What is Electron?

• Framework to create desktop applications
• With HTML, CSS and JavaScript
• Or other frameworks like React or Angular
• Cross platform applications
• Uses Node.js and Chromium

History of Electron

• Started on 15.07.2013 at GitHub, to make cross platform development easier
• First called "Atom Shell"
• In 2014 it got Open Source
• In 2015 "Atom Shell" is now called "Electron"
• Originally build for Atom

How does Electron work?

The architecture

• Chromiums rendering library: Libchromiumcontent
• Node.js and npm
• C++ for common OS operations

Processes

Packaging

• electron-forge
• electron-builder
• electron-packager

Pros and Cons

Pros

• Open source
• Use HTML, CSS and JavaScript
• Node.js for many libraries

Cons

• High resource consumption
• Slower than native applications
• No code encryption