3 ms·

In case anybody else wondered CEF is the Chromium embedded framework. https://github.com/chromiumembedded/cef https://github.com/chromiumembedded/cef

echelon 4mo ago
The biggest weakness of a framework like Tauri is the choice to target system webviews instead of bundling a browser runtime. It seems great to be able to cut hundreds of megabytes out of your app installer, but the platform differences wind up being a complete and ongoing pain in the ass. Tauri support on Windows is phenomenal. Tauri on Mac runs into lots of WebKit/Safari issues, especially on older Mac machines that have an older engine that doesn't support modern web APIs. Your app can crash or be left non-functional. You'll find out about these runtime bugs in the wild randomly, and patching for some customers can take days, if not weeks. Linux support is hellish, and it's best to not even try targeting Linux with Tauri. Tauri is in the process of adding CEF support. It should probably become the default build target for all platforms.
- oooyay 4mo ago
  I use Wails which is Tauri but for Go and I don't have the kind of issues you're mentioning. Maybe that is a difference between Wails and Tauri but I don't think the system WebView is a significant factor.
  - echelon 4mo ago
    Are any of your Mac users using an 10-year old WebView? We frequently ran into that. And there's nothing that can be done about it except engineering around it. I also doubt it works well on Linux. The performance of webkitgtk is like running an emulator inside an emulator.
    - larrysalibra 4mo ago
      Can you either at build time or runtime specify a minimum macOS version? No one running macOS 26 (for example) is using a 10 year old WebView.
      - jcelerier 4mo ago
        But a lot of people are still running macOS < 10.15
- synchrone 4mo ago
  Regular Tauri app (aptakube) user on linux here: the experience is very adequate and smooth, I have no complaints. Speed benefits relative to Electron (similar app: K8S Lens) alone are enough to deal with many possible issues. Could be attributed to app developers going the extra mile, but I suspect it's the framework choice.
  - moogly 4mo ago
    Targeting and building Tauri apps for Wayland, specifically, is a massive headache due to assorted webkitgtk bundling/incompatibility madness.
- FooBarWidget 4mo ago
  Web developers already have to deal with different browsers, versions and API coverage.
  - umpalumpaaa 4mo ago
    The beauty of shipping a desktop app would be to not have to deal with that though… also those built in web views are usually older than average.
- jakelazaroff 4mo ago
  This point of view always confuses me, because web developers already need to deal with platform differences. Especially if your app app also runs in a browser, like Slack and Discord — at that point, what issues do the differing system webviews cause that you don't need to deal with anyway just targeting browsers? It's also funny to me as someone who's been building websites for 20+ years at this point, because the platform differences used to be much, much worse. Coincidentally, I just saw this article, which makes the case nicely: https://www.bram.us/2026/06/21/do-websites-need-to-function-exactly-the-same-on-every-platform/ https://www.bram.us/2026/06/21/do-websites-need-to-function-...
  - c-hendricks 4mo ago
    webkitgtk isn't just quirky, it's also much slower compared to more popular browser engines and is particularly bad with RAM usage.
    - paddy_m 4mo ago
      is webkitgtk different than the engine used in safari?
      - c-hendricks 4mo ago
        Not necessarily? As far as I know they come from the same WebKit source. But the bridge between WebKit and the OS is of course specific to each system. WebRTC is still experimental in webkitgtk while caniuse says Safari supported it back in 2017. I remember encountering one bug with Final Form that triggered rarely in Safari, 100% in Webkitgtk, and never in Chromium. Here's the developer of Tauri saying it's hard to recommend webkitgtk / Linux support: > So if you need good linux support now/soon i can't 100% recommend tauri (for Linux) as of now. (I used to be more "forgiving" but with webkitgtk getting worse/more unstable each release i changed my mind) https://github.com/orgs/tauri-apps/discussions/8524#discussioncomment-7993948 https://github.com/orgs/tauri-apps/discussions/8524#discussi...
  - echelon 4mo ago
    > This point of view always confuses me, because web developers already need to deal with platform differences. On Mac, I use Firefox and Chrome. However, if I use a Tauri app on Mac, I have to use dated WebKit. It's out of a Tauri developer's control.
- v3ss0n 4mo ago
  LOL , then back to electron. I raised that since day one of Tauri.
- jauntywundrkind 4mo ago
  Tauri's cef-rs is indeed quite good. I think it's available, ready, works: it's just that there aren't many folks using Tauri and only a fraction of them are aware/interested in exploring further. https://github.com/tauri-apps/cef-rs https://github.com/tauri-apps/cef-rs Huge fan, this should definitely be the default. The user experience is incomparable. One thing I'd like to verify: can the OS effectively use shared mem for cef across multiple different cef-rs apps? I really hope so. In this time of RAM being scarce, this optimization could be such a benefit.
- cdud3 4mo ago
  Or use QtWebEngine which uses Chromium under the hood, provides a stable and rich API and enables sharing rather then bundling the browser runtime + is Cross-Platform + security updates are handled too.
- DanielHB 4mo ago
  > It seems great to be able to cut hundreds of megabytes out of your app installer Your points are valid, but the big upside is that the default system webview is very likely to already be loaded in memory before your app starts. And if multiple apps use the default system webview all of them will load that same dynamically linked binaries only once. I don think the RAM savings are that significant on modern systems, but it greatly speeds up app first-loading times.

