Electron (software framework)

Short description: Development framework built on Chromium

Electron

Original author(s)| GitHub
Developer(s)| OpenJS Foundation
Initial release| 15 July 2013; 13 years ago (2013-07-15)[1]
Preview release|

29.0.0-beta.3[2] / January 26, 2024; 2 years ago (2024-01-26)

Written in| C++, JavaScript, Objective-C++ and Objective-C
Operating system| Linux, FreeBSD, macOS, and Windows
Platform| IA-32, x86-64, ARM
License| MIT License[3]
Website| {{{1}}}

Electron (formerly known as Atom Shell[4]) is a free and open-source software framework developed and maintained by OpenJS Foundation.[5] The framework is designed to create desktop applications using web technologies (mainly HTML, CSS and JavaScript, although other technologies such as front-end frameworks and WebAssembly are possible) that are rendered using a version of the Chromium browser engine and a back end using the Node.js runtime environment.[6] It also uses various APIs to enable functionality such as native integration with Node.js services and an inter-process communication module.

Electron was originally built for Atom[4] and is the main GUI framework behind several other open-source projects including GitHub Desktop, Light Table,[7] Visual Studio Code, WordPress Desktop[8] and Eclipse Theia.[9]

## Contents

* 1 Architecture
* 2 History
* 3 Reception
* 4 See also
* 5 References
* 6 External links

## Architecture

Electron applications include a "main" process and several "renderer" processes. The main process runs the logic for the application (e. g. menus, shell commands, lifecycle events), and can then launch multiple renderer processes by instantiating an instance of the `BrowserWindow` class, which loads a window that appears on the screen by rendering HTML and CSS.

Both the main and renderer processes can run with Node.js integration if the `nodeIntegration` field in the main process is set to `true`.

Most of Electron's APIs are written in C++ or Objective-C and are exposed directly to the application code through JavaScript bindings.[10]

## History

In September 2021, Electron moved to an eight-week release cycle between major versions to match the release cycle of Chromium Extended Stable and to comply with a new requirement from the Microsoft Store that requires browser-based apps to be within two major versions of the latest release of the browser engine.[11]

Electron frequently releases new major versions along every other Chromium release.[12] The latest three stable versions are supported by the Electron team.[12]

Version history  Release | Status | Release date | End of life date | Chromium version | Node.js version | Module version | N-API version | ICU version

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v29.x.y | Alpha[2] | 20 February 2024 | 20 August 2024 | 122 | 18.19 | ? | ? | ?
v28.x.y | Current | 5 December 2023[13] | 11 June 2024 | 120 | 18.18 | ? | ? | ?
v27.x.y | Active | 10 October 2023[14] | 16 April 2024 | 118 | 18.17 | ? | ? | ?
v26.x.y | Active | 15 August 2023[15] | 7 February 2024 | 116 | 18.16 | ? | ? | ?
v25.x.y | End-of-Life | 30 May 2023[16] | 5 December 2023 | 114 | 18.15 | ? | ? | ?
v24.x.y | End-of-Life | 4 April 2023[17] | 10 October 2023 | 112 | 18.14 | ? | ? | ?
v23.x.y | End-of-Life | 30 November 2022[18] | 15 August 2023 | 110 | 18.12 | ? | ? | ?
v22.x.y | End-of-Life | 30 November 2022[19] | 10 October 2023 | 108 | 16.17 | ? | ? | ?
v21.x.y | End-of-Life | 26 September 2022[20] | 4 April 2023 | 106 | 16.16 | ? | ? | ?
v20.x.y | End-of-Life | 2 August 2022[21] | 7 February 2023 | 104 | 16.15 | ? | ? | ?
v19.x.y | End-of-Life | 24 May 2022[22] | 29 November 2022[19] | 102 | 16.14 | 106 | ? | ?
v18.x.y | End-of-Life | 29 March 2022[23] | 26 September 2022[20] | 100 | 16.13 | 103 | ? | ?
v17.x.y | End-of-Life | 1 February 2022[24] | 2 August 2022 | 98 | 16.13 | 101 | ? | ?
v16.x.y | End-of-Life | 15 November 2021[25] | 24 May 2022[22] | 96 | 16.9 | 99 | ? | ?
v15.x.y | End-of-Life | 21 September 2021 | 24 May 2022[22] | 94 | 16.5 | 98 | ? | ?
v14.x.y | End-of-Life | 30 August 2021 | 29 March 2022[23] | 92 | 14.17 | 89 | 8 | 69.1
v13.x.y | End-of-Life | 25 May 2021 | 31 January 2022[24] | 91 | 14.16 | 89 | 7 | 68.1
v12.0.x | End-of-Life | 2 March 2021 | 15 November 2021[25] | 89 | 14.16 | 87 | 7 | 68.1
v11.4.x | End-of-Life | 16 November 2020 | 30 August 2021 | 87 | 12.18 | 85 | 5 | 65.1
v10.4.x | End-of-Life | 25 August 2020 | 25 May 2021 | 85 | 12.16 | 82 | 5 | 65.1
v9.4.x | End-of-Life | 18 May 2020 | 2 March 2021 | 83 | 12.14 | 80 | 5 | 65.1
v8.3.x | End-of-Life | 4 February 2020 | 16 November 2020 | 80 | 12.13 | 76 | 5 | 65.1
v7.3.x | End-of-Life | 22 October 2019 | 25 August 2020 | 78 | 12.8 | 75 | 4 | 64.2
v6.1.x | End-of-Life | 29 July 2019 | 18 May 2020 | 76 | 12.4 | 73 | 4 | 64.2
v5.1.x | End-of-Life | 24 April 2019 | 4 February 2020 | 73 | 12.0 | 70 | 4 | 63.1
v4.2.x | End-of-Life | 20 December 2018 | 22 October 2019 | 69 | 10.11 | 69 | 3 | 62.2
v3.1.x | End-of-Life | 18 September 2018 | 29 July 2019 | 66 | 10.2 | 64 | 3 | ?
v2.0.x | End-of-Life | 1 May 2018 | 24 April 2019 | 61 | 8.9 | 57 | ? | ?
v1.8.x | End-of-Life | 12 December 2017 | 20 December 2018 | 59 | 8.2 | 57 | ? | ?

