Windows Latest13 hours ago·3 min read·medium

Discord is killing its Electron app that can eat 4GB of RAM on Windows 11, and the Rust rebuild uses just 290MB

Mayank Parmar

✦AI Summary

Discord is transitioning its desktop application from the Electron framework to Rust to significantly reduce memory consumption. Early testing shows the new 'Discord Phoenix' client uses substantially less RAM than the current version.

Why it matters

The move highlights a growing industry trend of moving away from resource-heavy web-based frameworks toward more efficient, native-like performance in desktop software.

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Discord is finally getting rid of Electron! Co-founder and CTO Stanislav Vishnevskiy has confirmed that Discord is rebuilding its client in Rust, and it’ll be using GPUI to handle the desktop interface.

Discord also shared an early Windows 11 screenshot of the new app written in Rust, listed as “Discord Phoenix,” and it’s using just 290.2MB of RAM:

I’ve been saying for a long time that one of Windows 11’s biggest problems is that it’s full of popular apps built using resource-intensive frameworks like Electron and WebView2 and other forms of web crap. That includes Outlook, Teams, WhatsApp, and Discord. Discord uses Electron, which I think is worse than the other web app approaches I listed.

For a long time, neither Microsoft nor other companies have done enough about it because it’s easier to package a website in Electron and ship it across different platforms.

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