HACKER Q&A
📣 skwee357

Would you rather have an Electron app or macOS Only Native?


Hey HN!

I'm working on a personal finance desktop only application[1]. I'm a solo developer, doing it in my free time, with the intention to release a great product (and make money from it).

I personally dislike Electron Apps and try to avoid them if possible. However I understand the appeal behind them for developers.

With my current time, skills and funding - I'm either able to release an Electron application with decent support for all 3 major OSes with all the drawbacks of Electron (big binary, maybe-slow [my core logic is done in Rust, and JS is used primarily for the UI], alien-looking); or a native for 1 platform, MacOS in my case.

I believe in having clean UI and smooth experience, hence the choice of Electron bothers me a lot. On the other side, most of the drawbacks of Electron are expressed by (mainly) tech-savvy people.

So, dear HN - what would you pick: Electron or MacOS Only native?

[1] https://moneypin.app/


  👤 blondin Accepted Answer ✓
since you are at the execution phase, i would do the electron app first to get things going. then consider a macOS native.

i may be overestimating everything involved in releasing software for macOS. but i have played with swift and made a few local apps and found it difficult to put desktop apps together. you will find plenty of iOS resources though. they were still porting some of the SDKs to swift from objective-c when i was playing with it.

people who know objective-c and the macOS SDKs beforehand would have better luck.

with electron, i suspect the open-source community would have solutions for most issues. or tell you the limitations. you will know then what you are gaining with a macOS native app.

that's what i would do...


👤 ksec
If you do not intend to charge for the App, ( You could still charge for the online services if there are any ), Electron.

If you intend to make some money from the App, a polished macOS app tends to have higher chance of user paying you.


👤 smoldesu
I don't use my Mac anymore, so having a cross-platform Electron app would probably be your best bet. If you don't mind cutting out 80% of the desktop market share though, I can't stop you from going Mac-only.

👤 Nextgrid
Can you offer a web app? I will absolutely not install an Electron app (and run a separate browser runtime eating 1GB of RAM) but am happy to open an extra tab in my existing browser.

👤 lioeters
Strictly from a business perspective ("make money from it"), going with Electron seems like the logical path to reaching the largest market of users.

👤 slater
MacOS-only native.