
Appjs vs nw vs electron js how to#
They provide instructions for a quick start program and instructions on how to package your application up for distribution so the end user never has to install any other software or use the command line to get things running. To get started all you need to do is download the project from the Node WebKit GitHub page and follow the instructions there. The packaged application can also optionally include a copy of Node WebKit so the end user doesn't have to install anything, which can make simple programs quite large compared to their C or C++ counterparts but allows the user to run the program out of the box with no setup required.

Of course, when you need performance nothing will beat languages like C or C++, but for applications where the performance isn't such a big concern Node WebKit can provide a fast way to write applications for each of the major platforms. You can write anything from encoders and text editors, to music players and video games essentially almost anything you could write using any other language can be written in JavaScript using Node WebKit, and in those cases where JavaScript won't quite do what you need you can always just write an extension in C++. Since you can develop your application using normal web technologies, you could also quite easily use something like Phone Gap to turn your project into a mobile application.

This allows for the rapid development of desktop applications using the web technologies that most developers are familiar with already.

Writing desktop applications can be done using a variety of languages such as C C++ C# Python Java etc, but since Node WebKit has been created, they can now also be written very easily using JavaScript, HTML and CSS.Ī few other projects to bring JavaScript to the desktop exist such as AppJS, but Node WebKit is in my opinion easier to use.Īs the name suggests, it combines WebKit and Node in order to write desktop applications using HTML, CSS and JavaScript for each of the major platforms, Windows Mac OS and Linux.
