In my curious search for lighter Electron alternatives to implement Zoho Writer's (https://writer.zoho.com) desktop app: I found Sciter[1]
It supports multiplatform app development with HTML/JS/CSS and the entire engine's runtime is just about 5MB which is unbelievably small!
I further analysed how this was possible, what I found was beyond fascinating.
1. The author has wrote a compiler that supports JS with useful extensions like classes and fancy stuff, even before ES6 came into existence.
2. He had built his own layouting engine that understands HTML and CSS 3.0
Basically he's built a custom browser engine, but custom tailored for writing multi-platform apps. So it's super-fast without as much memory taxes. It's not backed by a BigCo or a huge community (I guess) and I'm not sure whether I'll pick it for a business critical app. But the way it's architected seems far superior than the shortcut approaches that Electron or most other alternatives take.
The project is not even new. It's more than a decade old which itself is amazing.
sciter looks good, but just don't think about the recent modern web feature, current web feature is impossible to make it right/full by a small team, even ms can not catch up, so they just choose the chromium.
sciter is good if you are looking for make an app based biz which not depends too much on web spec.
EDIT: small app -> app biz
> sciter looks good, but just don't think about the recent modern web feature, current web feature is impossible to make it right/full by a small team, even ms can not catch up, so they just choose the chromium.
Not every feature needs to be supported, which feature are you referring to? Also, given the use case: what is required in your opinion? How does the shift in microsofts scope translate to the efforts to sciter? What did the shift imply?
> sciter is good if you looking for make a small app which not depends too much on web spec.
Since when is it a feature to comply to "web spec"? Why should anyone continue to comply with all new requirements? And why do you feel it is required for portable desktop applications? Why not settle on some proven essentials? And why I am talking about browser now?
Hopefully you elaborate your thoughts: I am sincerly curious about your opinion.
First of all, I do like sciter, it's fresh air in wails,webview,electron & tauri.
There are several cases why I prefer an electron: BrowserView, FileSystem api, newer css feature(Interop 2022 are greate), and all the newer js feature I use but I don't know it.
I'm a web dev, so I'm not comply to web spec but chasing it, as a web dev, I'm happy about this, so I take the web spec as granted.
If I'm building a app biz company, I may choose sciter. sciter is not "free" to use, I remember sciter used to tring allowed the static linking if the donation is good enough, but seems not reach the goal, which means can not get a static exe like https://github.com/wailsapp/wails .
BTW, I'm sorry for the small app part, small should mean adapt or bend to sciter.
> I'm a web dev, so I'm not comply to web spec but chasing it, as a web dev, I'm happy about this, so I take the web spec as granted.
Okay, now I see: As a web dev you are able to make use of all these new features. I do not know about current conveniences. FWIW is that CSS should be portable across any browser/web view. And given that browsers nowadays occupy tons of memory (even though they are written in highly performant languages) I am still impressed by sciters small shipping size.
> If I'm building a app biz company, I may choose sciter. sciter is not "free" to use, I remember sciter used to tring allowed the static linking if the donation is good enough, but seems not reach the goal, which means can not get a static exe like https://github.com/wailsapp/wails .
Thank you for the recommendation!! It appears to me that his previous attempts to market his product have left a serious impression. I do remember stumbling about sciter a while ago, neglecting it as well. But I can't recall my reasoning.
> BTW, I'm sorry for the small app part, small should mean adapt or bend to sciter.
No worries, thanks for your input!!