Electrobun is a framework for building ultra-fast, tiny, and cross-platform desktop applications with TypeScript.
Electrobun addresses the challenge of creating performant desktop apps by combining a complete integrated workflow: Hutch serves as the native build and workspace CLI, Cottontail provides a JSC-based JavaScript runtime, and the platform layer uses Zig, Objective-C, and C++ for efficiency. The framework handles initialization through templates, dependency management via multiple package managers, and produces self-extracting bundles compressed with Zstandard. Updates use a Zig-optimized BSDIFF implementation to generate kilobyte-scale patches, falling back to compressed full downloads when needed. The tool supports compositing isolated webviews and native GPU surfaces into UIs through custom HTML elements, and includes adapters for Three.js and Babylon.js that work directly in the main process.
Electrobun suits developers who want to ship desktop applications quickly without managing complex build toolchains. It works well for projects targeting multiple platforms where bundle size and update efficiency matter, particularly those combining TypeScript main processes with webview UIs. The framework is designed for rapid iteration, enabling project setup in minutes and distribution setup in roughly ten minutes. Teams choosing between bundling the system webview for smaller apps versus bundling Chromium for consistency can make that tradeoff explicitly through configuration flags.
The project maintains active development with regular updates to its core components and documentation. Hutch verifies and manages platform archives and SDKs automatically, caching them locally to support offline builds after initial setup. The framework provides extensive API documentation and guides alongside the codebase, and published templates pin exact Electrobun releases to ensure reproducibility.
