Add to Chrome
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Add to SafariWhen comparing GTK+ vs Electron, the Slant community recommends GTK+ for most people. In the question“What are the best cross-platform GUI toolkits?” GTK+ is ranked 11th while Electron is ranked 23rd. The most important reason people chose GTK+ is:
Supports a lot of languages like Java, Javascript, C++, Python, Pascal, FreeBasic and Haskell, but support for languages like C# and GO is only partial.
Specs
Question Ranking
Pros
Pro Language bindings
Supports a lot of languages like Java, Javascript, C++, Python, Pascal, FreeBasic and Haskell, but support for languages like C# and GO is only partial.
Pro Nicer user interface when using PyGi
Creating cross platform enterprise apps with PyGi and with the help of Gtk Themes makes them look great.
Pro Working with GTK focused Vala is great
Vala is made to make GTK easy [as well as for other things] and it really does, and makes it easier than working with C/C++, Python, or any other,
Pro Healthy community
Github is behind electron and there is a lot of big companies using it to make their cross platform apps.
Pro Active development
Electron receives updates frequently (multiple times each month). For example, the recent updates (as of July 15, 2016) are:
1.2.6 (released July 6)
1.2.5 (released June 23)
1.2.4 (released June 22)
1.2.3 (released June 16)
1.2.2 (released June 8)
Pro learning curve is less
Electron has less learning curve when compare to qt like other options
Pro Great documentation
Electron has a nice website with great documentation. It also features a lot of samples.
Pro Solid API
Cons
Con Sucks for traditional applications
GTK3 added CSD widgets and added a lot of paddings to make widgets bigger for touchscreen use, GTK4 also even removed Menubar and Toolbar widgets.
Con No menuicons or mnemonics
Gtk3 has removed the support of icons and mnemonics making navigating menus just terrible for the use with a keyboard. Sure there are some hacks to make them working again but they will never work as they did/do work in Windows, GTK2 or QT.
Con Terrible integration
Looks and feels like an alien on all other platforms than GNOME.
Con Promotes Wayland as the standard X11 server on Unix
Lets face it, Wayland is not a replacement for XORG since Wayland works currently only in GNOME and there are many issues. Some desktops and window managers will never get ported to Wayland and it is not available to all Unix and Unix-like systems. X11 on the other hand is available for almost everything, so it will be available for the next decade or even longer.
Con Apps can have memory issues
Apps made with Electron are likely to have memory issues unless you specifically design the app with efficient coding.
Con High CPU Usage
Electron Has High CPU Usage
Con Needs to run chromium
Runs chromium in the background which consumes a lot of resources.