## Reception

Main article: Software:List of software using Electron

Desktop applications built with Electron include Atom,[26] balenaEtcher,[27] Eclipse Theia,[9] Microsoft Teams,[28] Slack[29] and Visual Studio Code.[30][31] Brave Browser was based on Electron before it was rewritten to use Chromium directly.[32]

The most common criticism of Electron is that it necessitates software bloat when used for simple programs.[33] As a result, Michael Larabel has referred to the framework as "notorious among most Linux desktop users for being resource heavy, not integrating well with most desktops, and generally being despised."[34] Meanwhile, Joey Sneddon states that this tradeoff is sensible as Electron greatly lowers the cost of developing and maintaining cross-platform software.[35]

Researchers have shown that Electron's large feature set can be hijacked by bad actors with write access to the source JavaScript files. This requires root access on *nix systems and isn't considered to be a vulnerability by the Electron developers.[36] Those who are concerned that Electron is not always based on the newest version of Chromium have recommended progressive web applications as an alternative.[37]

## See also

* Apache Cordova
* Chromium Embedded Framework (CEF)
* HTML Application
* Qt WebEngine
* XULRunner
* JavaFX WebView
* DotNetBrowser
* Progressive web app
* Node.js

## References

1. ↑ "electron/electron". https://github.com/electron/electron/releases/tag/v0.1.0.
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 "Release electron v29.0.0-beta.3 · electron/electron". 26 January 2024. https://github.com/electron/electron/releases/tag/v29.0.0-beta.3.
3. ↑ "electron/LICENSE at master". https://github.com/electron/electron/blob/master/LICENSE.
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Sawicki, Kevin (23 April 2015). "Atom Shell is now Electron". Electron. https://www.electronjs.org/blog/electron.
5. ↑ "Build cross-platform desktop apps with JavaScript, HTML, and CSS | Electron". https://www.electronjs.org/.
6. ↑ "Electron Internals: Using Node as a Library". 8 August 2016. https://electronjs.org/blog/electron-internals-using-node-as-a-library.
7. ↑ Horner, Gabriel (10 December 2015). "Light Table 0.8.0". lighttable.com. http://lighttable.com/2015/12/10/light-table-0-8-0/.
8. ↑ "GitHub Repository". https://github.com/Automattic/wp-desktop.
9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 "Theia - Cloud and Desktop IDE Platform". https://theia-ide.org/.
10. ↑ "From native to JavaScript in Electron | Electron Blog". 19 March 2019. https://electronjs.org/blog/from-native-to-js.
11. ↑ "New Electron Release Cadence | Electron". 14 July 2021. https://electronjs.org/blog/8-week-cadence.
12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 "Electron Releases | Electron" (in en). https://electronjs.org/docs/latest/tutorial/electron-timelines.
13. ↑ "Release electron v28.0.0 · electron/electron" (in en). 2023-12-04. https://github.com/electron/electron/releases/tag/v28.0.0.
14. ↑ "Release electron v27.0.0 · electron/electron" (in en). 2023-10-10. https://github.com/electron/electron/releases/tag/v27.0.0.
15. ↑ "Release electron v26.0.0 · electron/electron" (in en). https://github.com/electron/electron/releases/tag/v26.0.0.
16. ↑ "Release electron v25.0.0 · electron/electron" (in en). https://github.com/electron/electron/releases/tag/v25.0.0.
