chenxch/pake

Pake is a tool that lets you turn any website into a standalone desktop application for Mac, Windows, or Linux, without needing to know how to code. Instead of building a new app from scratch, you point Pake at a URL (like ChatGPT or Twitter) and it packages that webpage as a native desktop app. The key appeal is speed and size. Traditional desktop apps built with older frameworks are often 100+ megabytes because they bundle a lot of unnecessary code. Pake creates apps that are around 5 megabytes instead, because it uses Rust and a modern framework called Tauri, which is lean and fast. Think of it like the difference between shipping a full kitchen to deliver dinner versus just sending a meal in a box. You don't have to be a developer to use Pake. The README shows popular pre-made apps you can download (ChatGPT, Twitter, YouTube Music, Spotify-like apps, and others) ready to use. If you want to customize one yourself, there's a simple command-line tool: you install it via npm, then run a one-line command like pake https://example.com --name MyApp, and it builds your app. The README mentions you can also build online using GitHub Actions if you'd rather not set up your computer. For developers who want more control, Pake's code is open and hackable. You can tweak window size, appearance, keyboard shortcuts, remove ads, inject custom JavaScript, and more. The project includes built-in conveniences like keyboard shortcuts for navigation, zoom controls, and full-screen mode that just work without extra setup. The README also emphasizes this is simpler than older bundling approaches, it's deliberately minimal and lets the existing website do the heavy lifting rather than trying to rebuild it in a desktop framework.