{
  "id": 1522608,
  "title": "20 Native macOS Apps That Replaced My Electron Bloat for Good",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/08/17/20-native-macos-apps-that-replaced-my-electron-bloat-for-good",
  "topic": "tech",
  "section": "Tech",
  "published": "2026-08-17T17:10:52.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Dev.to",
    "slug": "dev-to",
    "url": "https://dev.to/mohsen_karimi_3a93300f7c9/20-native-macos-apps-that-replaced-my-electron-bloat-for-good-46pg"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "In a recent discovery, a reporter noticed the excessive RAM consumption by popular native macOS apps such as Slack, Discord, Notion, and Spotify. These apps were built using Electron, a framework that combines web technologies with desktop app functionality. This results in multiple Chromium instances running simultaneously, each with its own memory heap and resources, leading to higher memory usage and slower performance. The reporter then began searching for alternative native applications that provided similar functionality but with better performance and efficiency. Apps like Mimestream, Zed, Craft, and Reeder proved to be faster, lighter, and more integrated with macOS than their Electron counterparts.",
  "summary": "I opened Activity Monitor last year on a Thursday afternoon, just to check something quick. Slack was sitting at 780MB. Discord was at 410MB. Notion was at 490MB. Spotify was lurking at 280MB. I had four apps open — and they'd already consumed nearly 2GB of RAM before I'd written a single line of code. My MacBook Pro fan was humming like it was rendering a film. The battery had dropped 18% in…",
  "key_points": [
    "Electron framework causes high RAM usage in popular macOS apps",
    "Mimestream, Zed, Craft, and Reeder are faster alternatives",
    "Native apps are more integrated with macOS than Electron apps"
  ],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}