Why are you talking about download time? By slower I don't mean that they take a long time to download, but that they run slowly, i.e. the performance is bad.

Why are you talking about download time? By slower I don't mean that they take a long time to download, but that they run slowly, i.e. the performance is bad. "100x slower" was a figure of speech. I know Atom is not 100 times slower (although sometimes it feels like it) ;-) As for "Why would you pick harder development over practically no gain?", I think it's pretty clear: for those who know web technologies, using Electron to develop a desktop app makes for much easier development. That's what they gain from using it: being able to develop a desktop app versus not being able to.