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> Ultralight is free for non-commercial use, educational use, and also free for commercial use by small indie developers making less than US$100,000 a year. I

> Ultralight is free for non-commercial use, educational use, and also free for commercial use by small indie developers making less than US$100,000 a year. I feel like the reason we have ended up with Electron is that well-funded developments from large companies (like WPF, SwiftUI) always seek to lock-in developers to their single platform, well-funded from independent ones (like Qt) cost $$, and the rest just stays permanently underdeveloped from lacking dev resources. The result is that the lowest common denominator wins: free and standardized web tech, repackaged as desktop apps. I haven't seen any older desktop UI developer who'd like Electron, yet I bet every one of us has at least a couple of Electron apps installed as they're reading this. Let me ask this question: what is the luckiest, ideal scenario for a project with such license, if it takes off and everyone loves it and everything goes well? Probably displacing Qt and taking over their market share? That doesn't sound anywhere close to Electron killer potential to me.

Waterluvian 4y ago
I was skeptical but curious that this tool might be a good candidate for some of my problems where a web app doesn’t quite work (commissioning robots at locales without Internet). But once I got to the “this isn’t FOSS, here’s a pricing structure” I sighed and closed the tab. I don’t dislike Electron the way some do. But I always prefer better tools if they’re available. Unfortunately this ain’t it.
- icemelt8 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - AstralStorm 4y ago
    However most software developers prefer a well documented tool with support and user base. Heavily licensed software tends to lack the second part of this. Being able to fix bugs you hit on your own, if push comes to shove, helps too.
  - squarefoot 4y ago
    Oh please. Communism is no more since decades, except in some propaganda that sees it in everything they can't understand. Software doesn't necessarily have to be a boxed product you build and sell like a car or a pair of shoes; it can be a tool to build businesses around services (examples: Apache, MySQL, Node.js, etc), or to be integrated in other bigger products (example: the Linux kernel, Lua, etc). Not to mention that today, with personal data as a valuable asset, you can never fully trust software that goes online and is not Open Source.
0x457 4y ago
Nah, we ended up with Electron because we have more front-end devs than C++/C#/ObjC devs and because doing layout in HTML + CSS is a million times easier than in native frameworks (AppKit and UIKit aside, those are nice). It being cross-platform is probably secondary.
- mysterydip 4y ago
  I agree with your first bit, but so far have been unable to find layout tools for HTML/CSS that compare to the ease of the VB6-era drag-n-drop component editor. I'd love to know of one, though.
  - amaranth 4y ago
    Those tools didn't work well for things that need to adjust to different screen/window sizes or even for localization causing text elements to change size. For that kind of stuff you need some kind of dynamic layout like springs & struts, flexbox, etc. I think Qt and XCode have drag and drop UI designers for layout systems that work that way, instead of picking an exact position for things you pick their location and size relative to their contents and things around them. I find just using CSS to be easier to think about than those but they're nice for trying things out.
    - bitwize 4y ago
      I find it's hard to rat-wrestle your way to a GUI that adapts nicely to different window sizes, resolutions, etc. Xcode probably comes the closest but I haven't tried it in years. I know there are purists who think "well, it's a VISUAL interface so you have to lay it out VISUALLY!" but this is actually trickier than you might think when you have to render the UI in a different context from when you created it. I've found it easier just to do declarative layout. Tcl/Tk does this real well, and has since the early/mid 90s. I know that Tk uses imperative commands to build out the UI scene graph but it's effectively declarative. Tcl/Tk is pretty much VB done Unix style.
    - pjmlp 4y ago
      Except they always supported flexible layouts as well, no need for absolute positioning.
eyelidlessness 4y ago
If you’d asked me a couple years ago my bet would’ve been on Microsoft’s fork of React Native for desktop. They’re clearly actively developing it and using it for their own purposes. But its relative obscurity isn’t a great sign. Luckiest ideal scenario: something like React Native that really does compile to actual UI APIs for the compile target. Doesn’t have to be JavaScript, but it probably will be because inertia. Every time I see “native” and “UI” RN is still the only real option which means native. I’d really love to see more options in this space.
- proxyon 4y ago
  RN is maturing and becoming the go to and only necessary option. Flutter is dying and a total mess but also an alternative.
  - eagsalazar2 4y ago
    Every word in this sentence is the opposite of my experience and understanding. RN feels like a half maintained backwater compared to react for web. Lots of out of date docs, awful debugging experience, inconsistencies between ios and android, fidgety and flakey all the time. And it has all felt like that for a while. So I would beg to differ with "maturing" and would definitely call bs on anyone characterizing it as "mature". About Flutter, I've never personally used it but last I read its marketshare was continuing to grow fast as RN's plateaued. I love TS and the react ecosystem but RN itself is so crappy that I'm considering dart (did I just say that???). I think architecturally Flutter made the right call to just implement their own components on skia to get perfect consistency across platforms and totally control their own destiny. Sadly they also chose a weird shitty language.
