Tauri is a framework for building lightweight, high-performance desktop and mobile applications by combining a Rust backend with a web-based frontend. The framework allows developers to use any frontend technology that compiles to HTML, JavaScript, and CSS while leveraging Rust for the application's core logic and system integration. This architecture enables the creation of smaller binaries compared to traditional Electron-based applications while maintaining security and performance benefits inherent to native code execution.
The framework provides unified window handling and rendering across multiple platforms through two key libraries. The tao library manages window creation and lifecycle on macOS, Windows, Linux, Android, and iOS. For rendering, Tauri uses WRY, which abstracts platform-specific webview implementations including WKWebView on macOS and iOS, WebView2 on Windows, WebKitGTK on Linux, and Android System WebView on Android. This approach eliminates the need for developers to manage platform-specific rendering code while ensuring applications use the system's native webview capabilities rather than bundling a separate browser engine.
Tauri's feature set includes a built-in application bundler that generates platform-specific distribution formats such as .app and .dmg files for macOS, .deb and .rpm packages for Linux, .AppImage for Linux, and .exe and .msi installers for Windows. The framework includes a self-updater mechanism for desktop applications, system tray icon support, native notification integration, and a custom WebView protocol that serves application content directly without requiring a localhost HTTP server. Additional developer conveniences include a GitHub action for continuous integration workflows and a Visual Studio Code extension.
Platform support spans Windows 7 and above, macOS 10.15 and above, Linux distributions with webkit2gtk 4.1 or later, iOS and iPadOS 9 and above, and Android 7 and above.
The codebase is written primarily in Rust and is organized under the Commons Conservancy as a sustainable open-source program. Documentation is distributed across inline source code comments in both Rust and JavaScript, with a separate documentation repository hosting the official documentation website. The project accepts contributions through a formal contributing guide and maintains partnerships with organizations like CrabNebula while receiving financial support through Open Collective.
