matt-paul / tauri

Build smaller, faster, and more secure desktop applications with a web frontend.

Current Releases

Component	Description	Version	Lin	Win	Mac
cli.rs	create, develop and build apps		✅	✅	✅
cli.js	Node.js CLI wrapper for cli.rs		✅	✅	✅
api.js	JS API for interaction with Rust backend		✅	✅	✅
create-tauri-app	Get started with your first Tauri app		✅	✅	✅
vue-cli-plugin-tauri	Vue CLI plugin for Tauri		✅	✅	✅
core	runtime core		✅	✅	✅
bundler	manufacture the final binaries		✅	✅	✅

Introduction

Tauri is a framework for building tiny, blazing fast binaries for all major desktop platforms. Developers can integrate any front-end framework that compiles to HTML, JS and CSS for building their user interface. The backend of the application is a rust-sourced binary with an API that the front-end can interact with.

The user interface in Tauri apps currently leverages tao as a window handling library on macOS and Windows, and gtk on Linux via the Tauri-team incubated and maintained WRY, which creates a unified interface to the system webview (and other goodies like Menu and Taskbar), leveraging WebKit on macOS, WebView2 on Windows and WebKitGTK on Linux.

To learn more about the details of how all of these pieces fit together, please consult this ARCHITECTURE.md document.

Get Started

If you are interested in making a tauri-app, please visit the documentation website. This README is directed towards those who are interested in contributing to the core library. But if you just want a quick overview about where tauri is at in its development, here's a quick burndown:

Platforms

• Windows 7,8,10
• Linux
• macOS
• iOS (in progress)
• android (soon)

App Bundles

• App Icons
• Build on MacOS (.app, .dmg)
• Build on Linux (.deb, AppImage)
• Build on Windows (.exe, .msi)
• Copy Buffer
• Device Notifications (toast)
• Self Updater
• App Signing
• Frameless Mode
• Transparent Mode
• Multiwindow Mode
• Tray
• deeplink RPC (in progress)
• One-Time commands (coming soon)

Security Features

• localhost-free (:fire:)
• custom protocol for secure mode
• Dynamic ahead of Time Compilation (dAoT) with functional tree-shaking
• functional Address Space Layout Randomization
• OTP salting of function names and messages at runtime
• CSP Injection

Utilities

• GH Action for creating binaries for all platforms
• VS Code Extension
• Tauri Core Plugins
• Update core dependencies automatically from the command line
• Rust-based CLI

Comparison between Tauri and Electron

Detail	Tauri	Electron
Installer Size Linux	3.1 MB	52.1 MB
Memory Consumption Linux	180 MB	462 MB
Launch Time Linux	0.39s	0.80s
Interface Service Provider	WRY	Chromium
Backend Binding	Rust	Node.js (ECMAScript)
Underlying Engine	Rust	V8 (C/C++)
FLOSS	Yes	No
Multithreading	Yes	Yes
Bytecode Delivery	Yes	No
Multiple Windows	Yes	Yes
Auto Updater	Yes	Yes (1)
Cross Platform	Yes	Yes
Custom App Icon	Yes	Yes
Windows Binary	Yes	Yes
MacOS Binary	Yes	Yes
Linux Binary	Yes	Yes
iOS Binary	Soon	No
Android Binary	Soon	No
Desktop Tray	Yes	Yes
Sidecar Binaries	Yes	No

Notes

1. Electron has no native auto updater on Linux, but is offered by electron-packager

Development

Tauri is a system composed of a number of moving pieces:

Infrastructure

• git for code management
• github for project management
• github actions for CI and CD
• discord for discussions
• netlify-hosted documentation website
• digital ocean meilisearch instance

Major Runtimes

• node.js for running the CLI (deno and pure rust are on the roadmap)
• cargo for testing, running the dev service, building binaries and as the runtime harness for the webview

Major Languages

• Rust for the CLI
• EcmaScript bindings to the Rust API, written in typescript
• Rust for bindings, rust side of the API, harnesses
• Rust plugins to Tauri backend

Operating systems

Tauri core can be developed on Mac, Linux and Windows, but you are encouraged to use the latest possible operating systems and build tools for your OS.

Contribution Flow

Before you start working on something, it is best to check if there is an existing issue first. Also it is a good idea to stop by the Discord guild and confirm with the team if it makes sense or if someone is already working on it. If you want to read more about this, please see this page.

Documentation

Documentation in a polyglot system is a tricky proposition. To this end, we prefer to use inline documentation of Rust code and at JSDoc in typescript / javascript code. We autocollect these and publish them using Docusaurus v2 and netlify. Here is the hosting repository for the documentation site: https://github.com/tauri-apps/tauri-docs

Testing & Linting

Test all the things! We have a number of test suites, but are always looking to improve our coverage:

• Rust (cargo test) => sourced via inline #[cfg(test)] declarations
• TS (jest) => via spec files
• Smoke Tests (run on merges to latest)
• eslint, clippy

CI/CD

We recommend you read this article to understand better how we run our pipelines: https://www.jacobbolda.com/setting-up-ci-and-cd-for-tauri/

Organization

Tauri aims to be a sustainable collective based on principles that guide sustainable free and open software communities. To this end it has become a Programme within the Commons Conservancy, and you can contribute financially via Open Collective.

Contributing

Please make sure to read the Contributing Guide before making a pull request.

Thank you to all the people who already contributed to Tauri!

Semver

tauri is following Semantic Versioning 2.0.

Licenses

Code: (c) 2015 - 2021 - The Tauri Programme within The Commons Conservancy.

MIT or MIT/Apache 2.0 where applicable.

Logo: CC-BY-NC-ND

• Original Tauri Logo Designs by Alve Larsson, Daniel Thompson-Yvetot and Guillaume Chau