Electron

The desktop with a web stack

Electron packages a web application inside a real desktop app: Chromium renders the interface and Node.js talks to the operating system. In practice, that means building for Windows, macOS and Linux with the same code and the same team that already maintains your web product, with access to files, native notifications and life outside the browser.

We use Electron with criteria. It shines for internal tools, operational dashboards and desktop extensions of web products that already exist: cases where reusing code and people matters more than every megabyte of memory. For apps that demand maximum lightness or deep hardware integration, we are upfront: Electron is not the answer, and we point to native alternatives or Flutter.

For the people paying the bill, the math is simple: one codebase to maintain, updates shipped to all three systems at once and a single team looking after everything. The code editors and chat clients many of us use every day are built with Electron, which says a lot about how mature the platform is when applied well.

• Internal tools for teams and operations
• Desktop versions of existing web products
• Operational dashboards that run outside the browser
• Apps with local file system access
• Cross-platform utilities for Windows, macOS and Linux