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[0] https://docs.flutter.dev/development/platform-integration/de...
"To compile a desktop application, you must build it on the targeted platform: build a Windows application on Windows, a macOS application on macOS, and a Linux application on Linux."
So, I essentially do need to own a mac if I want to target macs along with other platforms.
If you want to target other platforms than the one you are currently running, then you need to compile and run on that target machine as well. It is not a hard requirement that you need a Mac to develop Flutter applications. The Flutter SDK is also on Windows and Linux machines as well.
It is exactly the same thing for Tauri. [0] This is why they tell developers to use GitHub Actions or CIs to do it for them. Again, the same can be done for Flutter.
Electron on the other hand, does not need any of that.
That is true. It's basically exposing a Rust API and using FFI to the Desktop APIs. Nothing special going on apart from hype and marketing and possible over-promising on features.
> Isn't the whole point of Electron to have version/feature stability for the browser APIs by bundling a specific Chromium runtime?
Yes. The selling point here is that there are no fundamental rewrites needed for using Electron but only small Javascript / Typescript tweaks to get it up and running. This is why unfortunately Electron is used all the time despite the giant negatives. As with Tauri, it is basically a wrapper around the system Webview and using Rust FFI to the Desktop APIs.
I'd rather bet on Flutter Desktop as a possible long term Electron competitor.