For web technologies in desktop application development, two of the most promising entrants to the game are Tauri and Electron. It is worthy to note that each of the projects aims to provide tools for building cross-platform desktop applications with the use of web technologies, but at the same time, they do so in ways that are quite different from one another. This post will try to elaborate on a technical comparison between Tauri and Electron in terms of architecture, performance, security, development experience, and community support.
1. Architecture
Electron Architecture:
Core components: Electron is a combination of Chromium, an open-source web rendering engine, and Node.js, an open-source JavaScript runtime. It produces a runtime that has all the features to develop desktop GUIs via web technologies.
Process model: An Electron app runs a single Node.js process named the main process. This process manages life-cycle events in the application and can spawn multiple renderer processes (one per application window) to handle the GUI.
Bundling: Because Electron bundles the entirety of Chromium and Node.js, applications tend to be relatively large in size.
Tauri Architecture:
Core Components: Tauri is quite a lightweight framework; it uses just a webview component of the OS (uses WebView2 on Windows, WKWebView on macOS, WebKitGTK on Linux) for rendering the UI and utilizes Rust for the backend logic.
Process Model: Tauri splits apart the frontend (running inside the webview) from the backend (written in Rust), improving security and performance.
Bundling: The native webview components that Tauri applications use mean they bundle much smaller compared to applications bundling a full browser engine.
2. Performance
Electron:
Memory Usage: Electron applications tend to consume more memory because of the bundled Chromium engine and the overhead of running multiple processes.
Startup Time: Startup time for an Electron app tends to be slow because it first has to start up the entire Chromium engine.
Runtime Performance: Electron applications sometimes run less efficiently because of the sometimes resource-heavy Chromium engine. This is the case, especially for apps with many UI components or complex rendering needs.
Tauri:
Memory Usage: Tauri applications generally consume memory in smaller quantities since it is powered by the native webview and lightweight Rust backend.
Startup Time: In general, Tauri applications will start up quicker thanks to a smaller application size and use of native webview components.
Runtime Performance: Tauri will thus be able to take advantage of Rust's performance and features with respect to safety—putting it in good stead as a powerhouse in its own right for use in resource-constrained environments and applications demanding high performance.
3. Security
Electron:
Sandboxing: While Electron renderer processes are sandboxed, the main process has complete access to the system and introduces some security concerns if not handled properly.
Vulnerability Surface: The full Chromium engine adds to the attack surface. This makes it imperative to frequently update and upgrade against newly found vulnerabilities.
IPC (Inter-Process Communication): The Inter-process communication model has to be mindfully implemented to enable the main and renderer processes to communicate securely without any security glitches.
Tauri:
Sandboxing: The architecture of Tauri sandbox's away the webview/UI from the backend/logic. This inherently decreases risk concerning security bugs.
Vulnerability Surface: The vulnerability surface is lower as it uses native webview components in the system when compared to a whole browser engine that is built and bundled in.
IPC: Tauri has a more secure Inter-Process Communication mechanism, thanks to Rust's strong typing and memory safety guarantees that lessen the risks of security issues.
4. Development Experience
Electron:
Ecosystem: Electron has a mature ecosystem with extensive documentation, countless plugins, and a lots of community-developed modules.
Tooling: Shared tools and libraries for web development make the job easier for developers.
Debugging: Tools like Chrome DevTools come bundled with Electron, and it's pretty easy to debug.
Tauri:
Ecosystem: Tauri is an ecosystem, growing every day around it; the support and documentation are increasing day by day as well, but it is still in its early stages. We can compare it with an earlier version of the Electron ecosystem.
Tooling: Tauri has nice integration with today's modern web dev tools, and its Rust backend can be managed using Rust's powerful tooling.
Debugging: Debugging techniques include both webview debugging tools and Rust debugging tools that are richer in nature but can sometimes be more complicated to set up.
5. Community Support
Electron:
Adoption: Electron has high adoption as compared to others with many high-profile apps (Slack, Visual Studio Code, Discord).
Community: The large and active community around Electron makes for a robust support network with frequent updates and a host of third-party resources.
Tauri:
Adoption: Tauri is newer but in the process of very rapid adoption because of its light nature and the security benefits it brings.
Community: The size of the community of Tauri is growing with the amount of new contributions; indeed, the project is more than active, but surely not as big as the Electron one.
Conclusion:
Choose between Tauri and Electron depending on the necessities and limitations of your project:
Electron will be suitable for developers who target a mature ecosystem, common web development practices, using JavaScript alround and vast community support. The mentioned advantages, however, result in high memory consumption and app sizes.
Tauri — use when you will care about performance, security, and small application sizes by taking full advantage of Rust and native webview components. The ecosystem is moving fast, but it might require a greater learning curve if the developers are new to Rust.
Both frameworks can provide a good cross-platform desktop application, and the best choice will depend on your project's priorities and the expertise of the development team.
Top comments (3)
If we ignored the rust/nodejs part, Tauri seems to consume more memory from my experience. The app is lightweight, but the webview is not.
Lots of articles giving the false impression that Tauri has much lighter memory consumption because of native webview vs chromium. I don't have enough experience with any of these but looks like the native backend is where the difference comes from, and a lot of apps are not leverage enough of it to be benefited.
Finding Tauri still quite immature in many areas
Interested in how you might have handled Service Workers in Tauri as the require a https protocol - can be worked around via some plugins. Difference in Electron is it controls the webview and can implement a secure protocol required by SW's
Hi Darren,
I’ve not used a SW yet, and to be honest I don’t think I will ever need to do so as the context of a desktop application is very different from a web app.
My main problems during development are always around WebKit cause the project is full of bugs and caveats.