Open-source alternatives to Electron

This project is a TypeScript desktop boilerplate and application template that combines Electron and React for building cross-platform desktop applications. It provides a structural foundation and framework for creating native system applications that bundle web technologies into distributable operating system packages. The project distinguishes itself by providing a hot-reloading desktop environment. This development setup applies code changes instantly to the user interface without requiring manual application restarts, preserving the current interface state through hot module replacement.

PakePlus is a web-to-native converter and application packager that transforms website URLs or static directories into standalone native desktop and mobile applications. It provides a native browser shell to wrap web content, acting as a cross-platform application shell for Android, iOS, and various desktop environments. The project distinguishes itself through a cloud-based app packager, utilizing remote build pipelines to compile application binaries without requiring a local development environment. It includes a JavaScript injection tool and a system-level API bridge, allowing users to ad

Build performant, native and cross-platform desktop applications with native React powerful CSS like styling.🚀

NodeGUI is a framework for building native desktop applications using Qt6 widgets, controlled entirely from JavaScript and Node.js. It provides a Qt6 Node.js binding that maps native widget classes to JavaScript objects, enabling developers to create cross-platform desktop apps for Linux and Windows with full access to the Node.js ecosystem and npm modules. The framework distinguishes itself by allowing developers to style native desktop widgets with CSS and Flexbox layout rules, without relying on a web browser. It translates CSS properties and Flexbox layout into Qt stylesheet and layout ma

Proton Native is a cross-platform desktop framework that compiles React code into native applications for Windows, macOS, and Linux. It enables developers to build desktop applications using the same component syntax and patterns as React Native, with the ability to reuse existing React Native components with minimal modifications. The framework integrates a flexbox layout engine for positioning native desktop widgets and embeds the Node.js runtime for direct filesystem and system-level access. The framework translates React component trees into native desktop widgets through a bidirectional

This project is a cross-platform desktop boilerplate and application template used to build software for Windows, macOS, and Linux. It provides a pre-configured foundation that combines Electron and React to accelerate the bootstrapping of desktop applications. The starter kit integrates TypeScript to maintain type safety in large-scale projects and provides a scalable structure for frontend integration within a desktop shell. The project includes a build pipeline for multi-platform software distribution, utilizing a module bundling system to optimize assets. Its architecture implements a sp

Electron.NET is a framework for building cross-platform desktop applications using ASP.NET Core, Razor Pages, MVC, or Blazor. It serves as a wrapper that hosts .NET web projects within a native desktop shell, allowing web-based logic to function as standalone software across different operating systems. The project provides a hosting environment specifically for Blazor components and other .NET web technologies, converting them into distributable binary executable packages. It integrates a native web browser control for UI rendering and utilizes a structured communication channel to pass mess

Nativefier is a cross-platform desktop application builder that converts web URLs into standalone executables for Windows, macOS, and Linux. It functions as a web-to-desktop application converter, wrapping web pages in a dedicated browser window with its own launcher and identity. The tool uses an Electron-based wrapper to embed websites within a Chromium browser instance and Node.js runtime. It differentiates itself through automatic branding, extracting application names and icons from target websites to configure the desktop wrapper. The system provides mechanisms for custom styling and b

Pear Desktop is a development framework designed for building and distributing cross-platform desktop software. It leverages web technologies and native system integration to enable the creation of applications that run consistently across multiple operating systems from a single codebase. The platform distinguishes itself through a modular plugin architecture and a comprehensive build toolchain. Developers can extend core functionality by creating isolated scripts that interact with the application through defined communication bridges, and use automated pipelines to bundle source code into

Electrino is a cross-platform desktop application framework used to build lightweight software with web technologies. It functions as a native browser desktop runtime that leverages the host operating system's pre-installed web engine to render interfaces instead of bundling a separate browser binary. The framework provides a native window manager to spawn and control application windows and system tray icons from a background process. It includes an inter-process communication bridge to synchronize application state by exchanging messages between the background process and the renderer. The

This repository provides a collection of interactive sample applications and reference implementations for the Electron framework. It serves as a library of API reference demos designed to help developers learn how to implement core desktop features. The project features visual demonstrations of cross-platform GUI management and practical examples of native operating system integration. It includes dedicated samples for handling native modules, crash reports, and the configuration of security implementations such as content security policies and process sandboxing. The codebase covers a broa

Electronic WeChat is an Electron-based desktop chat client and wrapper for the WeChat messaging service, designed for macOS and Linux. It provides a functional messaging interface that integrates with native operating system notifications and system trays. The client includes a message recall blocker that prevents senders from retracting or deleting messages after they have been delivered, ensuring the recipient retains a permanent record of the conversation. It also features a URL redirect bypass to open destination websites directly in the default web browser. The application supports stan

CefSharp is a .NET binding for the Chromium Embedded Framework that allows developers to embed a full web browser into desktop applications. It provides an embedded browser control for rendering HTML, CSS, and JavaScript content within a native host window. The project features a bidirectional JavaScript bridge interface that enables the execution of scripts and the exposure of native host classes and methods to the browser environment. It also includes a headless browser automation tool for executing web tasks and capturing page screenshots without a graphical user interface. The library co

Atom is an extensible code IDE and hackable text editor designed for source code editing and the creation of custom development environments. It functions as a syntax highlighting editor and a version control integrated editor that tracks file changes and synchronizes code with remote repositories. The editor allows for the modification of its own core functionality and supports a package-based plugin system for creating custom themes and snippets. It also serves as a Markdown preview editor, providing side-by-side visual rendering for content authoring. The platform includes capabilities fo

