Is Tauri The Lightweight Alternative To Electron You’ve Been Waiting For?

Although Electron is the most widely used of the popular frameworks for building cross-platform desktop and mobile applications, it has faced and continues to face heavy criticism over some of its inadequacies. 

In particular, concerns about its high memory usage and large binary sizes seem to be not getting away, particularly with respect to building desktop apps. 

If you’re reading this and this has been your concern too, well, you’re in luck!

While Electron is the most well-known framework for creating cross-platform applications, it’s not the only option available. Alternatives like Tauri, Flutter, NW.js, and Qt allow developers to build applications that work across different operating systems, with each addressing some of the limitations often associated with the more popular Electron. 

In today’s article, we’ll take a quick look at Tauri. One of the newest cross-platform application frameworks addressing the headaches that have long been associated with Electron apps. We’ll introduce the framework, examine it in contrast with its big brother, and evaluate its internals. Let’s get started. 

Electron Internals

To begin this article, it’s important to understand how traditional cross-platform frameworks like Electron work.

When it comes to developing cross-platform applications, tools like Electron allow developers to code their app logic in JavaScript while using HTML and CSS as the foundation of the UI. 

Electron, in particular, relies on an instance of the Chromium JavaScript runtime so that when an app built with Electron launches, it fires up a portable browser instance which in turn loads the JavaScript-based application bundled with it. 

This method of building cross-platform apps provides ease of development and familiarity that contrasts the traditional approach of porting native code to other architectures when developers need to build for multiple platforms. 

Also, It enables developers to use the much richer ecosystem of web tools and libraries to enhance the application’s design and user experience in ways that native tools may not

How Tauri Works

Tauri is a framework for building tiny and fast binaries for all major desktop (macOS, linux, windows) and mobile (iOS, Android) platforms.

Developers can integrate any frontend framework that compiles to HTML, JavaScript, and CSS for building their user experience while leveraging languages such as Rust, Swift, and Kotlin for backend logic when needed. — Tauri

In contrast to Electron, Tauri touts itself as a toolkit to “build an optimized, secure, and frontend-independent application for multi-platform deployment”

Tauri’s main goal is to help developers build optimized and secure desktop and mobile applications with any frontend framework and a Rust core. 

In recent times, the popularity of the framework has tailed the increased rise in fame of the Rust programming language and it recently introduced v2 to further cement its position. 

In a Tauri application, the frontend is written in any favorite web frontend stack that then runs inside the operating system WebView and communicates with the application core written in Rust. 

According to its developers, the platform was built for the “security-focused, privacy-respecting, and environmentally-conscious” (think, small and less power-consuming) software teams. 

Tauri Internals

Conceptually, Tauri merely acts as a static web host. 

It uses Rust crates and the operating system’s native web view to output a decently sized executable application.

An Electron app comes packed with its own unique, vendored copy of a web browser, and has to spin up an entirely separate web browser process when it’s launched. Electron apps can take hundreds of megabytes or more on disk, and their in-memory footprint is typically that big, too. And while modern hardware can generally handle the load, a bigger question arises: Isn’t there a better way to do this? —Serdar Yegulalp

Although The basic idea behind Tauri is similar to Electron — that is an app whose UI is a web page bundled with a portable self-contained browser, the big difference is that it doesn’t bundle a whole browser. 

Instead, Tauri uses the native system web view component of the OS it runs on which means apps can be delivered in tiny bundles of code. 

Furthermore, Tauri bundles use WRY to talk to the native web view and tao for seamless window-related interfacing.

Should You Switch? 

That said, when deciding whether Tauri is a better choice than Electron, it helps to consider several factors based on your app’s requirements, resources, and priorities in terms of performance, file size, and framework familiarity.

Key Advantages of Tauri over Electron

1. Smaller Bundles: One of Tauri’s major strengths lies in its lightweight nature. Unlike Electron, which ships a standalone Chromium runtime with each app, Tauri leverages the system’s native WebView (using WRY to interact with it), resulting in significantly smaller app sizes. This means a Tauri app’s footprint on disk can be under 10 MB, whereas Electron apps can easily reach hundreds of megabytes due to the Chromium dependency.
2. Memory Efficiency: Since Tauri doesn’t bundle a web browser, its memory usage is generally lower than Electron’s. This design choice is particularly beneficial on devices with limited memory resources or for apps that are meant to run continuously in the background without impacting performance.
3. Built for Rust Developers: Tauri’s backend leverages Rust, a language known for its performance and memory safety. This allows developers to create secure, performant code that integrates seamlessly with Tauri’s lightweight front-end interface. For developers familiar with Rust, Tauri offers a unique environment to build a robust core while keeping the UI flexible.
4. Native-Like UX: Because Tauri apps use the OS’s WebView, they often feel more native and integrate better with the operating system than Electron apps, which operate as a separate browser instance. This is particularly noticeable on macOS and Windows, where Tauri apps often exhibit better native performance.
5. Cross-Platform Deployment: Tauri supports all major desktop operating systems (Windows, macOS, and Linux) and has just pivoted towards mobile support with v2. If you’re a developer targeting both mobile and desktop platforms, Tauri’s flexibility across multiple environments is appealing.
6. Environmental Impact: Tauri markets itself as an option for developers conscious of power usage, data efficiency, and disk space. With its low footprint and reliance on native components, Tauri appeals to development teams seeking a smaller environmental impact, as well as to developers focused on building lightweight, sustainable software.

Limitations and Considerations

While Tauri’s efficiency and small bundle size make it a compelling choice, you may also want to consider:

• Learning Curve for Rust: Tauri requires backend development in Rust, which, although increasingly popular, may present a learning curve for JavaScript-only developers.
• WebView Limitations: Depending on the platform, the native WebView might have limited features or performance inconsistencies compared to the full Chromium engine bundled with Electron. For highly complex or graphics-intensive applications, this could limit some of Tauri’s benefits.
• Community and Ecosystem: Electron, due to its age and popularity, has a broader community, more mature tools, and extensive libraries. Although Tauri is growing fast, its ecosystem is comparatively smaller, which might require custom solutions for some app requirements.

Conclusion

Switching from Electron to Tauri depends on your priorities. If memory usage, application size, and environmental considerations are primary concerns, Tauri could provide a powerful alternative, especially if you’re comfortable with Rust. 

For developers who need rich libraries and flexibility in the JavaScript ecosystem, Electron may still be a practical choice. 

Ultimately, Tauri presents an exciting framework for cross-platform development that addresses many of Electron’s common criticisms while still offering a rich experience across platforms.

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