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  1. Stackups
  2. Application & Data
  3. Frameworks
  4. Cross Platform Desktop Development
  5. Eel vs Electron vs React Native Desktop

Eel vs Electron vs React Native Desktop

OverviewComparisonAlternatives

Overview

Electron
Electron
Stacks11.6K
Followers10.0K
Votes148
React Native Desktop
React Native Desktop
Stacks15
Followers203
Votes11
Eel
Eel
Stacks6
Followers83
Votes0

Eel vs Electron vs React Native Desktop: What are the differences?

Introduction:

Eel, Electron, and React Native Desktop are all frameworks that enable developers to create desktop applications using web technologies. Despite their similarities, they each have distinct differences that set them apart.

  1. Language and Framework: Eel allows developers to build desktop applications using Python and HTML/CSS, while Electron uses JavaScript, HTML, and CSS. On the other hand, React Native Desktop is built on top of React Native, which allows developers to build cross-platform applications using JavaScript and React.

  2. Platform Support: Electron is known for its wide platform support, allowing developers to create desktop applications for Windows, macOS, and Linux. In contrast, Eel is primarily focused on Windows and Linux. React Native Desktop, being built on React Native, supports multiple platforms including Windows, macOS, and Linux.

  3. Performance and Bundle Size: Electron applications are known for their larger bundle size and memory usage compared to Eel and React Native Desktop due to the Chromium runtime. Eel provides a lightweight and minimalistic alternative for creating desktop applications, resulting in smaller bundle sizes and better performance. React Native Desktop, being built on React Native, also offers a relatively lightweight option compared to Electron.

  4. Native UI Components: React Native Desktop leverages native UI components provided by the host operating system, resulting in a more native look and feel for applications. In contrast, Eel and Electron rely on web-based UI components, which may not always perfectly match the native aesthetics of each platform.

  5. Development Experience: Eel simplifies the development process by allowing developers to use Python for backend logic while utilizing HTML/CSS for frontend design. Electron and React Native Desktop, being JavaScript-based frameworks, offer a more consistent development experience for developers already familiar with web technologies.

  6. Community and Ecosystem: Electron has a larger and more established community compared to Eel and React Native Desktop, offering comprehensive documentation, tutorials, and a wide range of third-party plugins and libraries. Eel and React Native Desktop, being relatively newer frameworks, may have a smaller community and fewer resources available for developers.

In Summary, Eel, Electron, and React Native Desktop each offer unique approaches to building desktop applications, with differences in language, platform support, performance, UI components, development experience, and community support.

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Detailed Comparison

Electron
Electron
React Native Desktop
React Native Desktop
Eel
Eel

With Electron, creating a desktop application for your company or idea is easy. Initially developed for GitHub's Atom editor, Electron has since been used to create applications by companies like Microsoft, Facebook, Slack, and Docker. The Electron framework lets you write cross-platform desktop applications using JavaScript, HTML and CSS. It is based on io.js and Chromium and is used in the Atom editor.

Build OS X desktop apps using React Native.

Python3 library for making simple Electron-like offline HTML/JS GUI apps, with full access to Python capabilities and libraries. It hosts a local webserver, then lets you annotate functions in Python so that they can be called from Javascript, and vice versa.

Use HTML, CSS, and JavaScript with Chromium and Node.js to build your app.;Electron is open source; maintained by GitHub and an active community.;Electron apps build and run on Mac, Windows, and Linux.;Automatic updates;Crash reporting;Windows installers;Debugging & profiling;Native menus & notifications
--
Statistics
Stacks
11.6K
Stacks
15
Stacks
6
Followers
10.0K
Followers
203
Followers
83
Votes
148
Votes
11
Votes
0
Pros & Cons
Pros
  • 69
    Easy to make rich cross platform desktop applications
  • 53
    Open source
  • 14
    Great looking apps such as Slack and Visual Studio Code
  • 8
    Because it's cross platform
  • 4
    Use Node.js in the Main Process
Cons
  • 19
    Uses a lot of memory
  • 8
    User experience never as good as a native app
  • 4
    Does not native
  • 4
    No proper documentation
  • 1
    Wrong reference for dom inspection
Pros
  • 3
    Pretty awesome
  • 2
    Memory usage reduced
  • 2
    Does not include any browser
  • 2
    Is native app
  • 1
    Open source
Cons
  • 0
    Memory usage reduced
No community feedback yet
Integrations
No integrations available
React Native
React Native
Python
Python

What are some alternatives to Electron, React Native Desktop, Eel?

Sciter

Sciter

It brings a stack of web technologies to desktop UI development. Web designers, and developers, can reuse their experience and expertise in creating modern looking desktop applications.

wxWidgets

wxWidgets

It is a C++ library that lets developers create applications for Windows, macOS, Linux and other platforms with a single code base. It has popular language bindings for Python, Perl, Ruby and many other languages, and unlike other cross-platform toolkits, it gives applications a truly native look and feel because it uses the platform's native API rather than emulating the GUI. It's also extensive, free, open-source and mature.

Qt5

Qt5

It is a full development framework with tools designed to streamline the creation of applications and user interfaces for desktop, embedded, and mobile platforms.

JavaFX

JavaFX

It is a set of graphics and media packages that enables developers to design, create, test, debug, and deploy rich client applications that operate consistently across diverse platforms.

JUCE

JUCE

It is a C++ framework for low-latency applications, with cross-platform GUI libraries to get your apps running on Mac OS X, Windows, Linux, iOS and Android.

Proton Native

Proton Native

Create native desktop applications through a React syntax, on all platforms.

NodeGUI

NodeGUI

It is an open source library for building cross-platform native desktop applications with JavaScript and CSS like styling. It is based on Qt5 and NOT chromium, hence it is memory and cpu efficient.

pygame

pygame

It is a cross-platform set of Python modules designed for writing video games. It includes computer graphics and sound libraries designed to be used with the Python programming language.

SDL

SDL

It is a cross-platform development library designed to provide low level access to audio, keyboard, mouse, joystick, and graphics hardware via OpenGL and Direct3D.

Element

Element

Element is a Vue 2.0 based component library for developers, designers and product managers, with a set of design resources.

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