Tauri lets you build desktop applications using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript for the frontend while running Rust on the backend — and it does this without bundling an entire Chromium browser. Instead, Tauri uses the operating system’s native webview (WebView2 on Windows, WebKit on macOS, WebKitGTK on Linux), which means app binaries start at around 2-3 MB instead of the 150+ MB typical of Electron apps.
The framework is a direct response to the Electron bloat problem. Every Electron app ships its own copy of Chromium, which is why Slack, Discord, and VS Code each consume hundreds of megabytes of disk space and significant RAM. Tauri apps are dramatically lighter — a simple app might use 10 MB of RAM instead of 200 MB — while still letting developers use React, Vue, Svelte, or any web framework for the UI layer. The Rust backend provides native performance for compute-intensive tasks, filesystem access, and system integrations.
Tauri 2.0, released in 2024, added mobile support (iOS and Android) alongside desktop platforms, making it a true cross-platform framework. The security model is stricter than Electron’s by default, requiring explicit permission grants for each system API. The project is maintained by the Tauri Programme within the Commons Conservancy, a European foundation for open-source governance. With thousands of GitHub stars and a growing ecosystem of plugins, Tauri has become the go-to alternative for developers who want cross-platform desktop apps without the Electron tax on size, performance, and memory.
