Why Tauri — vs Electron

Electron has long been the default when writing desktop apps in React or Vue. Tauri 2 fills the same spot with a smaller, lighter approach.

1. Bundle size

Minimal app	Electron	Tauri 2
macOS	~130 MB	~10 MB
Windows	~100 MB	~8 MB
Linux	~90 MB	~5 MB

Electron bundles Chromium + Node; Tauri borrows the OS-native WebView.

2. Memory / RAM

Idle minimal app — Electron 200 MB+, Tauri 30–60 MB. Noticeable on low-end laptops.

3. Security — thin IPC surface

Electron exposes the full Node API to the renderer, so XSS can quickly escalate to file deletion. Tauri only exposes explicitly registered Rust commands; everything else is deny-by-default.

#[tauri::command]
fn greet(name: &str) -> String { format!("Hello, {}!", name) }

The frontend can only invoke("greet", …). Dangerous capabilities (file writes, shell) are opt-in.

4. Performance — cold start

Electron ~1–2s, Tauri ~200–500ms. No Chromium bootstrap, smaller Rust binaries.

5. Mobile support (Tauri 2's key differentiator)

Electron is desktop-only. Tauri 2 supports Android / iOS (GA in 2024). One codebase, desktop + mobile.

6. When Electron is better

• Deep Node ecosystem dependencies (Slack · VS Code · Discord)
• Larger community and docs
• Mature auto-update / crash reporting accumulated over generations

7. When Tauri is better

• Install size under ~10 MB matters
• Tight security (whitelisted IPC)
• OK with a little Rust (or staying mostly in TypeScript)
• Planning Android distribution

Closing

With Tauri you can stay in JavaScript most of the time and drop to Rust only when needed — the thinnest path from web to desktop + mobile.

Next

• 02-project-setup