Investigate Electrino and Weex and Flutter and NodeGUI etc as Electron alternatives for Desktop

[taoeffect]

Problem

"Electron is Flash for the desktop", although see this sort-of rebuttal.

Solution

167 kB app vs 115 MB by using OS's native browser.

https://github.com/pojala/electrino (note, see this issue on merging Electrino with MacGap: https://github.com/pojala/electrino/issues/10)

Downside is fewer desktop integration features, and the fact that it uses Microsoft Edge on windows... But that might not turn out to be a big deal?

Another possibility is Weex, which is like React Native, except for VueJS.

Still yet another possibility is volt, which account to its site will be open sourced in 2021.

EDIT: see also: https://jlongster.com/secret-of-good-electron-apps

EDIT: also see NodeGUI -> https://github.com/nodegui/nodegui -> https://github.com/nodegui/vue-nodegui

EDIT: Neutralino!

EDIT: Muon

EDIT: Tauri !! => https://tauri.studio/en/ - See: Tauri vs Electron

EDIT: Sciter ! => https://sciter.com/

EDIT: Socket SDK !! - looks really promising!! Desktop & mobile & P2P!

EDIT: Flutter

EDIT: webview along with others mentioned here: https://blog.stevensanderson.com/2019/11/01/exploring-lighter-alternatives-to-electron-for-hosting-a-blazor-desktop-app/

EDIT: https://cordova.apache.org/ and Ionic. Although these are for mobile apps only.

EDIT: WebView for Deno! https://deno.land/x/[email protected]

[danawoodman]

From my understanding Electrino is a proof of concept and not actually usable at least yet?

[taoeffect]

Unknown whether or not it's usable, but yeah it does look very early stage.

[danawoodman]

I was reading something a few weeks ago that said it is "demo-ware" so might be a bit down the road to use

[taoeffect]

I don't think it will be a big issue. It's just the native browser. The native browser has most / if not everything we need.

[vijayee]

I don't understand why we need a framework at all? We could use the base electron.

[taoeffect]

@vijayee Not sure what you mean by framework. Electrino is just a lighterweight alternative to bundling the site into a desktop app with Electron. Electron bundles the browser, Electrino doesn't.

[taoeffect]

Edited to add Flutter to issue title.