- Open source
- Mobile
Discord CTO says the client is leaving Electron for a Rust rewrite
Discord chief technology officer Stanislav Vishnevskiy said the company has been an early adopter of Rust since 2018, and that much of its infrastructure, its voice technology, and parts of its current client are alre...
·1 min read·AB
Stanislav @svishnevskiy
We've been early adopters of Rust since 2018 and a lot of our infra, voice tech, and even some of the current client is already Rust, the holy grail was getting the whole client there. That means Electron goes away, and so does React Native, mobile keeps native UI but shares app… https://t.co/2CgWyOzaq0 pic.twitter.com/IdOGd4nUgl
Discord chief technology officer Stanislav Vishnevskiy said the company has been an early adopter of Rust since 2018, and that much of its infrastructure, its voice technology, and parts of its current client are already built in Rust. The goal now, he said, is to get the whole client onto Rust as well.
As part of that shift, Discord's desktop client will drop Electron, the web-technology wrapper it has long relied on, and its mobile client will drop React Native. Mobile apps will keep native user interfaces, but will share application code with desktop through Rust. Vishnevskiy said the team hopes to get the new client into testing with users soon, and clarified that the framework behind the rewrite is GPUI, not Tauri.
Why it matters
Moving off Electron and React Native toward a shared Rust codebase signals a major performance-focused bet for one of the most widely used chat apps.
Source: Stanislav Vishnevskiy (Discord)