4 ms·

Don't use Electon. Your users WILL notice and complain about performance. Is this actually true? Slack and Discord are valued at ~$7B and $2B respectively, an

Don't use Electon. Your users WILL notice and complain about performance. Is this actually true? Slack and Discord are valued at ~$7B and $2B respectively, and neither have found it necessary to move off their Electron apps. I assume both companies have already evaluated whether Electron's performance impacts their their bottom line, and concluded it does not. Electron is undoubtedly slower and more resource-intensive than other options, but outside of specific audiences (HN readers) I bet most people won't care.

fbelzile 8y ago
You're right. It's a relatively small, but persistent concern people have emailed me about. After a while, the squeaky wheel gets the grease. I know this because I'm temporarily using a Chrome-based WebBrowser component for called EO.WebBrowser (for edge-case reasons). I'm working on going back to the native WebBrowser control after getting about a few emails a month of emails asking about RAM usage. It also shows up in the uninstall comments. Quote from a real comment: "The app works, but it uses a lot of RAM." Slack and Discord are used for work, which might make users think of it a necessary evil. Paying for software yourself that you don't absolutely need and having it use lots of your RAM is a different story.
nickjj 8y ago
> Electron is undoubtedly slower and more resource-intensive than other options, but outside of specific audiences (HN readers) I bet most people won't care. I think it makes even more of a difference for people outside of the HN audience. A non-technical person might grab a $400 laptop from Costco with 4gb of RAM which is fairly common. All it takes are a few Electron apps to exhaust that entire system's resources.
- anoncake 8y ago
  But will a non-technical person know which apps are to blame?
  - nickjj 8y ago
    They will be able to determine "before I installed this app everything was good but now it's not" and then they will proceed to blame your app (with good reason).
- baumandm 8y ago
  Fair points. All I was trying to say was that Electron and other technical decisions should be evaluated by their actual business impact, which vary from app to app.

fbelzile 8y ago

You're right. It's a relatively small, but persistent concern people have emailed me about. After a while, the squeaky wheel gets the grease. I know this because I'm temporarily using a Chrome-based WebBrowser component for called EO.WebBrowser (for edge-case reasons). I'm working on going back to the native WebBrowser control after getting about a few emails a month of emails asking about RAM usage. It also shows up in the uninstall comments. Quote from a real comment: "The app works, but it uses a lot of RAM." Slack and Discord are used for work, which might make users think of it a necessary evil. Paying for software yourself that you don't absolutely need and having it use lots of your RAM is a different story.

nickjj 8y ago

> Electron is undoubtedly slower and more resource-intensive than other options, but outside of specific audiences (HN readers) I bet most people won't care. I think it makes even more of a difference for people outside of the HN audience. A non-technical person might grab a $400 laptop from Costco with 4gb of RAM which is fairly common. All it takes are a few Electron apps to exhaust that entire system's resources.

anoncake 8y ago
But will a non-technical person know which apps are to blame?
- nickjj 8y ago
  They will be able to determine "before I installed this app everything was good but now it's not" and then they will proceed to blame your app (with good reason).
baumandm 8y ago
Fair points. All I was trying to say was that Electron and other technical decisions should be evaluated by their actual business impact, which vary from app to app.