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Mattermost (and Telegram?) call the electron-based apps "desktop apps", which is I feel is a nice tradeoff: not native but not browser.

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I think Telegram uses Qt.

Yep, Telegram on Desktop uses Qt. It's even open-source and on GitHub: https://github.com/telegramdesktop/tdesktop

There's a separate macOS version as well: https://github.com/overtake/telegram

They used to have two apps, one using Cocoa (named "Telegram") and the other Electron (named "Telegram Desktop"). They transitioned the Electron app to QT and kept the "Telegram Desktop" name.

Electron is a browser though, just one with a lot of the chrome cut out.

Chrome without the chrome.

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