    - eagsalazar2 4y ago
      Sort of related, is there a project out there that reimplements enough of dom/css in the canvas to where you could theoretically run a lot of react projects with the canvas as the target instead of the dom itself?
  - 4y ago
cyanydeez 4y ago
Electron wins because it allows a single language to do what java failed: write on e, run everywhere.
- proxyon 4y ago
  Electron doesn't actually do this. Most Electron apps you know have a native iOS and native Android counterpart for mobile. React Native and Flutter do allow you to do this, though. They are the true Electron heir. Flutter / RN even run on stuff like Car infotainment systems, tvOS, watchOS and so on. They've got Flutter running on embedded too.
adamjs 4y ago
Ultralight dev here-- I've been on the dev-tool side of this equation for the past 13 years so I have insight into why people are actually using HTML/JS/CSS over proprietary UI tech on the desktop. It's several things-- tons of mature web development frameworks and ecosystems (React, Angular, et al), tons of developers with experience creating and maintaining them, and tons of debugging and support resources (Chrome Dev Tools, Stack Overflow, etc.). Very difficult to compete against a content creation pipeline like that-- hence why I've made it my mission to get modern HTML UI running performantly everywhere without requiring web developers to learn some new language or toolset. Also, FWIW, Ultralight does allow you to mix both HTML and native UI (the library can paint offscreen) so you can choose where/when to use each in your app.
- trollian 4y ago
  If Ultralight is based on WebKit (the site says "Based on WebKit") how is it not LGPL? Isn't this basic software licensing?
  - adamjs 4y ago
    WebKit is BSD but has sub-modules with LGPL code (specifically WebCore, JavaScriptCore, and WTF). Ultralight is not WebKit (we have a totally different API and use our own renderer, compositor, and event-management code) but we do use a fork of WebCore and JavaScriptCore. Our fork of WebCore is available under LGPL here: https://github.com/ultralight-ux/WebCore https://github.com/ultralight-ux/WebCore
    - nwienert 4y ago
      Adam, we hung way back I was working on an on device search tool called Orbit that could’ve used Ultralight, I think at bespoke. Been keeping tabs on it since, congrats on the release. The steps WebKit have made the last few years have been incredible and your further parallelization and optimization work would be so slick, can’t wait to try it out. I’d love to use it with Tamagui and Vite running all bundling for RN. Silky smooth desktop app, web apps, sites, and mobile apps all easy to design together and deploy nicely to their respective platforms. https://tamagui.dev https://tamagui.dev
riedel 4y ago
I work at a university/research lab. We always fall between the chairs with those licencing rules, although we are non-profit. Also if you add 9000 ppl you easily pass 100k. Same with Docker Desktop btw. I guess there are so many more cases also outside of large enterprises are hesitant to use software with complicated licenses.
lucideer 4y ago
> I feel like the reason we have ended up with Electron is that well-funded developments from large companies (like WPF, SwiftUI) always seek to lock-in developers to their single platform, well-funded from independent ones (like Qt) cost $$, and the rest just stays permanently underdeveloped from lacking dev resources. The latter half of your comment asks some good questions, but I don't buy this initial assumption. As in: "The reason we have Electron is <truth>, <truth> and <unsubstantiated>" and then the rest of your comment is based on the 3rd part. I don't think that's why we have Electron either way - the reasons for that are much broader & more complex but two large components of it are (a) the proliferation of web-technology due to the incredible success of the open web & (b) the overall development story of KHTML->WebKit->Blink prioritising their embedding API.
pjmlp 4y ago
Add to it that contrary to every other profession, ours is full with people that refuse to pay for the tools on their toolbox. So they get the tools that are available on the flea market, one gets what they are willing to pay for.
- frou_dh 4y ago
  If other professions had the option to pick up free toolboxes that aren't necessarily the best quality in the world, but are decent enough, then I'm sure many of them would be pretty damn happy about it.
  - pjmlp 4y ago
    They do, not everyone buys 5 star tools, but they buy.
    - frou_dh 4y ago
      That would be disrupted by ToolHub, a big warehouse that's open 24/7, where you can walk in and pick up a toolbox of 3-star tools for free.
      - pjmlp 4y ago
        Even paying for tools at existing 1€ shops is more than many currently do. ToolHub would need at very least to pay electricity and materials for their replicator devices, and when the bill becomes too high, the shop would close doors.
        frou_dh 4y ago
        My point is that it's not exactly a moral failing of a software developer compared to another professional, if the other professional doesn't even have the opportunity to make such a decision
        4y ago

