Wails
Wails is an open-source framework for building desktop applications using web technologies. It allows developers to use HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and modern web frameworks to create desktop apps that run natively across Windows, Mac, and Linux.
Wails: Build Desktop Apps with Web Technologies
Open-source framework for building desktop applications using web technologies, running natively on Windows, Mac, and Linux
What is Wails?
Wails is an open-source framework that enables developers to build desktop applications using web technologies like HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and web frameworks like React, Vue, and Angular. It bundles web apps in a wrapper that enables native OS integrations.
Some key highlights of Wails:
- Build native apps for Windows, Mac, and Linux from a single codebase using only web technologies
- Access system APIs and capabilities like notifications, clipboard, menus etc. from web code
- Package apps into native executables with bundled runtime - no dependencies needed
- Live reload - web code updates reflected instantly
- Lightweight and high performance thanks to embedded Chromium browser
- Supports many JS frameworks - React, Vue, Svelte etc. and CSS frameworks like Tailwind UI
- Strong community and active development
Wails helps web developers leverage their existing skills to build high quality cross-platform desktop apps. The use of web code and Live Reload boosts productivity. If you are looking to create desktop apps using modern web tech, Wails is worth checking out.
Wails Features
Features
- Build desktop apps using web technologies like HTML, CSS and JavaScript
- Supports multiple frontend frameworks like React, Vue, Angular etc.
- Apps can access native OS APIs
- Hot-reload support for faster development
- Cross-platform - apps run on Windows, Mac and Linux
Pricing
- Open Source
- Free
Pros
Rapid development using web technologies
Reuse existing web skills and code
Cross-platform support
Active open source community
Cons
Limited native OS API access compared to native apps
Performance overhead compared to native apps
Less flexible than native UI frameworks
Official Links
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