Electron is a widely hated framework on Linux, but what about the alternatives like Neutralinojs?

In their own words: In Electron and NWjs, you have to install Node.js and hundreds of dependency libraries. Embedded Chromium and Node.js make simple apps bloaty — in most scenarios, framework weights more than your app source. Neutralinojs offers a lightweight and portable SDK which is an alternative for Electron and NW.js. Neutralinojs doesn’t bundle Chromium and uses the existing web browser library in the operating system (Eg: gtk-webkit2 on Linux). Neutralinojs implements a secure WebSocket connection for native operations and embeds a static web server to serve the web content. Also, it offers a built-in JavaScript client library for developers.

Do you experience alternatives like Njs to blend more in the desktop layout, install less junk, use less memory, are more compatible with Wayland,…?

  • acockworkorange@mander.xyz
    514·
    9 months ago

    I will catch flak for this, but discord works fine. You could be fooled into thinking it’s native. Audio, video, attachments… pretty seamless. Zoom sucks ass though.

    • morrowind
      10·
      9 months ago

      Count yourself lucky because discord desktop is one of the worst pieces of crap I’ve ever used

    • missingno@kbin.social
      7·
      9 months ago

      Desktop audio streaming has never worked. Bug report has been outstanding since the beginning and Discord has just… never addressed it.

    • dan@upvote.au
      5·
      9 months ago

      You could be fooled into thinking it’s native.

      It doesn’t look like a native app at all though. It’s not really following any operating system’s design guidelines.

      • acockworkorange@mander.xyz
        2·
        9 months ago

        It’s not like all native apps do either. It’s obviously a foreign toolkit. My point was there were no obvious issues accessing hardware, files, drag and drop, etc.

        • dan@upvote.au
          11·
          9 months ago

          The best native apps do look native to the platform though.

    • 4am@lemm.ee
      4·
      9 months ago

      Hey hey; discord is rumored to be doing ads now. No talking good about them!

    • SteveTech@programming.devEnglish
      2·
      9 months ago

      It starts to break down on Wayland though, screen sharing doesn’t work, drag and drop looks to work but errors when sending, and probably other things.

      Edit: Yes I’m already running it with --ozone-platform-hint=auto

      • acockworkorange@mander.xyz
        21·
        9 months ago

        Well, Wayland support is something new for most distros. Can’t really fault the app for not being ahead of the curve.

    • winnie
      2·
      9 months ago

      Is zoom Electon?

      It looks like shit and feels like shit. I thought it was native tbh… given how chunky UI is. Looks like GDI programming to me. Or they took design from Android 2 and ported it to Desktop.

      • acockworkorange@mander.xyz
        3·
        9 months ago

        I’m at least 60% sure the Linux client is. Either way, it’s sandboxed as hell. I have to copy backgrounds to its own special snowflake folder or it can’t use them.

      • acockworkorange@mander.xyz
        1·
        9 months ago

        The company sucks, but the app works fine to me. I don’t get the hate either. I use the flatpak version in Linux and don’t feel any friction for it being an Electron app. There are native flatpak apps that cause me grief.