Electron (software framework)

Electron (formerly known as Atom Shell[5]) is an open-source software framework developed and maintained by GitHub.[6] It allows for the development of desktop GUI applications using web technologies: it combines the Chromium rendering engine and the Node.js runtime.[7] Electron is the main GUI framework behind several open-source projects including Atom,[8] GitHub Desktop,[9] Light Table,[10] Visual Studio Code,[11] Evernote,[12] and WordPress Desktop.[13]

For the article about the subatomic particle, see Electron.
For other uses, see Electron (disambiguation).

Electron
Original author(s)GitHub
Developer(s)OpenJS Foundation
Initial release15 July 2013 (2013-07-15)[1]
Stable release
11.2.2 / 2 February 2021 (2021-02-02)[2]
Preview release
12.0.0-beta.21 / 2 February 2021 (2021-02-02)[3]
Repository
Written inC++, JavaScript, Objective-C++, Python and Objective-C
Operating systemLinux, macOS and Windows
PlatformIA-32, x86-64, ARM
LicenseMIT License[4]
Websitewww.electronjs.org

Architecture

Electron applications are composed of multiple processes. There is the "main" process and several "renderer" processes. The main process runs the application logic, and can then launch multiple renderer processes, rendering the windows that appear on a user's screen rendering HTML and CSS.

Both the main and renderer processes can run with Node.js integration if enabled.

Most of Electron's APIs are written in C++ or Objective-C and then exposed directly to the application code through JavaScript bindings.[14]

Security

Because Electron applications are web applications running in the Chromium engine, they may be vulnerable to web-related attacks such as cross-site scripting attacks, through the same attack vectors as a browser (e.g. Chromium) or other internal components (Node.js) if using certain versions of Electron.[15] Examples of such vulnerabilities have been fixed in the 1.7.13, 1.8.4, and 2.0.0-beta.5 Electron releases.[16]

Criticism

Electron applications have been criticized for containing very significant overhead due to their Chromium dependency. Compared to native applications of similar functionality, Electron applications take up much more storage and RAM while being slower and providing a non-native user interface.[17][18] A few alternatives have been written to use an existing browser instead of bundling Chromium.[19]

Versions
ReleaseStatusRelease dateChromium versionNode.js versionModule versionN-API versionICU version
Future release: v13.0.xNightlyTBDTBD14.1589768.1
Future release: v12.0.xBetaTBD8914.1587768.1
Current stable version: v11.2.xCurrent2020-11-168712.1885565.1
Older version, yet still maintained: v10.3.xActive2020-08-258512.1682565.1
Older version, yet still maintained: v9.4.xActive2020-05-188312.1480565.1
Old version, no longer maintained: v8.3.xEnd-of-Life2020-02-048012.1376565.1
Old version, no longer maintained: v7.3.xEnd-of-Life2019-10-227812.875464.2
Old version, no longer maintained: v6.1.xEnd-of-Life2019-07-297612.473464.2
Old version, no longer maintained: v5.1.xEnd-of-Life2019-04-247312.070463.1
Old version, no longer maintained: v4.2.xEnd-of-Life2018-12-206910.1169362.2
Old version, no longer maintained: v3.1.xEnd-of-Life2018-09-186610.2643?
Old version, no longer maintained: v2.0.xEnd-of-Life2018-05-01618.957??
Old version, no longer maintained: v1.8.xEnd-of-Life2017-12-12598.257??

Software using Electron

A number of desktop applications are built with Electron including:[20]

Offshoot

Electron.NET

On October 27, 2017, the community released a port called Electron.NET for the .NET Core framework. This is an open source project that enables native Electron APIs using the C# programming language. The .NET developer remains in their usual ecosystem, rather than using JavaScript.

See also

References
  1. "electron/electron". GitHub. Retrieved 8 May 2018.
  2. "Latest stable release". Retrieved 2 February 2021 – via GitHub.
  3. "Releases" – via GitHub.
  4. "electron/LICENSE at master". GitHub. Retrieved 3 July 2020.
  5. Sawicki, Kevin (23 April 2015). "Atom Shell is now Electron". Atom. Retrieved 3 July 2020.
  6. "electron/electron". GitHub. Retrieved 8 May 2018.
  7. "Electron Internals: Using Node as a Library". electronjs.org. Retrieved 3 July 2020.
  8. "atom/atom". GitHub. Retrieved 8 May 2018.
  9. "GitHub Desktop". GitHub. Retrieved 16 June 2019.
  10. Horner, Gabriel (10 December 2015). "Light Table 0.8.0". lighttable.com. Retrieved 3 July 2020.
  11. James, Mike (23 November 2015). "Visual Studio Code - Now With Added Extensions". I Programmer. Retrieved 3 July 2020.
  12. Small, Ian (7 October 2020). "Introducing the New Evernote for Windows and Mac". I Programmer. Retrieved 3 November 2020.
  13. "GitHub Repository". Retrieved 16 June 2019.
  14. "From native to JavaScript in Electron | Electron Blog". electronjs.org. Retrieved 26 April 2019.
  15. "Electron nodeIntegration Bypass". 10 May 2018.
  16. "Webview Vulnerability Fix". 21 March 2018.
  17. "Electron considered harmful". Drew DeVault's Blog. Retrieved 2 October 2019.
  18. Beyer, Casper. "Electron is Cancer". Commit Log. Medium. Retrieved 2 October 2019.
  19. RS, Sudhakar (8 October 2020). "electron-alternatives: Few Cross platform desktop GUI App development options are listed here". GitHub.
  20. "Apps". Electron. Retrieved 13 June 2020.
  21. Sawicki, Kevin (23 April 2015). "Atom Shell is now Electron". Electron. Retrieved 15 July 2017.
  22. "CrashPlan for Small Business version 6.7". Code42 CrashPlan Release Notes. Retrieved 25 April 2018.
  23. "Etcher on GitHub". Retrieved 7 July 2020.
  24. Haack, Phil (16 May 2017). "Announcing Git Integration for Atom and GitHub Desktop Beta". The GitHub Blog. Retrieved 15 July 2017.
  25. "Electron Helper and branding". techcommunity.microsoft.com. 20 May 2017. Retrieved 8 May 2018.
  26. "Building hybrid applications with Electron". Several People Are Coding. Retrieved 12 August 2017.
  27. "symphonyoss/SymphonyElectron". GitHub. Retrieved 27 September 2018.
  28. Bright, Peter (29 April 2015). "Microsoft's new Code editor is built on Google's Chromium". Ars Technica. Retrieved 18 November 2015.
  29. "Open Source project".
  30. "wireapp/wire-desktop". GitHub. Retrieved 8 May 2018.
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