Discord is rebuilding its desktop app in Rust and plans to retire Electron, Chief Technology Officer Stanislav Vishnevskiy wrote on X, as reported by Tom Warren at The Verge. Electron is the framework that lets developers build desktop apps with web technologies. Vishnevskiy also said Discord plans to drop React Native on mobile while keeping a native interface and sharing app code with desktop through Rust.
This is an expansion of Discord’s use of Rust, not its introduction. Vishnevskiy said the company has used the programming language since 2018 in its infrastructure, voice technology and parts of the current client. For the new desktop interface, he identified GPUI rather than Tauri, Mayank Parmar reported at Windows Latest. John Popko at InvenGlobal reported that Vishnevskiy described the app itself as native, with a system webview for things such as YouTube and Activities.
Windows Latest described an early Windows build labeled “Discord Phoenix” in a screenshot showing 290.2 MB of RAM use. InvenGlobal reported that Vishnevskiy later said the pictured client was running two accounts. Parmar wrote that the current Discord app regularly uses 1 to 2 GB on his own PC, even when idle. That comparison is his experience, not a test of the two versions under matching conditions.
Vishnevskiy hopes to get the replacement into user testing soon. InvenGlobal reported that he gave no release date.
