Hacker News Reader

Comment by danuker | Hacker News Reader

Why do people use such a tool? I did not enjoy Electron due to its sluggishness, and I believe that it is a strictly Pareto-inferior solution:

* Creating a web app has the same UI performance, but does not require you to download and update.

* Creating a native app has the same installation and update requirements, but allows much better UI performance.

View on HN

I feel you've answered your own question. If you want to make a single app that can be web or offline, and cross-platform, Electron and friends allow you to do that. It's a trade-off of dev effort for user experience, and as much as many devs hate that philosophy it allows many things to exist that otherwise would not be worth the effort.

I would distribute a web app as a website, not as an Electron app.

Because some of us have to build things which, for biz/customer reasons, have to be desktop apps, but we, as devs, are more familiar with web technologies/there are more web libs out there.

Because sometimes you want a desktop app right now and are most productive with Web technologies.

Because you can use the same code for both interfaces.

There is a moderate demand for local desktop applications, but there is a very large supply of Web developers. Solution: by bundling an entire web browser with your application you can have web developers making 'desktop' interfaces.

I believe it is because it is easier to find developpers familiar with the Web than with any other cross platform toolkit.

Put another way, it is easier for a web developer to get started with electron than to learn a new language.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com