Waterluvian 4y ago

I was skeptical but curious that this tool might be a good candidate for some of my problems where a web app doesn’t quite work (commissioning robots at locales without Internet). But once I got to the “this isn’t FOSS, here’s a pricing structure” I sighed and closed the tab. I don’t dislike Electron the way some do. But I always prefer better tools if they’re available. Unfortunately this ain’t it.

icemelt8 4y ago
[flagged]
- AstralStorm 4y ago
  However most software developers prefer a well documented tool with support and user base. Heavily licensed software tends to lack the second part of this. Being able to fix bugs you hit on your own, if push comes to shove, helps too.
- squarefoot 4y ago
  Oh please. Communism is no more since decades, except in some propaganda that sees it in everything they can't understand. Software doesn't necessarily have to be a boxed product you build and sell like a car or a pair of shoes; it can be a tool to build businesses around services (examples: Apache, MySQL, Node.js, etc), or to be integrated in other bigger products (example: the Linux kernel, Lua, etc). Not to mention that today, with personal data as a valuable asset, you can never fully trust software that goes online and is not Open Source.

0x457 4y ago

Nah, we ended up with Electron because we have more front-end devs than C++/C#/ObjC devs and because doing layout in HTML + CSS is a million times easier than in native frameworks (AppKit and UIKit aside, those are nice). It being cross-platform is probably secondary.

mysterydip 4y ago
I agree with your first bit, but so far have been unable to find layout tools for HTML/CSS that compare to the ease of the VB6-era drag-n-drop component editor. I'd love to know of one, though.
- amaranth 4y ago
  Those tools didn't work well for things that need to adjust to different screen/window sizes or even for localization causing text elements to change size. For that kind of stuff you need some kind of dynamic layout like springs & struts, flexbox, etc. I think Qt and XCode have drag and drop UI designers for layout systems that work that way, instead of picking an exact position for things you pick their location and size relative to their contents and things around them. I find just using CSS to be easier to think about than those but they're nice for trying things out.
  - bitwize 4y ago
    I find it's hard to rat-wrestle your way to a GUI that adapts nicely to different window sizes, resolutions, etc. Xcode probably comes the closest but I haven't tried it in years. I know there are purists who think "well, it's a VISUAL interface so you have to lay it out VISUALLY!" but this is actually trickier than you might think when you have to render the UI in a different context from when you created it. I've found it easier just to do declarative layout. Tcl/Tk does this real well, and has since the early/mid 90s. I know that Tk uses imperative commands to build out the UI scene graph but it's effectively declarative. Tcl/Tk is pretty much VB done Unix style.
  - pjmlp 4y ago
    Except they always supported flexible layouts as well, no need for absolute positioning.

eyelidlessness 4y ago

If you’d asked me a couple years ago my bet would’ve been on Microsoft’s fork of React Native for desktop. They’re clearly actively developing it and using it for their own purposes. But its relative obscurity isn’t a great sign. Luckiest ideal scenario: something like React Native that really does compile to actual UI APIs for the compile target. Doesn’t have to be JavaScript, but it probably will be because inertia. Every time I see “native” and “UI” RN is still the only real option which means native. I’d really love to see more options in this space.

proxyon 4y ago
RN is maturing and becoming the go to and only necessary option. Flutter is dying and a total mess but also an alternative.
- eagsalazar2 4y ago
  Every word in this sentence is the opposite of my experience and understanding. RN feels like a half maintained backwater compared to react for web. Lots of out of date docs, awful debugging experience, inconsistencies between ios and android, fidgety and flakey all the time. And it has all felt like that for a while. So I would beg to differ with "maturing" and would definitely call bs on anyone characterizing it as "mature". About Flutter, I've never personally used it but last I read its marketshare was continuing to grow fast as RN's plateaued. I love TS and the react ecosystem but RN itself is so crappy that I'm considering dart (did I just say that???). I think architecturally Flutter made the right call to just implement their own components on skia to get perfect consistency across platforms and totally control their own destiny. Sadly they also chose a weird shitty language.
  - eagsalazar2 4y ago
    Sort of related, is there a project out there that reimplements enough of dom/css in the canvas to where you could theoretically run a lot of react projects with the canvas as the target instead of the dom itself?
- 4y ago

cyanydeez 4y ago

Electron wins because it allows a single language to do what java failed: write on e, run everywhere.

