Electron vs. Tauri vs. Deno vs. Electro Bun: The Ultimate 2026 Desktop Framework Showdown

2026-07-20

We built the same screen recording app in Tauri, Electron, Deno Desktop, and Electro Bun to test bundle size, RAM, and startup speed. Here are the results.

Key Takeaways (Quick Summary)

Tauri delivers the smallest bundle size (57 MB) and superior video recording quality by bypassing the JavaScript bridge and utilizing macOS ScreenCaptureKit.

Deno Desktop shockingly registers the fastest startup time (242 ms) and lowest runtime memory footprint (98 MB).

Electro Bun struggles with massive bloat (418 MB) due to forced Chromium bundling and experimental instabilities.

For years, building cross-platform desktop apps meant default-choosing Electron. But the times have changed, and developer options have exploded.

Today, we are putting the top contenders head-to-head. We compared Tauri (Rust), Electro Bun (Bun), Deno Desktop (Deno), and Electron (Node.js/Chromium) in a performance-driven case study.

To push these tools to their absolute limits, we built the exact same application in all four frameworks: a timeline-based screen recording tool that exports to MP4.

Let's dive in:

Featured Snippet Bait: The best cross-platform desktop application framework for performance is Tauri, which minimizes bundle size to 57 MB and runs natively using macOS APIs. For teams wanting to stick strictly to TypeScript without learning Rust, Electron remains the most mature and stable choice despite its larger 323 MB footprint.

1. Bundle Size: Cutting the Chromium Bloat

Bundle size determines how quickly your users can download and launch your application. To keep the comparison fair, all four builds package identical functionality and include FFmpeg (adding 45 MB) to handle MP4 exports.

Here is the thing: the results were not even close.

Why is Electro Bun so massive?

It comes down to APIs. When recording screen video in JavaScript, you typically rely on the browser's native getDisplayMedia API.

Electro Bun's native system web view does not expose this screen capture interface at all. To get around this limitation, we had to bundle Chromium directly with the app, introducing over 200 MB of bloat.

But wait, there's more. The Electro Bun bundle also suffered from weird dependencies like Three.js and Babylon.js.

Deno Desktop, on the other hand, implemented the screen capture API natively inside its web view layer. This allowed the app to run the same JavaScript code without shipping a custom Chromium binary.

Meanwhile, Tauri won this category easily. It does not record from the web view at all.

Instead, Tauri handles video recording entirely on the backend in Rust. It utilizes the macOS native ScreenCaptureKit API—the same framework powering QuickTime.

This means Tauri's frontend web view is purely visual UI. It never touches a single frame of video, avoiding the memory-heavy JavaScript bridge altogether.

2. Startup Speed: The Surprising Champion

We wrote a benchmarking script to launch each application 10 times and calculated the median startup time.

You might assume that Rust plus a native system web view would equal instant startup. However, the data revealed a surprise winner.

Deno Desktop: 242 ms 🏆
Electron: 273 ms
Tauri: 311 ms
Electro Bun: 773 ms

Deno Desktop claimed the crown. It beat Electron by a small margin and outpaced Tauri.

Why did Tauri lag behind? The system's rendering engine must still boot up from scratch. That initialization step adds a slight overhead to Tauri's launch.

On the other hand, Electro Bun performed terribly. It was nearly three times slower than Electron.

Think about the boot chain here: it boots a launcher, which boots Bun, which finally boots Chromium. Chaining three runtimes together is a recipe for sluggish startup times.

3. Runtime Memory: Debunking the 10x Myth

Marketing materials for next-gen frameworks often promise a 10x reduction in memory footprint. We measured the actual RAM usage of each application immediately after startup.

Here is what the Activity Monitor actually recorded:

Deno Desktop: 98 MB 🏆
Tauri: 109 MB
Electron: 128 MB
Electro Bun: 208 MB

Deno Desktop and Tauri performed almost identically. Electron sat close behind, while Electro Bun consumed double the memory of the winners.

But there is a catch when monitoring Tauri's memory.

Tauri offloads rendering to the macOS system web view. Because the operating system spins these up as separate processes, Activity Monitor initially reports Tauri's main process at a tiny 36 MB.

Do not be fooled by this. When you sum up all the child web view helper processes, the actual memory usage climbs to 109 MB.

While it is not a 10x improvement over Electron, the performance gains show up elsewhere. During our tests, Tauri delivered significantly smoother 60 FPS recording.

This is because the video data writes directly to the disk via Rust. It never has to serialize over a JavaScript bridge.

4. Developer Experience: Stability vs. Cutting Edge

Building a video application is complex. The developer experience (DX) varied wildy between the platforms.

Electron and Tauri offered the smoothest implementation paths. Their ecosystems are documented, stable, and mature.

In contrast, the newer platforms gave us several headaches.

With Deno Desktop, hiding the application window during a active recording caused the entire process to crash. The runtime assumed that because no windows were visible, the application was finished.

We had to implement a hacky workaround. Instead of hiding the window, we positioned it off-screen.

Electro Bun proved to be the most unstable. Aside from the Chromium bundling requirement, it suffered from frequent system crashes and lacked basic video API support.

Conclusion: Which Framework Should You Choose?

The right desktop framework depends on your project goals and team expertise.

Choose Tauri if you need high performance, native system integrations, and a lightweight bundle.
Stick with Electron if you prefer a mature, reliable ecosystem and want to write pure TypeScript.
Watch Deno Desktop closely, as its impressive speed shows real potential as it matures.
Avoid Electro Bun for production apps until its API coverage and stability improve.

Which framework are you building with next? Let us know in the comments below!

FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)

:::details Is Tauri really faster than Electron? Yes. While startup times are similar, Tauri performs much better for heavy tasks like video recording because it processes data directly in Rust rather than passing frames over a JavaScript bridge. :::

:::details Why is Electro Bun's bundle size so large? Electro Bun requires developers to bundle Chromium to support basic browser APIs like getDisplayMedia for screen recording. It also includes unnecessary dependencies like Three.js. :::

:::details Can I build a Tauri app without knowing Rust? You can build basic UIs using only JavaScript or TypeScript. However, writing custom native features or system-level APIs requires writing backend code in Rust. :::