Electron (software framework)

Electron (formerly known as Atom Shell[5]) is a free and open-source software framework developed and maintained by OpenJS Foundation.[6] 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 Web Assembly are possible) that are rendered using a version of the Chromium browser engine and a back end using the Node.js runtime environment.[7] It also uses various APIs to enable functionality such as native integration with Node.js services and an inter-process communication module.

Electron
Original author(s)GitHub
Developer(s)OpenJS Foundation
Initial release15 July 2013 (2013-07-15)[1]
Stable release
23.0.0[2]  / 7 February 2023 (7 February 2023)
Preview release
22.0.0-beta.8[3]  / 24 November 2022 (24 November 2022)
Repository
Written inC++, JavaScript, Objective-C++ and Objective-C
Operating systemLinux, macOS and Windows
PlatformIA-32, x86-64, ARM
LicenseMIT License[4]
Websitewww.electronjs.org

Electron was originally built for Atom[5] and is the main GUI framework behind several open-source projects including Atom, GitHub Desktop, Light Table,[8] Visual Studio Code, WordPress Desktop[9] and Eclipse Theia.[10]

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.[11]

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.[12]

Electron frequently releases new major versions along every other Chromium release.[13] The latest three stable version are support by the Electron team.[13]

Version history
ReleaseStatusRelease dateEnd of life dateChromium versionNode.js versionModule versionN-API versionICU version
Latest preview version of a future release: v23.x.yAlpha2022-11-30[14]TBD110TBD ? ? ?
Current stable version: v22.x.yCurrent2022-11-30[15]TBD10816.17 ? ? ?
Older version, yet still maintained: v21.x.yActive2022-09-26[16]TBD10616.16 ? ? ?
Older version, yet still maintained: v20.x.yActive2022-08-02[17]TBD10416.15 ? ? ?
Old version, no longer maintained: v19.x.yEnd-of-Life2022-05-24[18]2022-11-29[15]10216.14106 ? ?
Old version, no longer maintained: v18.x.yEnd-of-Life2022-03-29[19]2022-09-26[16]10016.13103 ? ?
Old version, no longer maintained: v17.x.yEnd-of-Life2022-02-01[20]2022-08-029816.13101 ? ?
Old version, no longer maintained: v16.x.yEnd-of-Life2021-11-15[21]2022-05-24[18]9616.999 ? ?
Old version, no longer maintained: v15.x.yEnd-of-Life2021-09-212022-05-24[18]9416.598 ? ?
Old version, no longer maintained: v14.x.yEnd-of-Life2021-08-302022-03-29[19]9214.1789869.1
Old version, no longer maintained: v13.x.yEnd-of-Life2021-05-252022-01-31[20]9114.1689768.1
Old version, no longer maintained: v12.0.xEnd-of-Life2021-03-022021-11-15[21]8914.1687768.1
Old version, no longer maintained: v11.4.xEnd-of-Life2020-11-162021-08-308712.1885565.1
Old version, no longer maintained: v10.4.xEnd-of-Life2020-08-252021-05-258512.1682565.1
Old version, no longer maintained: v9.4.xEnd-of-Life2020-05-182021-03-028312.1480565.1
Old version, no longer maintained: v8.3.xEnd-of-Life2020-02-042020-11-168012.1376565.1
Old version, no longer maintained: v7.3.xEnd-of-Life2019-10-222020-08-257812.875464.2
Old version, no longer maintained: v6.1.xEnd-of-Life2019-07-292020-05-187612.473464.2
Old version, no longer maintained: v5.1.xEnd-of-Life2019-04-242020-02-047312.070463.1
Old version, no longer maintained: v4.2.xEnd-of-Life2018-12-202019-10-226910.1169362.2
Old version, no longer maintained: v3.1.xEnd-of-Life2018-09-182019-07-296610.2643 ?
Old version, no longer maintained: v2.0.xEnd-of-Life2018-05-012019-04-24618.957 ? ?
Old version, no longer maintained: v1.8.xEnd-of-Life2017-12-122018-12-20598.257 ? ?

