Ask HN: Rust vs. Go vs. C++ for web-based desktop applications?

1 points by obdev 2y ago ↗ HN

Rust has Tauri, Go has Wails, C++ has wxWebView and webview libraries. They link OS-provided modern browser engines into the compiled application, so the resource usage is modest compared to the popular Chromium + Node.js combo known as Electron.

I could not find a fulfilling discussion comparing these three. Rust vs C++ are usually measured for kernel, embedded, performance-critical tasks, and such. Go vs Rust are often measured for server-side efficiency.

How would you evaluate Rust, Go, and C++ for implementing the "business logic" of an application that's going to run on a user's Linux/macOS/Windows personal computer, when the GUI mechanics are offloaded to the web widget?

4 comments

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sim7c00 2y ago ↗

i wouldnt know what is best honestly. but i can say rust is giving me the most fun and least headaches. (thats saying a lot because i am not some kind of borrowchekerguru). the tooling and docs etc. make it just very nice to work in. hate go package mgmt with a passion wont ever touch it again :')

obdev 2y ago ↗

Can you please elaborate the "least headaches" part?

I know it's Rust's main selling point compared to C++, but is it also favorable for a user of statically-typed GC languages like Go, Java, C#?

ogoffart 2y ago ↗

Why do you want to make your desktop application "web-based", instead of using a framework that renders without the need of a browser?

obdev 2y ago ↗

Browser engines have good accessibility, good text rendering, and useful Web APIs to play with.

These features are not easy to achieve without using the native toolkit for each platform, or bundling a monolithic cross-platform framework.