Desktop

2026-06-23

Electron vs Tauri: Building Cross-Platform Desktop Apps

Electron vs Tauri: Building Cross-Platform Desktop Apps

1. Desktop Apps with Web Technologies

Electron has dominated the desktop app space for years — VS Code, Slack, Discord, and Figma all use it. Tauri is the new contender, promising smaller binaries, better performance, and improved security. Here is how they compare for building desktop applications.

2. Electron: The Proven Heavyweight

Electron embeds Chromium and Node.js, giving you full browser APIs plus native capabilities. Development is straightforward for web developers — your entire web stack transfers directly.

1const { app, BrowserWindow } = require("electron");
2
3app.whenReady().then(() => {
4const win = new BrowserWindow({
5  width: 1200,
6  height: 800,
7  webPreferences: {
8    nodeIntegration: true,
9    contextIsolation: false,
10  },
11});
12
13win.loadURL("http://localhost:3000"); // For dev
14// or win.loadFile("dist/index.html"); // For production
15});

3. Tauri: Lightweight and Secure

Tauri uses the operating system's native webview (WebView2 on Windows, WKWebView on macOS, WebKitGTK on Linux) instead of bundling Chromium. The backend is written in Rust, providing performance and memory safety.

1use tauri;
2
3#[tauri::command]
4fn greet(name: &str) -> String {
5  format!("Hello, {}! This is Tauri.", name)
6}
7
8fn main() {
9  tauri::Builder::default()
10      .invoke_handler(tauri::generate_handler![greet])
11      .run(tauri::generate_context!())
12      .expect("error while running tauri application");
13}

4. Feature Comparison

5. Verdict

Choose Tauri for new desktop applications where binary size, memory usage, and security matter. Choose Electron if you need maximum ecosystem compatibility, do not want to learn Rust, or need features only available in Electron (like Chromium DevTools extensions). Both frameworks build excellent desktop apps.