Reception
Main article: List of software using Electron

Desktop applications built with Electron include Atom,[22] balenaEtcher,[23] Eclipse Theia,[10] Microsoft Teams,[24] Slack[25] and Visual Studio Code.[26][27] Brave Browser was based on Electron before it was rewritten to use Chromium directly.[28]

The most common criticism of Electron is that it necessitates software bloat when used for simple programs.[29] 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."[30] Meanwhile, Joey Sneddon states that this tradeoff is sensible as Electron greatly lowers the cost of developing and maintaining cross-platform software.[31]

Researchers have shown that Electron's large feature set can be hijacked by malicious software because it is accessed through plaintext JavaScript files.[32] Those who are concerned that Electron is not always based on the newest version of Chromium have recommended progressive web applications as an alternative.[33]

See also

References
  1. "electron/electron". GitHub. Retrieved 8 May 2018.
  2. "Electron 23.0.0". 7 February 2023. Retrieved 10 February 2023.
  3. "Release 22.0.0-beta.8". 24 November 2022. Retrieved 16 December 2022.
  4. "electron/LICENSE at master". GitHub. Retrieved 3 July 2020.
  5. Sawicki, Kevin (23 April 2015). "Atom Shell is now Electron". Electron. Archived from the original on 9 November 2017. Retrieved 6 January 2022.
  6. "Build cross-platform desktop apps with JavaScript, HTML, and CSS | Electron". Retrieved 1 February 2023.
  7. "Electron Internals: Using Node as a Library". electronjs.org. 8 August 2016. Retrieved 3 July 2020.
  8. Horner, Gabriel (10 December 2015). "Light Table 0.8.0". lighttable.com. Retrieved 3 July 2020.
  9. "GitHub Repository". GitHub. Retrieved 16 June 2019.
  10. "Theia - Cloud and Desktop IDE Platform". theia-ide.org. Retrieved 31 December 2021.
  11. "From native to JavaScript in Electron | Electron Blog". electronjs.org. 19 March 2019. Retrieved 26 April 2019.
  12. "New Electron Release Cadence | Electron". electronjs.org. 14 July 2021.
  13. "Electron Releases | Electron". electronjs.org. Retrieved 16 December 2022.
  14. "Release electron v23.0.0-alpha.3 · electron/electron". GitHub. Retrieved 16 December 2022.
  15. "Release electron v22.0.0 · electron/electron". GitHub. Retrieved 16 December 2022.
  16. "Release electron v21.0.0 · electron/electron". GitHub. Retrieved 16 December 2022.
  17. "Release electron v20.0.0 · electron/electron". GitHub. Retrieved 16 December 2022.
  18. "Release electron v19.0.0 · electron/electron". GitHub.
  19. "Release electron v18.0.0 · electron/electron". GitHub.
  20. "Release electron v17.0.0 · electron/electron". GitHub.
  21. "Release electron v16.0.0 · electron/electron". GitHub.
  22. Sawicki, Kevin (23 April 2015). "Atom Shell is now Electron". Electron. Archived from the original on 16 October 2019. Retrieved 15 July 2017.
  23. "Etcher on GitHub". GitHub. Retrieved 7 July 2020.
  24. msdmaguire. "How Microsoft Teams uses memory - Microsoft Teams". docs.microsoft.com. Retrieved 12 November 2021.
  25. "Building hybrid applications with Electron". Several People Are Coding. 25 October 2016. Retrieved 12 August 2017.
  26. Bright, Peter (29 April 2015). "Microsoft's new Code editor is built on Google's Chromium". Ars Technica. Retrieved 18 November 2015.
  27. "Open Source project". GitHub. 29 March 2022.
  28. Singh, Jagmeet (3 January 2017). "People are now even doing machine learning in JavaScript". Open Source For U. Retrieved 26 August 2022.
  29. Proven, Liam (19 November 2021). "Some FOSS gems: Franz, RamBox, Pidgin and more". The Register. Retrieved 26 August 2022.
  30. Larabel, Michael (9 February 2019). "Electron Apps Are Bad, So Now You Can Create Desktop Apps With HTML5 + Golang". Phoronix. Retrieved 26 August 2022.
  31. Sneddon, Joey (23 July 2017). "Seriously folks, Electron apps aren't that bad". OMG Ubuntu. Retrieved 26 August 2022.
  32. Gallagher, Sean (7 August 2019). "Skype, Slack, other Electron based apps can be easily backdoored". Ars Technica. Retrieved 26 August 2022.
  33. Hoffman, Chris (15 August 2019). "That native app is probably just an old web browser". How To Geek. Retrieved 26 August 2022.
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