[rodw]

Exactly. The truth is that over that last 15+ years _most_ of the apps that people use _most_ of the time are a perfect and natural fit for the web UI/UX: text, media, hyperlinks, standard form/window controls, with relatively modest standards of performance and responsiveness, etc.

Assuming developers avoid resource leaks (and to be fair some notable Electron-based apps tend to be both leaky and long-running) the main drawback of Electron seems to be the non-native look-and-feel. But that _could_ be worked around (for the most part) with some effort, and I suspect most users don't actually care that much. The web browser is still probably the most-used desktop app. The web look-and-feel is familiar and intuitive to users, even if it stands out a little from the UI of native apps.

Poor resource management aside, something like Electron is probably good _enough_ for most applications.

[unsafecast]

I have never, in my life, used an electron program that isn't irritatingly slow on my main computer. Yes, it's not something you'd probably call a fast computer (4th gen i3, 4GB ram), but this same computer doesn't drop a frame in equivalent native programs. Most of the time the CPU is almost idle.

I have nothing intrinsic against electron, and I'll take everything back if I see these "natural fits" actually fit.

[fragmede]

It sounds like your 8 year old computer can't keep with today's technology. If it's possible, might I suggest upgrading your computer? A more modern system would let you run Electron apps without being irritatingly slow. It seems silly that I had to upgrade my laptop in order to run a text editor, but it seems that's just the world we live in.

[rodw]

> I have nothing intrinsic against electron, and I'll take everything back if I see these "natural fits" actually fit.

As a baseline, Electron performance _should_ be no worse than a regular SPA-style web UI running in the browser. Unless you find _everything_ on the web "irritatingly slow" it's surely _possible_ to create an Electron app with acceptable performance.

From my perspective anyway, I've both used and contributed to multiple Electron-based apps with performance that was not only "adequate" but not noticeably different from a typical native app. Basic Electron apps (done correctly) will look and feel more or less like a web app but perform more or less like a web app too.

FWIW there is a lightly-curated list of electron apps at https://www.electronjs.org/apps

I'm not sure offhand which of those is a good example of UI/UX and performance, but if you poke around with some of the medium-scope stuff (not too basic, not too ambitious) I'll bet you can find some examples.

UPDATE: I spot checked a few of those Electron apps for the fun of it. Here are a few examples you may find compelling:

* Deer - https://github.com/abahmed/Deer/releases/tag/v1.0.0 - A simple styled-text note-taking app that was last updated ~4 years ago. I don't _love_ all the UX choices personally but the performance seemed reasonable in my short test, especially considering the version of Electron they are using is 16 major releases out of date. There are probably more robust note-taking examples in that list (e.g. Inkdrop, Notable, Notion), this just happens to be the one I grabbed.

* Pencil - https://pencil.evolus.vn/ - A much more complex app for drawing fairly sophisticated Visio-like diagrams and UI mock-ups. Performance wise it seems about as responsive as a typical native app on my nearly 3 year old MacBook. But it may have large-ish baseline memory footprint so YMMV.

* I notice that some well known apps (or at least brands) are listed, like Trello, Asana, Notion, GitHub Desktop, Basecamp, WordPress, Twitch, Skype, Signal, Quickbooks, Light Table, Figma, WhatsApp, etc. For several of those I for one was not aware that they were Electron-based, and I'm guessing at least some (but probably not all) of those work pretty well. I think I've used both GitHub Desktop and Notion without anything to complain about but I'm not surprised that they are Electron apps. I've definitely used that Skype client and never noticed that it was an Electron app. I've never used it, but I'd bet Trello works well too.

IMO I think this demonstrates my original point in this thread: When an Electron app is well-engineered you don't even notice that it's Electron. It's survivor bias. People think Electron apps are bad because it's the bad apps that are noticeably Electron-based.