I'm not sure that you can call this an "alternative" to Electron if it only supports macOS. I think the main selling point of Electron is the ability to build cross-platform GUI apps, which Shrinkray doesn't provide.
Remember when you could only download OSX executables from the Atom home page [1]?
In my experience, projects that are OSX first often work horribly on other platforms (the poster child being itunes).
Hence I switched to Visual Studio Code the second it became available.
[1] they gave you build instructions for linux & windows. Which almost never worked.
And I have to agree with other commenters that this will only truly be an alternative if it could be cross-platform. It seems cross-platform support is possible (by using each OS's own browser runtime), but then you'd have discrepancies between platforms which takes us back to square one.
As far as I can tell it's just a web view wrapper for desktop. It's missing all the node features that Electron or NW.js add, which makes me wonder... why not just run it in a browser like normal?
WebKit is generally easier on resources than Chromium/Blink is, sometimes to the tune of multiple hours longer battery life. So while it's still not lightweight, it's more lightweight than Electron is.
[+] [-] cshepp|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pawadu|9 years ago|reply
In my experience, projects that are OSX first often work horribly on other platforms (the poster child being itunes). Hence I switched to Visual Studio Code the second it became available.
[1] they gave you build instructions for linux & windows. Which almost never worked.
[+] [-] prophesi|9 years ago|reply
And I have to agree with other commenters that this will only truly be an alternative if it could be cross-platform. It seems cross-platform support is possible (by using each OS's own browser runtime), but then you'd have discrepancies between platforms which takes us back to square one.
[+] [-] hackcasual|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AshleysBrain|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ishtu|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kitsunesoba|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] david90|9 years ago|reply