6 ms·

I'm looking forward to doing a comparison of Qt 6 and Electron in terms of both usability and performance.

dotancohen 7y ago
What? That would just be a rant. Electron apps generally have no accessibility consideration, and accessibility is often the cornerstone of usability. Especially for keyboard users. Additionally, their performance is abysmal. Even the latest Slack update, which was focused on improving performance, see Slack using more CPU than my Java-based IDE (Jetbrains) sometimes.
- ajconway 7y ago
  One would think that a browser-based app should excel in terms of accessibility, because it's practically built into the engine.
tomjen3 7y ago
Unless the QT guys do something completely of the charts, it will be a lumbering wheelbarrow vs an Aston Martin.
- ahartmetz 7y ago
  Cool, so you have worked with both, right?
  - mort96 7y ago
    Most people have used lots of Qt apps and lots of Electron apps, which is enough to get an impression of the general performance characteristics of each.
    - ahartmetz 7y ago
      The order in which they were mentioned made Qt the lumbering wheelbarrow.
- SwellJoe 7y ago
  I'm not sure which is the wheelbarrow in your analogy.
hedora 7y ago
I think the suggestion here involves comparing the developer experience for the two. (QT would clearly win on all of the user experience and runtime performance metrics.) If not for developer experience, why is electron ever used for anything?
- leadingthenet 7y ago
  Because a vast number of mediocre JavaScript developers can suddenly easily port their mediocre web apps to the desktop, and because companies love the "only one codebase" idea. There's no technical merit to Electron.
  - ilikehurdles 7y ago
    The native desktop application has been replaced for all but the most complex and inertia-driven established behemoths. Was there technical merit in moving desktop applications to the browser in the first place throughout the 2000s? In most cases: no. All of the functionality of the web interfaces could have been written as more performant native desktop analogues, but it's 2019 now and starting on the web is the defacto default while making a desktop application is the exception.
  - afiori 7y ago
    Being mediocre has nothing to do with it. Also portability from a popular platform is a technical merit. That Qt is better on its own is also a merit, but not the only one.
- ilikehurdles 7y ago
  If Qt would win on user experience, why isn't it doing so now? This list[1] is out-dated (spotify uses electron, for example). But after skimming it I don't recognize any big software applications that have an exceptional user experience. Some, like Google Earth and Calibre are abysmal at best. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Software_that_uses_Qt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Software_that_uses_Qt
  - 7y ago
pjmlp 7y ago
Easy just watch React Native for Windows talk at Microsoft BUILD 2019. Electron has 700% performance lost over UWP/C++, which is the baseline. Expect similar results when comparing against Qt.
- rat9988 7y ago
  I had to search for the video, but I guess you are talking about this? https://youtu.be/TZnajQqqKV8?t=2894 https://youtu.be/TZnajQqqKV8?t=2894
  - pjmlp 7y ago
    Yep, that one.
- k__ 7y ago
  So, RN can be used as an Electron replacement?
  - pjmlp 7y ago
    Lots of frameworks can be used as Electron replacement, including RN.
happyweasel 7y ago
Evolus Pencil is a cool desktop app for creating wireframes (open source). It really offers great functionality.. it's now based on Electron (was based on Mozilla XULRunner) ... Performance is terrible on a quad-core i5 notebook with 16gb of ram and a gtx 1060 graphics card... I am talking about dragging the first element on an empty canvas and resizing it. Hopefully Electron will improve - more choices are always nice. But then again, Electron is based on Chromium and Node.js, both are "C++-based". Improvements in those C++ codebases and improvements in C++ compilers will probably also lead to better performance in Electron itself.
- jancsika 7y ago
  I'm quite skeptical that this is a problem with Electron. I use nw.js which is similar to Electron for a UI that also allows dragging shapes and text around. It's SVG-based and it's stupid inefficient-- for every mousemove event I'm sending coords over the socket to a backend and receiving back a message that triggers a callback to do the actual property/attribute updates to the respective DOM elements. In other words, I'm using the browser's slowest graphics API in such a way that any layout changes are guaranteed to trigger the least performant graphics updates. Still it performs just fine on a Lenovo from 2006. What you are probably seeing is that the Electron GUI toolkit allows devs to throw together a GUI so quickly that they can ship a product in the time it takes to read the documentation of other GUI toolkits. You may thus be comparing a class of cross-platform applications in Electron which simply don't/can't exist in other GUI toolkits given the same amount of effort.

