Comparing Electron and Tauri for Desktop Applications

You want to ship a cross-platform desktop app using your existing JavaScript and React skills. Two frameworks dominate this space: Electron, the battle-tested choice behind VS Code and Slack, and Tauri, the Rust-based framework that promises smaller, faster apps. Which should you pick for your next project?

This comparison covers the practical trade-offs between Electron and Tauri in late 2025—performance, security, ecosystem maturity, and developer experience—so you can make an informed decision.

Architecture: Bundled Browser vs System WebView

The fundamental difference shapes everything else.

Electron bundles Chromium and Node.js with every app. Your users get identical rendering regardless of their operating system. The cost: installers typically exceed 100MB, and idle memory sits around 150–300MB.

Tauri uses the operating system’s native WebView (Edge WebView2 on Windows, WebKitGTK on Linux, WebKit on macOS) paired with a Rust core. This produces installers often under 10MB and memory usage around 30–50MB at idle.

Real-world numbers vary based on app complexity, but the pattern holds consistently across production apps.

Performance: Bundle Size, Memory, and Startup

These differences matter most for apps users keep open all day, run on modest hardware, or download over slow connections. For Tauri 2 desktop apps, the smaller footprint translates to faster CI/CD pipelines and easier distribution.

Security Model: Open by Default vs Locked Down

Electron gives you a flexible Node.js + Chromium environment, but you still need to harden the renderer correctly—using context isolation, disabled Node integration in renderers, preload scripts, and proper content security policies.

Tauri flips this model. Its capability-based permission system starts with everything disabled. You explicitly enable each capability your app needs through Tauri’s capability-based permission system:

#[tauri::command]
async fn read_config() -> Result<Config, String> {
    // Only this function is exposed to the frontend
}

The frontend calls this through a typed API:

import { invoke } from "@tauri-apps/api/core";
const config = await invoke<Config>("read_config");

This approach reduces attack surface by design, making security audits more straightforward.

Platform Support: Desktop and Mobile

Electron targets Windows, macOS, and Linux with mature tooling for code signing, auto-updates, and app store distribution.

Tauri 2.x extends beyond desktop to iOS and Android from a single codebase. If you’re evaluating cross-platform JavaScript solutions for desktop apps with future mobile ambitions, Tauri offers a unified path.

Developer Experience: JavaScript vs Rust

Here’s where team composition matters most.

Choose Electron when:

• Your team works entirely in JavaScript/TypeScript
• You depend heavily on npm packages for core functionality
• You need advanced multi-window workflows
• Time-to-market outweighs binary size concerns

Choose Tauri when:

• Binary size and memory usage are priorities
• You want security-by-default architecture
• Your team can write basic Rust (or is willing to learn)
• You’re targeting mobile alongside desktop

Among Electron alternatives for desktop apps, Tauri represents the most mature option with active development and a growing plugin ecosystem.

Ecosystem Maturity

Electron’s decade of production use means thousands of packages, extensive documentation, and solutions for edge cases. VS Code, Slack, Discord, and Figma prove it scales.

Tauri’s ecosystem is smaller but growing rapidly. Core plugins cover auto-updates, notifications, file system access, and local storage, though Electron’s updater and packaging ecosystem is still more battle-tested. Community plugins fill additional gaps, though you may occasionally need to write Rust for specialized requirements.

When Each Framework Wins

Conclusion

Neither framework is universally superior. Electron remains the pragmatic choice for JavaScript-heavy teams shipping complex desktop applications quickly. Tauri delivers meaningful advantages in size, memory, and security for teams willing to work with Rust.

Evaluate based on your specific constraints: team skills, performance requirements, security needs, and target platforms. Both frameworks are production-ready and actively maintained—the right choice depends on what matters most for your product.

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