Electron is introduced

  1. Electron is an open source library developed by Github for building cross-platform desktop applications using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Electron does this by merging Chromium and Node.js into the same runtime environment and packaging it as an application for Mac, Windows, and Linux.
  2. Electron was developed in 2013 as a framework for building Atom, a programmable text editor on Github. Both projects opened source in spring 2014.
  3. It has become a common development tool for open source developers, startups, and established companies.

The core ideas

To keep Electron small (file size) and sustainable (to prevent proliferation of dependent libraries and apis), Electron limits the number of core projects it uses.

Electron, for example, uses only Chromium’s rendering library and not all of its components. That makes upgrading Chromium easier, but it also means Electron lacks some browser-related features found in Google Chrome.

The development history

  • The Atom Shell project was launched in April 2013.
  • Atom Shell was open-source in May 2014.
  • Atom Shell was renamed Electron in April 2015.
  • In May 2016, Electron released version 1.0.0.
  • In May 2016, Electron built an App available on the Mac App Store.
  • August 2016 Windows Store supports Electron built applications.