Chromium is an open-source browser platform that provides the foundational codebase for building cross-platform web browsers. At its core, it functions as a web browser engine that interprets standard web technologies to render interactive content and manage the complex lifecycle of web page navigation. The project utilizes a multi-process architecture that separates the browser interface from rendering engines into distinct operating system processes. This design ensures application stability by preventing a single tab crash from affecting the entire browser. Security is maintained through s

Hyper is a cross-platform terminal emulator built using standard web technologies. It functions as a desktop application that renders command line output through a hardware-accelerated browser engine, ensuring a consistent interface across Windows, macOS, and Linux. By utilizing an Electron-based multi-process architecture, the application separates system-level window management from the rendering of the terminal interface. The project is defined by its extensible plugin architecture, which allows developers to inject custom logic, visual themes, and interface enhancements into the core envi

Theia is a modular framework designed for building professional-grade development environments that function as both local desktop applications and remote browser-based services. It provides a comprehensive toolkit for constructing specialized coding tools, allowing developers to assemble custom interfaces and backend logic through a flexible, contribution-based architecture. The platform distinguishes itself through a highly extensible workbench that supports the integration of existing third-party editor plugins and standard language servers. By utilizing a dependency injection container an

This project is a cross-platform library for building desktop applications using Deno. It enables developers to create software with web-based user interfaces by rendering HTML, CSS, and JavaScript within native desktop windows. The framework functions as a bridge between the web-based frontend and the host operating system. It provides a communication layer that allows for bidirectional data exchange and code execution between the interface and the underlying system. By integrating with native system event queues, the library maintains window responsiveness and manages the application lifecy

Electrobun is a desktop application framework and webview-based GUI toolkit used for building cross-platform desktop apps. It provides a TypeScript-based runtime and a native system webview to create interfaces that integrate embedded browser views with host-process logic. The project features a native GPU integration layer with direct FFI bindings, allowing for high-performance GPU surfaces and compute workloads to run within a desktop application. It also includes an inter-process communication bridge using a typed RPC system to exchange data and execute functions between the native backend

FluentUI is a component-based UI framework that implements Microsoft's Fluent Design System for building cross-platform desktop applications. It provides a complete set of reusable UI components and styling tools that follow the Fluent Design language, enabling developers to create consistent visual interfaces across different operating systems. The framework includes a custom window frame manager that creates frameless application windows with integrated title bars and standard window controls, styled through CSS variables. It also features a single-page application router that manages view

Avalonia is a cross-platform desktop framework that enables the creation of native-feeling applications for Windows, macOS, and Linux from a single codebase. It functions as a declarative UI toolkit, allowing developers to define complex visual hierarchies and interface structures using a markup-based syntax that maps directly to underlying object properties. By utilizing the Model-View-ViewModel architectural pattern, the framework facilitates a clean separation between application logic and user interface layout, which simplifies unit testing and component maintenance. The framework disting

Wails is a cross-platform framework for building native desktop applications by combining a Go backend with web-based frontend technologies. It enables developers to create lightweight software by utilizing the host operating system's native web rendering engine, eliminating the need to bundle heavy browser dependencies. The framework distinguishes itself through a robust communication layer that bridges the backend and frontend. It automatically generates type-safe JavaScript bindings and proxies from Go code, allowing for seamless, asynchronous method invocation and data serialization acros

Vuido is a framework for building native desktop applications for Windows, macOS, and Linux using Vue.js components, without requiring Electron or Chromium. It maps Vue components directly to native widgets from the libui library, creating lightweight applications that run on a single-threaded event loop and compile templates at build time for optimized runtime performance. The framework provides a complete Vue.js component-to-native bridge, enabling two-way data binding via v-model, component-based window composition, and platform-specific package generation for distributing executables. It

Kap is an open-source screen recording application designed to capture desktop activity as video or image files. It provides a comprehensive workflow for recording screen sessions, including options for capturing system audio and highlighting mouse clicks to assist in the creation of instructional content. The application distinguishes itself through a modular, plugin-based architecture that allows for the integration of external services for sharing and uploading media. It utilizes a background transcoding utility to process and convert captured recordings into various formats, such as GIF,

This project is a native desktop application for Windows that functions as a mathematical calculation engine. It provides a graphical user interface for performing arithmetic and scientific operations, serving as an open-source reference implementation for standard system utilities. The application utilizes a declarative markup language to define its user interface, which is synchronized with the underlying data through an event-driven binding system. By employing a model-view-viewmodel pattern, the software separates presentation logic from business rules, while a native core handles mathema

This library provides a lightweight framework for building cross-platform desktop applications by rendering web content within native application windows. It utilizes the browser engine already present on the host operating system to display user interfaces, allowing developers to combine web technologies with native system capabilities. The project functions as a bridge between the web environment and the native host, enabling bidirectional communication between JavaScript and native code. By mapping script execution to native functions, it allows frontend interfaces to trigger system-level

Podman Desktop is a graphical user interface for building, managing, and deploying containers and Kubernetes clusters from a local workstation. It serves as a container engine manager and a Kubernetes cluster dashboard, providing a visual environment for tasks typically handled via the command line. The project includes a container extension framework that allows users to integrate additional tools and capabilities into the management environment through a plugin system and extension catalog. The software covers the full container lifecycle, including image building and pushing to registries