echelon 4mo ago

The biggest weakness of a framework like Tauri is the choice to target system webviews instead of bundling a browser runtime. It seems great to be able to cut hundreds of megabytes out of your app installer, but the platform differences wind up being a complete and ongoing pain in the ass. Tauri support on Windows is phenomenal. Tauri on Mac runs into lots of WebKit/Safari issues, especially on older Mac machines that have an older engine that doesn't support modern web APIs. Your app can crash or be left non-functional. You'll find out about these runtime bugs in the wild randomly, and patching for some customers can take days, if not weeks. Linux support is hellish, and it's best to not even try targeting Linux with Tauri. Tauri is in the process of adding CEF support. It should probably become the default build target for all platforms.

oooyay 4mo ago
I use Wails which is Tauri but for Go and I don't have the kind of issues you're mentioning. Maybe that is a difference between Wails and Tauri but I don't think the system WebView is a significant factor.
- echelon 4mo ago
  Are any of your Mac users using an 10-year old WebView? We frequently ran into that. And there's nothing that can be done about it except engineering around it. I also doubt it works well on Linux. The performance of webkitgtk is like running an emulator inside an emulator.
  - larrysalibra 4mo ago
    Can you either at build time or runtime specify a minimum macOS version? No one running macOS 26 (for example) is using a 10 year old WebView.
    - jcelerier 4mo ago
      But a lot of people are still running macOS < 10.15
synchrone 4mo ago
Regular Tauri app (aptakube) user on linux here: the experience is very adequate and smooth, I have no complaints. Speed benefits relative to Electron (similar app: K8S Lens) alone are enough to deal with many possible issues. Could be attributed to app developers going the extra mile, but I suspect it's the framework choice.
- moogly 4mo ago
  Targeting and building Tauri apps for Wayland, specifically, is a massive headache due to assorted webkitgtk bundling/incompatibility madness.
FooBarWidget 4mo ago
Web developers already have to deal with different browsers, versions and API coverage.
- umpalumpaaa 4mo ago
  The beauty of shipping a desktop app would be to not have to deal with that though… also those built in web views are usually older than average.
jakelazaroff 4mo ago
This point of view always confuses me, because web developers already need to deal with platform differences. Especially if your app app also runs in a browser, like Slack and Discord — at that point, what issues do the differing system webviews cause that you don't need to deal with anyway just targeting browsers? It's also funny to me as someone who's been building websites for 20+ years at this point, because the platform differences used to be much, much worse. Coincidentally, I just saw this article, which makes the case nicely: https://www.bram.us/2026/06/21/do-websites-need-to-function-exactly-the-same-on-every-platform/ https://www.bram.us/2026/06/21/do-websites-need-to-function-...
- c-hendricks 4mo ago
  webkitgtk isn't just quirky, it's also much slower compared to more popular browser engines and is particularly bad with RAM usage.
  - paddy_m 4mo ago
    is webkitgtk different than the engine used in safari?
    - c-hendricks 4mo ago
      Not necessarily? As far as I know they come from the same WebKit source. But the bridge between WebKit and the OS is of course specific to each system. WebRTC is still experimental in webkitgtk while caniuse says Safari supported it back in 2017. I remember encountering one bug with Final Form that triggered rarely in Safari, 100% in Webkitgtk, and never in Chromium. Here's the developer of Tauri saying it's hard to recommend webkitgtk / Linux support: > So if you need good linux support now/soon i can't 100% recommend tauri (for Linux) as of now. (I used to be more "forgiving" but with webkitgtk getting worse/more unstable each release i changed my mind) https://github.com/orgs/tauri-apps/discussions/8524#discussioncomment-7993948 https://github.com/orgs/tauri-apps/discussions/8524#discussi...
- echelon 4mo ago
  > This point of view always confuses me, because web developers already need to deal with platform differences. On Mac, I use Firefox and Chrome. However, if I use a Tauri app on Mac, I have to use dated WebKit. It's out of a Tauri developer's control.
v3ss0n 4mo ago
LOL , then back to electron. I raised that since day one of Tauri.
jauntywundrkind 4mo ago
Tauri's cef-rs is indeed quite good. I think it's available, ready, works: it's just that there aren't many folks using Tauri and only a fraction of them are aware/interested in exploring further. https://github.com/tauri-apps/cef-rs https://github.com/tauri-apps/cef-rs Huge fan, this should definitely be the default. The user experience is incomparable. One thing I'd like to verify: can the OS effectively use shared mem for cef across multiple different cef-rs apps? I really hope so. In this time of RAM being scarce, this optimization could be such a benefit.
cdud3 4mo ago
Or use QtWebEngine which uses Chromium under the hood, provides a stable and rich API and enables sharing rather then bundling the browser runtime + is Cross-Platform + security updates are handled too.
DanielHB 4mo ago
> It seems great to be able to cut hundreds of megabytes out of your app installer Your points are valid, but the big upside is that the default system webview is very likely to already be loaded in memory before your app starts. And if multiple apps use the default system webview all of them will load that same dynamically linked binaries only once. I don think the RAM savings are that significant on modern systems, but it greatly speeds up app first-loading times.