Have you ever wondered why some computer programs take up so much space on your hard drive? Many modern desktop applications are built using a framework called Electron, which is powerful but often very heavy. Fortunately, a new tool called Electrobun has arrived to make building cross-platform apps much more efficient.
Electrobun is an innovative framework designed to help developers create desktop applications that are significantly smaller and faster than those built with traditional tools. While a standard Electron application might start at 150MB, an Electrobun app can be as tiny as 14MB. This is achieved by using the Bun runtime instead of Node.js and utilizing the web browser engine already built into your operating system rather than shipping a whole copy of Chromium.
To get started with Electrobun, you first need to have Bun installed on your computer. Bun is a modern JavaScript runtime that is famous for its incredible speed. Once you have Bun, you can create a new project by typing bunx electrobun init in your terminal. This command will provide you with several templates, ranging from simple “Hello World” setups to complex projects using React, Vue, or Svelte.
The heart of an Electrobun project is the electrobun.config.ts file. This configuration file uses TypeScript to define how your application should be built and how it identifies itself to the operating system. In this file, you define your application’s name, a unique identifier (like com.yourname.myapp), and the entry point for the Bun process. For example, your entry point might be located at src/main.ts. This file tells the computer exactly which instructions to run as soon as the app starts.
Unlike older frameworks, Electrobun uses a “System WebView.” This means on a Mac, your app uses Safari’s WebKit engine; on Windows, it uses Microsoft Edge’s WebView2; and on Linux, it uses WebKitGTK. This design choice is why the file size stays so small. However, as a developer, you must ensure your CSS and JavaScript work correctly across these different engines. If you need absolute consistency, Electrobun does allow you to bundle the Chromium Embedded Framework (CEF), but doing so will increase your file size to around 100MB.
Programming in Electrobun involves managing two main parts: the main process and the browser window. The main process runs on Bun and handles heavy tasks like accessing your computer’s files or managing windows. You can create a new window by using the BrowserWindow class. For instance, you would write new BrowserWindow({ title: “My App”, url: “views/index.html” }) to show your user interface. To make these two parts talk to each other, Electrobun uses a high-performance system called RPC, or Remote Procedure Call. This allows the browser window to ask the main process to do something and get a result back seamlessly.
When you are ready to share your creation, the build process is quite straightforward. By running the build command, Electrobun uses ZSTD compression to package your application. It even supports “differential updates,” which means if you make a small change to your app later, your users only need to download a few kilobytes to update it, rather than the whole program again. This is a massive improvement over older technologies where updates were often as large as the initial download.
While Electrobun is relatively new—with its first version appearing in early 2024—it is already capable of impressive feats. Developers have used it to build hybrid browsers, text-to-speech tools, and even complex games like Doom using WebGPU. It represents a shift toward more responsible software development, where we prioritize the user’s hardware resources while maintaining the ease of using web technologies like HTML and CSS.
Electrobun is a fantastic choice for anyone looking to build high-performance desktop applications without the “bloat” of traditional frameworks. By leveraging the power of the Bun runtime and native system components, it offers a glimpse into the future of lightweight software development. I recommend experimenting with the built-in templates first to understand how the main process communicates with the user interface. While the documentation is still growing, the performance benefits make it a tool worth mastering. Keep an eye on its GitHub repository for updates, as this project is evolving rapidly and gaining a strong community of developers.