proxyon 4y ago
Electron doesn't actually do this. Most Electron apps you know have a native iOS and native Android counterpart for mobile. React Native and Flutter do allow you to do this, though. They are the true Electron heir. Flutter / RN even run on stuff like Car infotainment systems, tvOS, watchOS and so on. They've got Flutter running on embedded too.

adamjs 4y ago

Ultralight dev here-- I've been on the dev-tool side of this equation for the past 13 years so I have insight into why people are actually using HTML/JS/CSS over proprietary UI tech on the desktop. It's several things-- tons of mature web development frameworks and ecosystems (React, Angular, et al), tons of developers with experience creating and maintaining them, and tons of debugging and support resources (Chrome Dev Tools, Stack Overflow, etc.). Very difficult to compete against a content creation pipeline like that-- hence why I've made it my mission to get modern HTML UI running performantly everywhere without requiring web developers to learn some new language or toolset. Also, FWIW, Ultralight does allow you to mix both HTML and native UI (the library can paint offscreen) so you can choose where/when to use each in your app.

trollian 4y ago
If Ultralight is based on WebKit (the site says "Based on WebKit") how is it not LGPL? Isn't this basic software licensing?
- adamjs 4y ago
  WebKit is BSD but has sub-modules with LGPL code (specifically WebCore, JavaScriptCore, and WTF). Ultralight is not WebKit (we have a totally different API and use our own renderer, compositor, and event-management code) but we do use a fork of WebCore and JavaScriptCore. Our fork of WebCore is available under LGPL here: https://github.com/ultralight-ux/WebCore https://github.com/ultralight-ux/WebCore
  - nwienert 4y ago
    Adam, we hung way back I was working on an on device search tool called Orbit that could’ve used Ultralight, I think at bespoke. Been keeping tabs on it since, congrats on the release. The steps WebKit have made the last few years have been incredible and your further parallelization and optimization work would be so slick, can’t wait to try it out. I’d love to use it with Tamagui and Vite running all bundling for RN. Silky smooth desktop app, web apps, sites, and mobile apps all easy to design together and deploy nicely to their respective platforms. https://tamagui.dev https://tamagui.dev

riedel 4y ago

I work at a university/research lab. We always fall between the chairs with those licencing rules, although we are non-profit. Also if you add 9000 ppl you easily pass 100k. Same with Docker Desktop btw. I guess there are so many more cases also outside of large enterprises are hesitant to use software with complicated licenses.

lucideer 4y ago

> I feel like the reason we have ended up with Electron is that well-funded developments from large companies (like WPF, SwiftUI) always seek to lock-in developers to their single platform, well-funded from independent ones (like Qt) cost $$, and the rest just stays permanently underdeveloped from lacking dev resources. The latter half of your comment asks some good questions, but I don't buy this initial assumption. As in: "The reason we have Electron is <truth>, <truth> and <unsubstantiated>" and then the rest of your comment is based on the 3rd part. I don't think that's why we have Electron either way - the reasons for that are much broader & more complex but two large components of it are (a) the proliferation of web-technology due to the incredible success of the open web & (b) the overall development story of KHTML->WebKit->Blink prioritising their embedding API.

pjmlp 4y ago

Add to it that contrary to every other profession, ours is full with people that refuse to pay for the tools on their toolbox. So they get the tools that are available on the flea market, one gets what they are willing to pay for.

frou_dh 4y ago
If other professions had the option to pick up free toolboxes that aren't necessarily the best quality in the world, but are decent enough, then I'm sure many of them would be pretty damn happy about it.
- pjmlp 4y ago
  They do, not everyone buys 5 star tools, but they buy.
  - frou_dh 4y ago
    That would be disrupted by ToolHub, a big warehouse that's open 24/7, where you can walk in and pick up a toolbox of 3-star tools for free.
    - pjmlp 4y ago
      Even paying for tools at existing 1€ shops is more than many currently do. ToolHub would need at very least to pay electricity and materials for their replicator devices, and when the bill becomes too high, the shop would close doors.
      - frou_dh 4y ago
        My point is that it's not exactly a moral failing of a software developer compared to another professional, if the other professional doesn't even have the opportunity to make such a decision
        4y ago