It was more or less a rethorical question (I guess that’s why I’m being downvoted), because there is no competitor. If there was, then Electron wouldn’t be so extremely popular in the first place, and we’d see a lot more popular apps made with all the tools mentioned in the other replies to my post.

Thanks, I'm assuming there is some core application capability that people are getting from Electron. In terms of 'write once run anywhere' Java has that covered but doesn't offer a means to spec UIs with HTML/CSS, so if that is the deal killer then it would be nice if Java added that capability for applications.

Edit >> looks like JavaFX WebView is a thing now, plus the jxbrowser embeds chromium in a Java App... not sure of the performance of either of these implementations

> 'write once run anywhere'

That's the biggest lie ever, with these newfangled "cross-platform" solutions.

I want to watch the guy who has to sit down and port electron to a platform it doesn't run on yet. It's just a few lines of code, right?

Java had the same problem, everyone who ran Linux in early 2000s remembers. It's still not something I would want to port, but at least it runs on more systems ootb than electron.

You are being downvoted because the idea that electron is the only way to get cross platform GUIs is absurd and comes from inexperience and a lack of research. FLTK, Juce and Qt are just some of the options for creating cross platform UIs that end up being much smaller and MUCH faster than electron. Electron is popular because people learn javascript and don't want to learn C++. I can't completely fault this mentality for toy programs, but at some point the false sweeping statements get pretty old.

It's weird to assume that developers who use Electron do so because they are ignorant, incompetent and lazy.

The truth is, everybody knows about Qt, GTK and so on, and everybody knows Electron is heavy but you have to be realistic. As a company do you want to spend that much money hiring a ton of C++ developers over a much longer period of time, or do you go for the solution which, while not ideal, allows you to develop a cross platform app in a much shorter time?

These days many people run Electron apps without even knowing it, showing that it's an ok solution.

> It's weird to assume that developers who use Electron do so because they are ignorant, incompetent and lazy.

I don't think I said all that

> As a company do you want to spend that much money hiring a ton of C++ developers over a much longer period of time,

This I think is a big assumption. Making a GUI isn't really that difficult. Most of the time in a program doesn't go into making the actual UI. I never hear someone who is experienced in making UIs say that electron saves them so much time, it is always people assuming it takes an army of C++ people to do what one person can do with electron, which is bizarre, especially over the course of something that is more than a prototype.

> I don't think I said all that

Kind of: "inexperience", "lack of research", "don't want to learn C++"

> Making a GUI isn't really that difficult.

Also a big assumption, especially for cross-platform GUIs.

If you don't know the difference between "inexperience and a lack of research" and "ignorant, incompetent and lazy" then I don't know what to tell you. It seems like you are hallucinating some sort of persecution.

It is not a big assumption, I've done it many times. What is it that you think electron gives you that cross platform GUIs don't have? Making the actual UI is usually pretty trivial, it isn't even logic, just data through function calls.

> toy programs

> false sweeping statements

OK.

I think misunderstood what I said - I can understand not learning C++ for toy programs, but at some point making thousands of users use an electron program is pretty silly.

You do realize that one thing can be more popular but still have competition, right?

Sure, I’m just saying there is a huge gap and other tools, even though they technically work, haven’t proven to be good enough to become as widely adopted as Electron.