Discord is ditching Electron and its new app uses less RAM

Discord is transitioning its applications to the Rust programming language, finally abandoning the Electron framework that had been used for cross-platform desktop app development. Electron apps are known for consuming significant system resources, and Discord aims to move its desktop application fully to Rust, a modern language focused on speed and memory safety.

The company has been an early adopter of Rust since 2018, with various components, including voice technology, already built using Rust. Discord CTO Stanislav Vishnevskiy shared that the ultimate goal is to have the entire client developed in Rust, effectively eliminating Electron and React Native. Mobile versions of the app will retain native UI while sharing code with desktop applications through Rust.

Vishnevskiy provided a screenshot of the Discord Windows client using only 290MB of RAM, a notable improvement as the current Windows app could consume up to 1GB or more when participating in several servers. While the exact timeline for the complete Rust transition remains unclear, Vishnevskiy stated that the company hopes to introduce the Rust-based client to users in testing soon.