Electrobun
Hacker ApprovedRanked 5 of 5 desktop app frameworks by recommenders
People recommend it as a fast, tiny way to build cross-platform desktop apps with TypeScript and Bun, with small updates and a simple API; Electrobun is a free, open framework.
People recommend it as a fast, tiny way to build cross-platform desktop apps with TypeScript and Bun, with small updates and a simple API; Electrobun is a free, open framework.
23 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 17
- criticize it
- 6
- approval share
- 74%
Recommended in 5 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 17 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 2.8 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 5 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
TypeScript and Bun instead of Rust
“Main reason was DX. Tauri uses Rust for the backend while Electrobun uses TS + Bun. It's honestly been a breeze up till now.”
Comment from 21 Mar 2026 in “Show HN: vLLM Studio – A macOS app for using vLLM models” “using Electrobun has been an absolute breeze. I got the same app done in roughly 70% of the time”
Comment from 8 Feb 2026 in “Electrobun v1: Build fast, tiny, and cross-platform desktop apps with TypeScript” Tiny apps and small updates
“Ship full cross platform desktop apps in a few MB, ship often with diff updates as small as 14KB.”
Comment from 9 Feb 2026 in “Build tiny, fast desktop apps with Bun” “auto generate a zstd self-extraction wrapper and patch files with every release”
Comment from 19 Feb 2026 in “Electrobun v1: Build fast, tiny, and cross-platform desktop apps with TypeScript” “this makes updates tiny, to the tune of a couple kB”
Comment from 19 Feb 2026 in “Electrobun v1: Build fast, tiny, and cross-platform desktop apps with TypeScript” Simple, clean APIs
“It certainly looks clean enough”
Comment from 19 Feb 2026 in “Electrobun v1: Build fast, tiny, and cross-platform desktop apps with TypeScript” “the actual APIs are very simple”
Comment from 19 Feb 2026 in “Electrobun v1: Build fast, tiny, and cross-platform desktop apps with TypeScript” Built-in RPC bridge to native code
“electrobun ships with an RPC (i think it also does some encryption?)”
Comment from 19 Feb 2026 in “Electrobun v1: Build fast, tiny, and cross-platform desktop apps with TypeScript” “the RPC bridge to my native core is the game changer for me”
Comment from 24 Feb 2026 in “Electrobun v1: Build fast, tiny, and cross-platform desktop apps with TypeScript”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Rewrite and Bun dependency worries
“Here I've been offered a complete rewrite, potentially having thousands of issues.”
Comment from 25 May 2026 in “Electrobun 2.0 will be decoupled from Bun due to the rust rewrite” “Completely dropping support for bun is equally bad imo”
Comment from 23 May 2026 in “Electrobun 2.0 will be decoupled from Bun due to the rust rewrite” “Personally I am confused by this whole rewrite”
Comment from 24 May 2026 in “Electrobun 2.0 will be decoupled from Bun due to the rust rewrite”
Other desktop app frameworks people recommend
The four most recommended other desktop app frameworks, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Electron | 203 | 456 | 31% | 12 | — | — |
| Tauri | 152 | 88 | 63% | 13 | — | — |
| Deno Desktop | 30 | 10 | 75% | 3 | — | — |
| Wails | 25 | 6 | 81% | 9 | — | Approved |
| ElectrobunThis page | 17 | 6 | 74% | 5 | — | Approved |
What people said
30 of the 33 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“I do like electrobun and that seems like a good runtime to build something like this”
“you can catch bun anything, electro or not, refugeess just by not being bun”
“Here I've been offered a complete rewrite, potentially having thousands of issues.”
“Personally I am confused by this whole rewrite”
“Completely dropping support for bun is equally bad imo”
“I hit a non-negotiable limitation”
“It's a grave sin to have an app repo without a screenshot in the main README.md.”
“Main reason was DX. Tauri uses Rust for the backend while Electrobun uses TS + Bun. It's honestly been a breeze up till now.”
“Curious why Electrobun over Tauri here?”
“Docs that referred to non existing/non working features and features not covered by the docs.”
“it's the only path forward”
“how many people are already shipping apps with Electrobun”
“the RPC bridge to my native core is the game changer for me”
“when using BrowserWindow I get typescript errors if trying to pass an object with the key "partition"”
“Other distros than Ubuntu are out of scope, so not usable for me, sadly.”
“thank you for building electrobun!!”
“impressive work! this might nudge me into building desktop applications.”
“was looking for something just like this. Really helpful”
“auto generate a zstd self-extraction wrapper and patch files with every release”
“i've signed and notarized things with electrobun and it's perfectly fine”
“electrobun ships with an RPC (i think it also does some encryption?)”
“this makes updates tiny, to the tune of a couple kB”
“the actual APIs are very simple”
“Electrobun sounds really cool, glad to see there's more work done”
“I think it's going to eat a piece of the Electron pie for Steam indie games.”
“Looks cool, I'll try this for my next personal desktop project”
“It certainly looks clean enough”
“Ship full cross platform desktop apps in a few MB, ship often with diff updates as small as 14KB.”
“Looks very promising, will be building my next project with it.”
“using Electrobun has been an absolute breeze. I got the same app done in roughly 70% of the time”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.