What? That would just be a rant. Electron apps generally have no accessibility consideration, and accessibility is often the cornerstone of usability. Especially for keyboard users. Additionally, their performance is abysmal. Even the latest Slack update, which was focused on improving performance, see Slack using more CPU than my Java-based IDE (Jetbrains) sometimes.

ajconway 7y ago
One would think that a browser-based app should excel in terms of accessibility, because it's practically built into the engine.

tomjen3 7y ago

Unless the QT guys do something completely of the charts, it will be a lumbering wheelbarrow vs an Aston Martin.

ahartmetz 7y ago
Cool, so you have worked with both, right?
- mort96 7y ago
  Most people have used lots of Qt apps and lots of Electron apps, which is enough to get an impression of the general performance characteristics of each.
  - ahartmetz 7y ago
    The order in which they were mentioned made Qt the lumbering wheelbarrow.
SwellJoe 7y ago
I'm not sure which is the wheelbarrow in your analogy.

hedora 7y ago

I think the suggestion here involves comparing the developer experience for the two. (QT would clearly win on all of the user experience and runtime performance metrics.) If not for developer experience, why is electron ever used for anything?

leadingthenet 7y ago
Because a vast number of mediocre JavaScript developers can suddenly easily port their mediocre web apps to the desktop, and because companies love the "only one codebase" idea. There's no technical merit to Electron.
- ilikehurdles 7y ago
  The native desktop application has been replaced for all but the most complex and inertia-driven established behemoths. Was there technical merit in moving desktop applications to the browser in the first place throughout the 2000s? In most cases: no. All of the functionality of the web interfaces could have been written as more performant native desktop analogues, but it's 2019 now and starting on the web is the defacto default while making a desktop application is the exception.
- afiori 7y ago
  Being mediocre has nothing to do with it. Also portability from a popular platform is a technical merit. That Qt is better on its own is also a merit, but not the only one.
ilikehurdles 7y ago
If Qt would win on user experience, why isn't it doing so now? This list[1] is out-dated (spotify uses electron, for example). But after skimming it I don't recognize any big software applications that have an exceptional user experience. Some, like Google Earth and Calibre are abysmal at best. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Software_that_uses_Qt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Software_that_uses_Qt
- 7y ago

pjmlp 7y ago

Easy just watch React Native for Windows talk at Microsoft BUILD 2019. Electron has 700% performance lost over UWP/C++, which is the baseline. Expect similar results when comparing against Qt.

rat9988 7y ago
I had to search for the video, but I guess you are talking about this? https://youtu.be/TZnajQqqKV8?t=2894 https://youtu.be/TZnajQqqKV8?t=2894
- pjmlp 7y ago
  Yep, that one.
k__ 7y ago
So, RN can be used as an Electron replacement?
- pjmlp 7y ago
  Lots of frameworks can be used as Electron replacement, including RN.

happyweasel 7y ago

Evolus Pencil is a cool desktop app for creating wireframes (open source). It really offers great functionality.. it's now based on Electron (was based on Mozilla XULRunner) ... Performance is terrible on a quad-core i5 notebook with 16gb of ram and a gtx 1060 graphics card... I am talking about dragging the first element on an empty canvas and resizing it. Hopefully Electron will improve - more choices are always nice. But then again, Electron is based on Chromium and Node.js, both are "C++-based". Improvements in those C++ codebases and improvements in C++ compilers will probably also lead to better performance in Electron itself.

jancsika 7y ago
I'm quite skeptical that this is a problem with Electron. I use nw.js which is similar to Electron for a UI that also allows dragging shapes and text around. It's SVG-based and it's stupid inefficient-- for every mousemove event I'm sending coords over the socket to a backend and receiving back a message that triggers a callback to do the actual property/attribute updates to the respective DOM elements. In other words, I'm using the browser's slowest graphics API in such a way that any layout changes are guaranteed to trigger the least performant graphics updates. Still it performs just fine on a Lenovo from 2006. What you are probably seeing is that the Electron GUI toolkit allows devs to throw together a GUI so quickly that they can ship a product in the time it takes to read the documentation of other GUI toolkits. You may thus be comparing a class of cross-platform applications in Electron which simply don't/can't exist in other GUI toolkits given the same amount of effort.