Other than a little startup lag VS Code which runs on top of Electron performs very well on my computers, though they all have SSDs. As to performance and memory footprint vs. a statically compiled language/platform, yes, it's a bit heavier... that said, people are writing useful software with it, and able to deploy it cross platform, with minimal additional effort, and able to re-use components build for web based versions.

It's not ideal for some apps, but it's completely serviceable for most apps.