17. ↑ "Release electron v24.0.0 · electron/electron" (in en). https://github.com/electron/electron/releases/tag/v24.0.0.
18. ↑ "Release electron v23.0.0 · electron/electron" (in en). https://github.com/electron/electron/releases/tag/v23.0.0.
19. ↑ 19.0 19.1 "Release electron v22.0.0 · electron/electron" (in en). https://github.com/electron/electron/releases/tag/v22.0.0.
20. ↑ 20.0 20.1 "Release electron v21.0.0 · electron/electron" (in en). https://github.com/electron/electron/releases/tag/v21.0.0.
21. ↑ "Release electron v20.0.0 · electron/electron" (in en). https://github.com/electron/electron/releases/tag/v20.0.0.
22. ↑ 22.0 22.1 22.2 "Release electron v19.0.0 · electron/electron". https://github.com/electron/electron/releases/tag/v19.0.0.
23. ↑ 23.0 23.1 "Release electron v18.0.0 · electron/electron". https://github.com/electron/electron/releases/tag/v18.0.0.
24. ↑ 24.0 24.1 "Release electron v17.0.0 · electron/electron". https://github.com/electron/electron/releases/tag/v17.0.0.
25. ↑ 25.0 25.1 "Release electron v16.0.0 · electron/electron". https://github.com/electron/electron/releases/tag/v16.0.0.
26. ↑ Sawicki, Kevin (23 April 2015). "Atom Shell is now Electron". Electron. https://electronjs.org/blog/2015/04/23/electron.
27. ↑ "Etcher on GitHub". https://github.com/balena-io/etcher.
28. ↑ msdmaguire. "How Microsoft Teams uses memory - Microsoft Teams" (in en-us). https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/teams-memory-usage-perf.
29. ↑ "Building hybrid applications with Electron". Several People Are Coding. 25 October 2016. https://slack.engineering/building-hybrid-applications-with-electron-dc67686de5fb.
30. ↑ Bright, Peter (29 April 2015). "Microsoft's new Code editor is built on Google's Chromium". Ars Technica. https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/04/microsofts-new-code-editor-is-built-on-googles-chromium/.
31. ↑ "Open Source project". 29 March 2022. https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode.
32. ↑ Singh, Jagmeet (2017-01-03). "People are now even doing machine learning in JavaScript". Open Source For U. https://www.opensourceforu.com/2017/01/javascript-creator-brendan-eich-interview/. Retrieved 2022-08-26.
33. ↑ Proven, Liam (2021-11-19). "Some FOSS gems: Franz, RamBox, Pidgin and more". The Register. https://www.theregister.com/2021/11/19/friday_foss_fest/. Retrieved 2022-08-26.
34. ↑ Larabel, Michael (2019-02-09). "Electron Apps Are Bad, So Now You Can Create Desktop Apps With HTML5 + Golang". Phoronix. https://www.phoronix.com/news/HTML5-Golang-Desktop-Apps. Retrieved 2022-08-26.
35. ↑ Sneddon, Joey (2017-07-23). "Seriously folks, Electron apps aren't that bad". OMG Ubuntu. https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2017/07/why-electron-apps-arent-bad-2. Retrieved 2022-08-26.
36. ↑ Gallagher, Sean (2019-08-07). "Skype, Slack, other Electron based apps can be easily backdoored". Ars Technica. https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/08/skype-slack-other-electron-based-apps-can-be-easily-backdoored/. Retrieved 2022-08-26.
37. ↑ Hoffman, Chris (2019-08-15). "That native app is probably just an old web browser". How To Geek. https://www.howtogeek.com/436841/that-native-app-is-probably-just-an-old-web-browser/. Retrieved 2022-08-26.

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