What is Electron JS? Benefits of using Electron JS in Desktop Application Development

Many people may feel that the era of desktop apps is over, but that’s not true. Nowadays, cross-platform desktop app development services are gaining momentum thanks to technologies like Electron.js. Small to large enterprises today are investing in modern desktop app solutions that offer offline capabilities, secure apps, faster performance, and seamless integration with web and cloud systems.

What is Electron.js?

Desktop app development is much in demand just like web development services. Electron is the platform that helps the developers to develop cross-platform desktop applications with the help of web technologies such as HTML, JavaScript and CSS. Apart from these tools there are a lot of JS frameworks and libraries that can be used. In short, Electron JS is a reliable runtime framework which lets the users build desktop-suite apps using HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript. It is a combination of 2 well known technologies - Node.js & Chromium. Hence, any web application written can be easily run on the platform Electron JS. In the same manner, any Node.js application written can make use of this technology.

Why Use Electron for Desktop Application?

Electron lets developers create cross-platform applications with the help of present web technologies. There is no need of having special skills for most projects to create apps using Electron. In case you are working as a web developer and wish to engage in Electron App Development to build an app then you can also check out some tutorials that explains the entire process. In case you wish your app to be seen on all platforms available then you need to install the app with the help of various technologies. For this you need to invest a lot of time and a lot of manual work is involved. If we discuss about Electron, it is certainly a framework based on JavaScript and as all the platforms aid web technologies, electron helps them develop cross-platform apps easily.

Applications Based On Electron

• Visual Studio Code
• Atom Editor
• Slack

Top 5 Benefits of Electron Js In Desktop App Development

Here, explore the main advantages of using Electron for desktop application development.

1. No Restrictions For Newcomers:

Big software companies always seek professional developers and this makes a number of positions remain vacant. It is extremely sad for those who want to hire professional software developers but budget is a constraint for them. As Electron utilizes JavaScript, CSS, HTML plus many other web technologies, means all other developers having web development expertise can also go for Electron JS Development without putting in much efforts. As web developers do not charge as high as software engineers, they can fulfil the needs of many medium and small-sized businesses.

2. Automatic Updates With Easy Installers:

These days, with the introduction of mobiles they have changed the way applications are expected to work. Downloading any updates through a website is no more what users like to do. Instead they want apps to automatically update the latest version immediately after it is available at the background.The users want the applications to be transported as flexible installers which assemble all the application elements together.Electron desktop apps are efficient enough to update themselves automatically. Also, autoUpdater component & flexible installers help Electron desktop apps to consume less time. An electron-builder is a perfect solution and creates a ready to distribute Electron app for Linux, macOS, and Windows.

3. Enhanced Development Speed:

Earlier, it took a considerable amount of time to build a simple desktop app as it required software developers to write all its parts right from the beginning with the help of simple programming languages that offered less support or guidance.Rather than using simple programming such as C or C++, Electron primarily uses JavaScript which proves to the simplest and efficient programming languages used today. As JavaScript code can be converted line by line, any Electron JS Developer can debug the code and optimize it with ease which helps them transport applications faster as compared to speed they were transported earlier.

4. Cross-Platform Support:

When an Electron application is written, make sure that it runs on all the main desktop operating systems that comprises of Windows, Linux and macOS. A lot of OS integrations come with the right support like, notifications tray applets, native OS menu bars, media keys etc, which actually saves a lot of time for the developers.

5. Supported By Huge Community Of Both Developers & Users:

Electron is a huge open source platform globally and you will find large Electron communities of developers & users all over the world offering ample amount of developmental tools and educational resources.
As Electron has no restriction to enter the domain, Electron communities are ready to welcome even newcomers and the members get the answers to their queries right here.