scala

Scala is an acronym for “Scalable Language”. This means that Scala grows with you. You can play with it by typing one-line expressions and observing the results. But you can also rely on it for large mission critical systems, as many companies, including Twitter, LinkedIn, or Intel do. To some, Scala feels like a scripting language. Its syntax is concise and low ceremony; its types get out of the way because the compiler can infer them.

Elixir

Elixir

Elixir leverages the Erlang VM, known for running low-latency, distributed and fault-tolerant systems, while also being successfully used in web development and the embedded software domain.

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