Electron is great for creating Desktop Apps using Web Technologies. The programs are portable and platform independent. However, they tend to be too big, as Electron embeds Chromium and Node in the executables. Here are some alternatives which create smaller executables.
Wails
With Wails you can create Desktop Apps using Go and web technologies. Wails does not embed an external browser like Electron which means the final binaries are significantly smaller. It uses the native rendering engine instead, so WKWebview on macOS and Webview2 on Windows.
Sciter
Sciter is an embeddable HTML/CSS/Javascript engine. It uses QuickJS as it’s Javascript Engine. It’s cross platform and supports Windows, macOS and Linux. However, Sciter does not use WebKit or Blink as a rendering engine. Sciter has it’s own rendering engine, which means that it has a different feature set, especially regarding CSS3.
React Native Windows
React Native Windows enables you to use React Native apps on Desktop. The name should not confuse you: React Native Windows supports both Windows and macOS. However, Linux is not supported currently.
Tauri
Tauri is a framework for building Desktop Apps. Like Wails, Tauri is using WebView2 on Windows and WKWebview on macOS, which means the executables are smaller than with Electron. The main difference is that Tauri is built on Rust instead of Go. Tauri has a built in Updater, which makes it easier for developers ship new versions to customers.
Conclusion
There are many sophisticated alternatives to Electron in 2023. However, Wails and Tauri tend to stand out a little bit more.
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